What Is Peace?

[aeon]

Human needs being what they are, tribes/nations/cultures who espouse a scarcity mindset might be more likely to engage in war as a means toward resource acquisition.

In my experience, human beings who are meeting their own needs in a context of interdependence with others have seemed not just chill, but high-energy quiet.

Part of the signal they send out is I’m okay, you’re okay. If you have enough people like that, you achieve a wider peace.

I think there is a collective threshold, or trigger point, for the expression of “fuck this shit, hoist the black flag” which is based on a level or degree of chronically unmet need. It also varies by type—no food is a hair-trigger.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

Human needs being what they are, tribes/nations/cultures who espouse a scarcity mindset might be more likely to engage in war as a means toward resource acquisition.

In my experience, human beings who are meeting their own needs in a context of interdependence with others have seemed not just chill, but high-energy quiet.

Part of the signal they send out is I’m okay, you’re okay. If you have enough people like that, you achieve a wider peace.

I think there is a collective threshold, or trigger point, for the expression of “fuck this shit, hoist the black flag” which is based on a level or degree of chronically unmet need. It also varies by type—no food is a hair-trigger.

Cheers,
Ian

I think this is valid for the most part, but I would like to point out a situation where actual scarcity likely leads to bloodshed and more violent conflict. Chimpanzees and Human beings are the only known animals on this planet where exclusively males' band together and practice violence to achieve a social end. Something that is not being talked about enough is, what happens when you get a lot of sexless young males who can't achieve enough social status? In poor urban areas this usually leads to violent crimes and homicide and this pattern isn't just true of America and Brittian, but any ghetto you observe in the world. Also, much of what inspired the Vikings to go sea fairing and practice imperialistic conquest initially was a surplus of young males who didn't own land and subsequently weren't married. The Vikings sent them out, because keeping a bunch of sexless low status males in a society is a bad idea for its cohesion and stability whether you're a human or a chimpanzee, because these classes of males are more likely to commit bad and more risky behaviors to achieve social status to attract a mate.

 

[aeon]

I think this is valid for the most part, but I would like to point out a situation where actual scarcity likely leads to bloodshed and more violent conflict. Chimpanzees and Human beings are the only known animals on this planet where exclusively males' band together and practice violence to achieve a social end. Something that is not being talked about enough is, what happens when you get a lot of sexless young males who can't achieve enough social status? In poor urban areas this usually leads to violent crimes and homicide and this pattern isn't just true of America and Brittian, but any ghetto you observe in the world. Also, much of what inspired the Vikings to go sea fairing and practice imperialistic conquest initially was a surplus of young males who didn't own land and subsequently weren't married. The Vikings sent them out, because keeping a bunch of sexless low status males in a society is a bad idea for its cohesion and stability whether you're a human or a chimpanzee, because these classes of males are more likely to commit bad and more risky behaviors to achieve social status to attract a mate.

China shall be our biggest petri-dish (pun not intended) to study watch these effects, i.e. sequelae of the one-child policy which ended in 2015.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

China shall be our biggest petri-dish (pun not intended) to study watch these effects, i.e. sequelae of the one-child policy which ended in 2015.

Cheers,
Ian

Dude, it's scary.

 

[Wyote]

I think this is valid for the most part, but I would like to point out a situation where actual scarcity likely leads to bloodshed and more violent conflict. Chimpanzees and Human beings are the only known animals on this planet where exclusively males' band together and practice violence to achieve a social end. Something that is not being talked about enough is, what happens when you get a lot of sexless young males who can't achieve enough social status? In poor urban areas this usually leads to violent crimes and homicide and this pattern isn't just true of America and Brittian, but any ghetto you observe in the world. Also, much of what inspired the Vikings to go sea fairing and practice imperialistic conquest initially was a surplus of young males who didn't own land and subsequently weren't married. The Vikings sent them out, because keeping a bunch of sexless low status males in a society is a bad idea for its cohesion and stability whether you're a human or a chimpanzee, because these classes of males are more likely to commit bad and more risky behaviors to achieve social status to attract a mate.

