Peacefulness in general
Labor Strikes in Peaceful Societies
Unrest among civil service employees has broken out in both Ladakh and in Tahiti, where government employees are striking to improve their retirement pay scales. While these two developments are purely coincidental, they suggest an important question: do strikes and other forceful activities, which try to compel others into taking a desired course of action, […]
Overview of Peaceful Societies To Be Presented by Douglas Fry
“Peaceful societies demonstrate that human beings clearly have the capacity for living with very little violence and for dealing with conflicts without aggression,” Douglas Fry will argue tomorrow. In a presentation at an important conference in Denmark, he will also maintain that nonviolent societies provide “specific insights about ways to reduce violence.” Fry will present […]
Will Either McCain or Obama Foster a Peaceful Society? [opinion]
Barack Obama’s apparent victory over Hillary Clinton will pit, in the November American presidential election, a clear opponent of the war in Iraq against one of its resolute supporters. However, from the perspective of this website, larger questions should focus on whether this election might foster a more peaceful society in America. In what ways […]
Is Peace Really Possible, or Is Warfare Inevitable? [magazine article review]
The debate over the supposed innate propensity of human beings to be aggressive has once again surfaced in the popular press, this time in the current, April, issue of Discover Magazine. (The article is also available for free on the Discover website.) The proponents of the different sides of this discussion are well-known scientists whose […]
Best Peace Books of the Year
Today is the first anniversary of the historic decision by the Botswana High Court that the G/wi have a right to live on their own land. Unfortunately, the government of Botswana has been doing its best to thwart that decision ever since. Other countries in the news are savaging forest ecosystems, building dams and roads […]
Warfare Could Become Obsolete—If We So Desire [book review]
Why should anyone quibble about the obvious? Don’t daily news reports show how violent we are? Don’t scholarly studies prove that humans males have evolved to be warlike? In his new book Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace, Douglas Fry doesn’t just quibble about these issues: he demonstrates quite effectively that they are based […]
Can an Erect Penis Point Toward Peace?
Thousands of people will converge on Washington this weekend to mark the fourth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. Most will question why the United States, among other countries, launches wars so often. Some of the demonstrators may do more than protest. They may also discuss the value of peacemaking and decide to investigate […]
Christmas Meditations on Peace
The words of the angels announcing the birth of Jesus to some shepherds, quoted in the gospel of Luke, have permanently linked the celebration of this season with the hope for peace. Many of the meditations on peace that litter the news media in late December are little more than hopeful statements that will not […]
New Journal Emphasizes Peaceful Societies
A new serial, announced on Monday this week, called In Factis Pax: A Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice, will focus on examining “issues central to the formation of a peaceful society.” The website for In Factis Pax (In Knowledge there is Peace), says that the journal will be published semi-annually by the Department […]
Nonwarring Societies Develop Peace Systems
A number of nonwarring societies can be identified in the ethnographic literature, and some of them, according to Douglas Fry, have even formed peace systems—alliances that help them avoid warfare with one another. A professor at the Abo Akademi University in Finland, Fry analyzed the external nonviolence of peaceful societies during a presentation which opened […]
