By guest author Jenna Hassan
Professor Malley-Morrison’s seminar on the Psychology of War and Peace showed me how altering one’s perspective can instantly change one’s entire outlook on a situation.
Alan O’Hare showed us how just moving from inside the classroom to outside the building can change an entire experience. Once we left the classroom, all formality ceased and every student was eager to share views. When we returned to the classroom, the conversation reverted to a formal discussion.
In the film Forgiving Dr. Mengele, Eva Kor showed us how her perspective on the Holocaust and the Nazis changed from anger to forgiveness, giving her a greater sense of health and freedom—but not freeing her to listen to the perspectives of Palestinians regarding Israeli occupation.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned about perspective is how mechanisms of moral disengagement function in ways that allow people to view immoral and inhumane acts as morally acceptable.
I grew up with a Muslim father and an Irish-Catholic mother in Scarsdale, New York–-a predominantly Jewish town. I gained perspective from all three Abrahamic traditions. My connection with each often resulted in internal conflict but was ultimately beneficial, teaching me that we are all much more similar than different.
To achieve peace, it is important that we emphasize our human similarities and resist the messages attempting to persuade us that someone is an enemy because of a different religion, nationality, or ethnicity.
Jenna Hassan is an undergraduate student in the College of Liberal Arts at Boston University, majoring in Psychology and learning Arabic. She took Psychology of War and Peace in the summer of 2013.
Torture, which is internationally forbidden under all circumstances, is now being openly presented and justified as a means to gain military intelligence. Consequently, the fundamental system that was established to protect all human rights has been weakened by its very own founders.