    61

    The Secret Meaning of "Freedom," "Peace" and "Justice"

    "And let us bathe our hands in ... blood up to the elbows, and

    besmear our swords. Then we walk forth, even to the market place,

    And waving our red weapons o'er our heads, Let's all cry 'Peace,

    freedom and liberty!'"

                                                      Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"

    But what about freedom, justice and equality?  Isn't the goal to

    put all nations on an equal footing?  Isn't that what peace should be

    about?

    An equality of nations will never exist in our lifetime.  Why?

    Because peace, freedom and justice are deceptive concepts.  Hidden

    beneath their surface are the instincts of the pecking order.

    The barnyard chickens studied by naturalist Schjelderup-Ebbe

    had their periods of peace.  But they never had equality.  No matter

    how quiet things were, there was always a dominant bird.  And there

    was always some unfortunate chicken trampled to the bottom of the

    social ladder.   This state of things is not restricted to fowl down on the

    farm. Chimpanzees, baboons and apes--the animal relatives with

    whom we share the greatest number of our social instincts--are all

    prisoners of deep-rooted hierarchical drives.  Apparently, so are we.

    When we preach the ideals of freedom, peace and justice, our

    intentions are less than honest.

    One man's freedom is all too often another man's oppression.

    That's true whether you're a comfortable citizen of a civilized society or

    a barbarian restless to bully your way up the ladder.  Remember Julius

    Caesar's famous line "I came, I saw, I conquered"?   It's the kick-off

    sentence of the general's book describing his campaigns against the

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