When picturing someone we fear, we;

1. Form a stereotype of them that encapsulates what we most fear from them. They are no longer a human, or community of people, they are the monsters of our worst fears. They are vessels of injustice, and terror, and tyranny.

We begin to slowly, semi-consciously, become aware of the injustice our stereotypes heap on those we fear, and thus begin to defend our conscious mind from this growing sense of our own fading virtue by creating a stereotyped view of our own beneficence. We thus soon become, in our own mind, naught but a sacred vessel of a pure mentality of love, and a society of glorious virtue and generous grace. 

3. Next we begin to view all interaction initiated by our opponent as a threat to our wellbeing, while simultaneously viewing interaction initiated by us as solely a model of ethical beauty, and integrity.

     The fact that this is a human tendency, and not the tendency of one culture, or religion, or nation, or another, means that both sides of every highly developed conflict will be practicing this sort of defensive insanity. And it must be mentioned that denial of the existence of this kind of defensiveness within our own heart, is typical. I deny. You deny. We all have moments of denial of the defensiveness we, all too commonly, feel.

     The solution our fear-generated conflicts then will absolutely require;

1. humble confession of one’s own sins of defensiveness, as well as those of one’s people,
2. and a willingness to sacrificially forgive the defensive abusiveness being heaped upon us by our opponents

We all do have far more in common, as members of the same human species, than our religious, cultural, and ideological differences will ever come close to equaling. And the only reason we don’t serve this commonality we all share is because of defensiveness, that is, fear. 

     Fear is not a good premise for human interaction. Defensiveness is not a good strategy for pursuing a dialog. And the only way we can get past our fear and defensiveness with each other is if we know that we will be taken care of regardless of what our counterpart(s) do to us. 

     This requires genuine faith, and anything less than genuine faith will manifest in defensiveness. We may possess correct dogma, correct ideology, but without genuine faith, we will never get past our own defensiveness sufficiently enough to be able to sacrificially love our enemies, and thus help them move past their defensiveness. Our instinctual desire for self preservation will override our desire for dialog, and we will find ourselves torpedoing any possibility for harmony.

This logically means that ;

1. there is no, and never will be any, justification for defensiveness on our part, regardless of what our enemy is doing.
2. and there is no point in rationalizing our defensive position, in as much as holding onto our defensiveness can never produce anything but the furtherance of the conflict.

         We will probably not heed this insight into human relations in the midst of battle (regardless how much we              can see the rightness of it now) so we will need to shore up our foundations of faith in God’s/the universe’s ability to cover us, before we get into a conflict.

    Whatever you are inclined to do toward this end will be your best course of action as a fellow human being. Conflict is everywhere, waiting to reduce us to fear-driven beasts. Faith is the only practical psychological antidote.

    In the mean time, I wish to say to all of you who are viewing me as a threat to your wellbeing, I love you, and want the opportunity to show it. I will likely have to deal with many moments of fear and defensiveness as we interact with one another, but I am committed to trusting my well-being to God.

    Please, let me have the chance to prove my love to you, and please forgive me for my past sins of defensiveness. I know I have hurt you with my actions born out my fear of your actions wounding me. You did not deserve this treatment from me. I want you to know that I am making a commitment to love you, and not fear you, from now on.