This is kinda more along the lines of what @Asa was driving towards with social/humanitarian peace I'm guessing, one facet of it perhaps though there's more complexity there to be unearthed as well.
Until we sort out the more complex systemic things that are barring us(all humans) from primal needs or at the very least causing us to negatively internalize notions of being prevented outlets of primal needs, things will continue to be unnecessarily violent.

I have no real solutions. Conquest is written into human DNA.
Which is why I'm adamant about the individual approach.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

This is kinda more along the lines of what @Asa was driving towards with social/humanitarian peace I'm guessing, one facet of it perhaps though there's more complexity there to be unearthed as well.
Until we sort out the more complex systemic things that are barring us(all humans) from primal needs or at the very least causing us to negatively internalize notions of being prevented outlets of primal needs, things will continue to be unnecessarily violent.

I have no real solutions. Conquest is written into human DNA.
Which is why I'm adamant about the individual approach.

I concur

and pictures that remind me of @Asa ?

 

[John K]

Well, I think also that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that peace also requires beliefs being in alignment with others and what appears to be happening in reality. More than violence, ideas, beliefs, and ideologies are also prime culprits in the promulgation of conflict between people that can lead to war. Humans being social animals actually have a greater inclination or propensity across history to practice violence on the behalf of their group or a set of ideas that they inherit from a group. As in our evolutionary history those who believed and thought like us came from the same tribe, so those who hold different ideas than we do can be easily turned into the other, infidel, or enemy, I mean look at contemporary politics in America and Britian for instance. Tribalism is more a reality to be an impediment to peace than individual violence. Given individual violence is more a social strategy that has certain emotions behind it and there are recognizable personality characteristics prominent in individuals who will practice it and is predictably limited to matters of achieving status, sexual hegemony, revenge, and settling conflict. As much as people like to point the finger at violence being the bad guy, Violence is actually pretty predictable under circumstances where it's more likely to be a social strategy that is more prominently employed, while the tyranny of groups and tribal disputes is more random and responsible for the most contemporary morally egregious displays of violence and brutality in human history than any lone recorded instance of individual violence. More people have been killed in world war I than in the entire history of mass shootings for instance.

I don't think this really says anything different to part of what I was meaning, though it puts some welcome, more substantial flesh on it. It's where the collective rather than the individual comes into play, but the forces are still the same and they can only operate on individuals even when those people act in concert. There is something that they want and they are willing to take it by non-peaceful means if that will achieve the desired result - it's just that there are a lot of them at the same time rather than alone or in small groups. Even so, we each have a personal responsibility for how we deal ethically with what we want regardless of whether it's a new smart phone we've just mugged off someone, or the success of the political aspirations we share with like-minded others and which we are happy to see pursued by using false accusations, fake news, rioting, cancelling opponents, unjust laws, etc. A real problem is that it doesn't feel like we are embracing non-peaceful means when we are supporting a mass cause that employs some form of non-peace, but where we ourselves aren't an active agent - this is the way that most politics works. But although we may only be at second hand it can only happen because of our support, and the non-peace rests on our shoulders too.

I don't think all non-peaceful action is ethically wrong by the way because it may be the only legitimate way to respond to a situation.

If we all really did love our neighbours as much as we loved ourselves then maybe widespread peace would be possible, but it's never got out of beta-testing over the last 2000 years

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

but the forces are still the same and they can only operate on individuals even when those people act in concert.

I do think there is a difference in predicable factors of individual violence as opposed to group violence. Yes, in notable ways some individual factors scale up from individual to group like a desire for revenge and sexual hegemony at least as observed in hunter gather dynamics primarily in what inspires war, but it doesn't scale completely across considerations. On an individual basis it could be argued that some people are more violent than others and, in comparison, across cultures or groups you could do the same, but generally across history groups are way more violent than individuals. The general consensus there exist a human proclivity to enact violence and this not being a one-off feature of certain individuals comes from the observation of group violence dynamics primarily based on the ubiquity of warfare across human history. However, to me what's important is that a lone human isn't the same thing as group of people and we shouldn't only think of a group of people as a collection of lone individuals, it's a lot like dealing with a fish versus a school of fish, human beings are social creatures fundamentally, and much of the mysterious aspects of our cognition deal with something like a fortune telling, telepathic, hive mind, a functioning of mind that's only obvious when you get a lot of people together under certain currents of moods and self-organizing circumstances, to be honest, collective group psychology and thinking is under studied in contemporary psychology and neuroscience, but across history cultures are highly Darwinian in competition with one another other where when it comes to people interacting with one another it's uncommon to have highly competitive, highly selfish, highly aggressive, and highly violent people, yet, the levels of aggression and violence groups practice is fairly noticeable and only becoming more uncommon within the last 300 years. My point being a concert of people is analogous to a different animal that functions with a different "collective" brain than indvidual humans.

