Making sense out of cents

As of today (April 18, 2010), the estimated number of humans in the world is 6,815,500,000, according to the United States Census Bureau.  Among them are academics, doctors, lawyers, farmers, teachers, business owners, parents, researchers, beggars, sweatshop workers, idealists, realists, etc.  And, yet, no matter how many different professions are represented among those 6,815,500,000 people, no one person has been able to come up with a way for everyone to just get along. Of course, it's hard to get a classroom of kids to get along on any given day, so why should we expect nearly 7 *billion* people to get along? I have a theory.  It's all in the education.

It's not in the learning of 1+1 or of how DNA works. It's not in the learning of how to diagram sentences.  It's in the learning of human interaction. It's in learning about the past to make more informed decisions in the present in order to better the future. It's in the learning of how to communicate with each other, both within and across groups -- cultural, ideological, political, linguistic, etc.  In studying and learning another language, one not only learns the words to express his thoughts (vocabulary), but the thoughts that are conveyed by his words.  In other words, one learns the way a set of people belonging to a particular linguistic group collects their thoughts; one learns how to "think" in that language.  For example, there are words that, in one language, require only one word to articulate a particular thought whereas, in another language, a longer explanation is necessary.

The question then becomes not how to save the world or how to achieve world peace but, rather, how to enable everyone to have access to education -- both academic and social.  If everyone had the capacity to understand where their perceived enemies (as well as allies) come from, both literally and figuratively, then I think numerous gaps would be bridged and would yield more understanding than undermining.

So, then, how do we enable access? It's not like you can go online and just Google "buy access to education for everyone" [which I actually did, the first result of which yielded a House of Representatives-sponsored bill related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)], so we must all do a little bit of research to figure out how to level the playing fields, how to make a globalized world truly be, in fact, global.  If $1 per person could buy access to education for everyone (and subsequently lead to world peace), would you look for the 100 cents? Even if you already had a degree and an extensive professional background (and, therefore, didn't technically *need* any more formal education), would you donate 100 cents of your maybe/maybe-not hard-earned money to contribute to the well-being of the rest of the world?

Wikipedia defines world peace in various ways, including as an "ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness" and as something that is "theoretically possible" but is inherently prevented by human nature. It also states that, "This belief stems from the idea that humans are naturally violent, or that rational agents will choose to commit violent acts in certain circumstances."  How does one measure a universal idea (such as the aforementioned) that asserts that it is human nature to be violent?

Farther down in this Wikipedia entry, we learn that, "Some proponents of Cobdenism claim that by removing tariffs and creating international free trade, wars would become impossible, because free trade prevents a nation from becoming self-sufficient, which is a requirement for long wars."  Now, I'm not the most well-versed person in the world's economic goings-on, but if this theory has been voiced to the point that it actually has a name (Cobdenism) and a proposed method (international free trade), then I wonder why people don't work harder to test out the theory.  What's to lose?

I thus ask all of you what you think. Is access to education for everyone just an unachievable "ideal"? Does Cobdenism seem like a worthwhile "ism" that could actually create world peace and eliminate wars? Does humankind need wars in order to exist?  Could the same goals sought by war be achieved by other means?  As this goal could never be met by one person, I, too, need your input.  So, go ahead -- put in your two cents...and 98 more if you so choose.