Conjecture, emotional reactions and some more grounded articles have showed up in high volume, starting as early as the evening of the shootings itself. I absorbed quite a few in the week following it, without posting anything myself. I was happy to see that most people I know are pretty sensible. None of my contacts blamed muslims or refugees, and most of them mourned the people that were killed.

Many point to the casualties in other areas of the world, like Syria, the crimes of our governments, or the ignorance of journalists and politicians. That last part scares me more than any attacker, as does the pride and machismo expressed in some of the public reactions.

Those gut reactions, stemming largely from ignorance, should be toned down. I am also relatively ignorant, but I have decided to listen more, read more, try to understand.

To understand what is happening, we need to become closer to other humans. I’ve seen a lot of that online in the form of mourning and support, which in the case of Paris was overwhelming. When something like this happens so close to home, people relate more easily. That’s not strange. I do too. Some of my friends are from Paris and for them it’s harrowing. Others rightly point out that we have been ignoring news from other parts of the world. That is painfully true, and we need to be aware of these things. It in no way undermines the sadness we feel about what happened in Paris.

These are all signs of compassion for others, which is exactly what we need. But I don’t think it’s enough.

Horrible things happen in our so-called civilized world, which we hoped would become more peaceful over time. A lot of it seems to be the result of the actions of power hungry people with little regard for human life, claiming to operate in the name of a certain flag or god. This view, while not untrue, quickly turns into fear and aggression towards the immediate perpetrators, either in government, militant groups or else. We feel we need to fight them, put them in their place. Show them that they’re wrong and evil. As seen from our viewpoint. That’s where I feel we go wrong.

Only condemning the violence seems too simplistic to me. It puts the blame away from us, refusing to consider that we had anything to do with it, automatically neglecting any lessons we could learn. The culprits are evil, we say, and they should be punished. Once we have caught or killed them, it’s over and we can resume our normal lives.

If we thus demonize murderers into terrorists (which the word itself unfortunately does) or despots, we will make them non-human in our minds, which makes us unable to recognize their behavior. It fosters a blind fear of unmatchable evil forces. I for one do not believe in pure ‘evil’.

Many people believe that more love, tolerance and above all compassion would fix a lot of problems in the world. I wholeheartedly agree. But I also think that it’s usually an empty phrase. What does it mean in reality?

In the case of a tragedy like this, we show love by feeling for the victims and their loved ones. It makes sense for us to identify with them rather than with their killers, because practically none of us would even consider committing such a horrible crime. We understand that the victims had no say in this, which is why we show sympathy for them. But this is an extremely situational form of compassion. It is very limited in scope.

A general compassion for others is not compatible with the anger that many people show. It is more than feeling for the victims and their loved ones; it is the understanding that people everywhere are just as human as we are.

We tend to believe some people are so different, that we can’t bring ourselves to understand what they’re doing. But we can, if we try. With more respect for other points of view, we would consequently see other people as being much like ourselves. The reality is that we’re all people with hopes, dreams, beliefs and fears.

Most people will find this to be true for all the victims, which brings us together. But it is helpful to realize that this is also true for murderers and war criminals.

They have motivations, thoughts, fears and dreams too, whether they are good in our eyes or not. They are human. We should not necessarily pity them or have sympathy for their actions, but we should listen and try to understand what is going on.

Just getting revenge or justice and then forgetting about it robs us of the chance to understand what happened. We should consider what brought their killers to take innocent lives. This act of violence was not random, nor are the other attacks or bombings that happen outside of Europe. We should instead try to relate, learn and communicate.

Of course there is research into the motives and backgrounds of the Paris attackers, but this knowledge is not being used to engage with the sentiments of aggression towards France. Instead it is being used to decide how we should hit back and retaliate. Back and forth, not stopping to reflect.

This not only goes for individual attackers, but also organizations. There are no abstract forces at work: organizations are just groups of people. We need to know what motivates our government to start bombing. Is it to address the fear of the population? Is it a nationalistic show of strength?

Mercy is the best show of strength, so if we have the chance we would do better to try and understand the attackers. The only time this would make sense to strike, is if we were in immediate danger. We’re not. The threat level in Europe is still tiny compared to other areas, so we would do good not to panic and attack so hastily. We don’t need to. Since there is no need for fear, we have the luxury of not answering violence with violence.

There will not suddenly be more attacks because we ‘allowed it’. Does our government think we should attack other people more often, when they don’t strike back? No. In most cases it’s quite the opposite: we attack because we were attacked ourselves. We can only expect as much in return, perhaps creating even more enemies in the process.

If we choose to be stoic and rational instead, there should be less reason for retaliation. How can we expect those we oppose to learn a lesson if we’re not willing to learn ours?

So, we experienced the horrors of violence firsthand. What do we do with that experience? We should realize that our view is one-sided. That we as European countries have been inflicting horrible violence on people. That we should take responsibility and help other countries to regain some safety. Not by dropping more bombs, not by invading either land or privacy, not by fearfully holding onto our nationality or religion. I would love it if we could take a hint and go the other route. Compassion for all people, even those we don’t agree with, means less need for conflict.

Let’s be more human together.