There is something that they want and they are willing to take it by non-peaceful means if that will achieve the desired result - it's just that there are a lot of them at the same time rather than alone or in small groups.

In contemporary circumstances yeah and most probably, but let me perhaps paint a grimmer picture for you concerning the collective animal. I don't think we really take instincts, emotions, and drives very seriously because we're far past the time of a band of unconscious humans roaming the Sahvana, but it's my suspicion that given aggression and violence are things toddlers can express and practice for no apparent reason other than they feel like it at times; I don't think a band of people have to have a rational or utilitarian reason for wanting exerts let's say their will to power on another weaker group other than they can and it satisfies them emotionally to do so and whatever material goods they gain from this is just a bonus. I think this is why @Asa says we're sadistic and demons, but I just think we're just another animal at bottom and that morality's and technology's evolution across history has made the drives, instincts, and emotions responsible for this more will-to-power dynamics excessive and unnecessary when not sublimated in ventures of striving towards virtue, competency, popularity, supremacy all various types of status games, but I digress; I'm skeptical of the rational human hypothesis.

Even so, we each have a personal responsibility for how we deal ethically with what we want regardless of whether it's a new smart phone we've just mugged off someone, or the success of the political aspirations we share with like-minded others and which we are happy to see pursued by using false accusations, fake news, rioting, cancelling opponents, unjust laws, etc. A real problem is that it doesn't feel like we are embracing non-peaceful means when we are supporting a mass cause that employs some form of non-peace, but where we ourselves aren't an active agent - this is the way that most politics works. But although we may only be at second hand it can only happen because of our support, and the non-peace rests on our shoulders too.

I agree that we have an individual responsibility to pursue peace, but perhaps as illustrated above I think," using false accusations, fake news, rioting, cancelling opponents, unjust laws, etc." will happen even without a good number of people's support and at best we can only punish it in a hope of deterrence, because of the kind of drives, emotions, and instincts we're dealing with when it comes to broader political engagement. Yes, peace rests upon our shoulders, but there is something real about our nature that doesn't want peace and that's ultimately what we're contending with to me.

I don't think all non-peaceful action is ethically wrong by the way because it may be the only legitimate way to respond to a situation.

Makes sense.

If we all really did love our neighbours as much as we loved ourselves then maybe widespread peace would be possible, but it's never got out of beta-testing over the last 2000 years

I think so and I agree.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

as much as we loved ourselves

Is it that we love ourselves or are we best at understanding and following our emotions, drives, and instincts more than those of others without some incentive, need, and drive to that mostly comes from our own social nature?

 

[ErikAlberto]

Is peace possible?

I have a hard time visualizing any kind of lasting world peace or cessation of violence and crime. I’ve never felt very hopeful about it.

It seems to me that it’s very hard to achieve real peace, even within the much smaller sphere of families. Most of us are at war with ourselves, in some way, too.

I think human-nature is both dark and light. Even those who seek earnestly after the light walk in the dark at times. This plays into the question, I think, too.

In the light of all of this, ongoing tensions between nations, periodic, and recurrent wars have always felt fairly inevitable to me.

This has been a super interesting thread to read. I love how you framed the questions, @Asa.

 

[John K]

Is it that we love ourselves or are we best at understanding and following our emotions, drives, and instincts more than those of others without some incentive, need, and drive to that mostly comes from our own social nature?

The trouble is that words mean different things to different people so they can interpret what we say in ways we don't intend. Love has such a lot of different meanings, but mine was directed towards caritas and agape. Like @ErikAlberto says, humans are a mixture of dark and light, and I fear that our social nature is also both dark and light as a result. It's rather intriguing this second of Christ's great commandments. The love it talks about is altruistic and seeks the good of others and wishes them as much fulfilment as is possible. If we don't love ourselves with the same sort of altruistic love, it's very hard to love others in this way. So much actual human love is of a different sort and is self-centred and can often be destructive. Even worse is the problem folks have who hate themselves and project it out onto others.

I can't help feeling that the lack of peace in the world comes from a lack, or a distortion, of this sort of love. Where there is real peace, this sort of love is almost tangible, at the group level as well as at an individual level. I know what you mean in your earlier post about the behaviour of groups being more predictable than individuals and therefore maybe it's easier there to amplify or attenuate group attitudes and behaviours. Have you ever read Isaac Asimov;s Foundation science fiction series? I've always been fascinated by his idea of psychohistory which is central to this work - it's a mathematical theory for predicting the behaviours of large masses of people for centuries into the future and determining where the nexus points are - the places and times where small actions can switch to completely alternate futures.

But I'm pessimistic about applying theories to the masses. I can't help but feel that much of the unpeace of the world is brought about by lots of people attaching themselves without critical reflection to pre-fabricated and second hand social values as an act of (often unconscious) blind faith rather than a personally chosen path. I'm very much of the mind that such existential inauthenticity is a fault that leads to most of the human-created problems in the world. This is why I think that whatever could lead us out of unpeace must involve individual people making authentic choices for themselves rather than just going with one of the many flows. I don't believe that peace can be achieved by social engineering - I think this just replaces one inauthentic way with another. In a way it's the same argument about why it was necessary to destroy Sauron's ring rather than for one of the good leaders to use it - that sort of power corrupts and turns to unpeace no matter how good the intentions are of the wielder.

But thinking on a tangent, there is another side to this. Much of the energy in our world is brought about by a tension between polarities. There would be no electric power in our houses without an appropriate potential difference between positive and negative charges. Maybe it's the same in our societies, though in a less formally structured way. I wonder if there is actually a trade-off between peace and beneficial change - so if the world were completely peaceful, there would be low energy for beneficial social change. It could well be that we need some tension, some unpeace, to provide the energy for good changes. Of course, as with electrical power, too much leads to chaos and disaster.

 

[Wyote]

Of course, as with electrical power, too much leads to chaos and disaster.

 

[John K]

Very

 

[Wyote]

Very

View attachment 91048

 

[John K]

'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.'
'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill’

 

[aeon]

I can't help but feel that much of the unpeace of the world is brought about by lots of people attaching themselves without critical reflection to pre-fabricated and second hand social values as an act of (often unconscious) blind faith rather than a personally chosen path. I'm very much of the mind that such existential inauthenticity is a fault that leads to most of the human-created problems in the world. This is why I think that whatever could lead us out of unpeace must involve individual people making authentic choices for themselves rather than just going with one of the many flows.

This. So much this. It’s really something for me to read your words and feel the tremble.

I’m an idealist who just had a Fi-gasm.

Blesséd Be,
Ian

 

[John K]

This. So much this. It’s really something for me to read your words and feel the tremble.

I’m an idealist who just had a Fi-gasm.

Blesséd Be,
Ian

I’m really glad it made sense to you. It’s quite hard to express clearly because I agree with @Yoh Asakura that it’s at the social level that un-peace has greatest manifestation and predictability. I can’t see top down solutions bringing true peace though, which imho are mostly like trying to use Sauron’s ring. It would have to come from the bottom up.

 

[aeon]

I’m really glad it made sense to you. It’s quite hard to express clearly because I agree with @Yoh Asakura that it’s at the social level that un-peace has greatest manifestation and predictability. I can’t see top down solutions bringing true peace though, which imho are mostly like trying to use Sauron’s ring. It would have to come from the bottom up.

I agree. I’ve joked about certain things only being possible after the “Great Leap,” and when I am asked what that means, I say it’s the next species-level evolution of human consciousness.

Blank stares ensue.

“The end of duality. The end of the divided self. It is the beginning of self-with-other, the will to love another as oneself, the death of ego, and the alignment of the fundamental vibrational frequency and entirety of the harmonic overtone series to full-scale resonance...it will not just be singularity consciousness, but the transcendence of halon unto halon ad infinitum awareness of being—the understanding that each and every is both its own, and simultaneously, forever and always, part of a whole which is itself but a part.”

More blank stares.

“I won’t live to see it, of course. But if I had Sauron’s One Ring something I could put in the water supply, I could perhaps bring it about.”

Cheers,
Ian

 

[AJ_]

Maybe the answer is simple but unpopular
“As long as there are slaughter houses there will always be battlefields.“ -Tolstoy

It’s interesting to me that in some languages, “harmony” and “world” are the same word.

In English, you can’t say “world” without war; and “peace” is a homophone of “piece”, so always fragmented.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

“As long as there are slaughterhouses there will always be battlefields.“ -Tolstoy

I really like the novel War and Peace, but I have to disagree with Tolstoy on this conclusion. People tend to think that the capacity for cruelty, violence, and brutality is the reason or the practice of cruelty, violence, and brutality are the reasons why humans go to war, but when one examines why we incite battles or go to war under an evolutionary perspective there appears a possibly shocking answer that I've allude to in previous posts and that @John K has expressed about our social nature being both light and dark that I'll flush out more in response to this Tolstoy quote.

First of all, most animals practice some form of what people would consider cruelty, violence, brutality, and sadism to varying degrees with predators being more inclined to practicing these forms of animal behaviors to compete and for acquiring resources, when one is discussing mammals and some birds in particular, they contrast this more brutal, red tooth and claw set of animal behaviors with behaviors for nurturing and bonding with members of their species and at times more broadly other species as observed in dogs, cats, and humans; however, intraspecific competition is normal across all animal species: Intraspecific competition - Wikipedia. Now, how many animals' mammal or non-mammal go to war or practice warfare? Warfare being the use of violence, brutality, cruelty, and sadism as means to compete with other groups within a species; I do not mean to formally form opposing sides to fight and continually fight to see who wins or two sides teaming up to defeat a third, this of course is a human invention, what I am talking about is where the roots for formal human warfare come from, and I'm going to call it all war fare because it looks like it, not because it fits some scientific dentition of what human beings do.

Well, perhaps subtly noticed in what is meant by warfare, you need to have animals that collude and form groups to have warfare and not merely the tendency to practice cruelty, violence, brutality, and sadism. Possibly more interesting and to me more important, most animals whether predatory, herbivore, or omnivore do not go to war, practice war fare, or use some form of brutality, violence, and cruelty apart from mating competition, competing for resources, play, and predation. There are at the moment only a few known species that have been observed to genuinely practice war fare, humans, bees and hornets, termites and ants, chimpanzees, meerkats, wolves, langurs, hyenas, and African lions. The specific instances where groups organize themselves to compete for territory, mates, and resources across species are not important to me, but if you're curious about some evidence of what I'm saying, check out these articles: Do Animals Go to War? (nationalgeographic.com) and YS 24-1 Territoriality and Inter-Pack Aggression in Gray Wolves Shaping a Social Carnivores Life History - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov) what is important to me is that all of these animals are social. Now, this isn't to imply that all social animals commit what looks like warfare, because, for instance, in Orcas and killer whales this general trend has yet to be witnessed and they're not the only social animal to be missing from our list---it is small and unique one, yet it is reliable to say that social animals are the ones that go to war. This to me is the shocking bit as @John K and @ErikAlberto have presaged upon and hinted to in their posts, it's not because we have slaughterhouses or can be violent or brutal that we practice war fare; it's because the other side or another aspect of being social for humans is to be a warring animal that there is a dark and light side to our social nature. Get rid of the slaughterhouses and humans will still go to war, because to do so is a part of our social nature. There are no simple solutions or simple answers, because we're likely not contending with something that we learned to do over the course of developing culture, more so based on archeological evidence and the presence of war in the history of hunter gather tribes, there has probably never been a time in human history until very recently that we have not had war, there is very little evidence of the noble savage hypothesis or that sociality inherently means affability and beneficence.

I mainly discussed war, but it's my belief that not only war but betrayal, violence, manipulation, and deception are natural strategies of our social nature.