With recent events, both in the world and locally, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to want "peace". In an effort to not get too academic, I will neglect the philosophical and academic citations and footnotes.
Traditionally, many people think of peace as something perfect, heavenly, and without conflict. We imagine sitting in a warm, sunny glade with animals cavorting in the treeline. Of course, for some it might be a beach or a mountain top, but the idea is the same. When mothers say, "I want peace and quiet," the two are linked inextricably.
Peace=quiet and quiet=peace, but this is clearly not the case in most cases. One can easily imagine many cases where just because things are quiet, they are not peaceful. We can think of "the calm before the storm" or "Things are quiet...too quiet." as simple examples of different common cultural understandings that quiet does not equal peace.
At the same time, peace does not equal quiet. In my assertion, peace demands there to not be complete quiet. I can think of cases of international conflict where, despite the silence of gunfire, tensions remain and discourse, an audible conversation, is necessary to begin to step towards peace. However, even in this, it seems to be an incomplete view of peace to see it as a goal where we will no longer need to speak or express conflict.
This brings me to another important aspect of peace that is rarely discussed. Even if one was willing to imagine perfect peace w/o quiet, we would assume that it would contain calm, consensus. No voices would be raised and differences would be bridged or negated. To me, as a student of culture, attempts to create peace by the elimination of dissent tend towards two goals: totalitarian control and apathy.
Neither of these seem to be desirable as a peaceful society or way of life. What does this mean for those of us who seek to follow the Prince of Peace, or even those of us who don't but want peace?
Obviously, I have no answers, just more questions. Fortunately for me, a number of ways of seeing the world of morals and ethics have elevated the importance of questioning over the importance of answering. This does not mean that we stop looking for answers, just that we cease to claim ownership of THE answers. I see a strong connection between this idea and that of peace.
Peace is not a dialectic, a conflict that we endure or synthesize in order to have a new and better peace. It is a constant questioning and discourse. Therefore, I envision peace as a rowdy discussion. The key between a brawl and peace is how the members of the sphere/community react to the disagreement with others. This does not mean that we accept everything that is objectionable. I, in fact, do not know what it would mean. That would be having an answer.
I don't know what this blathering means, but we must keep thinking and asking ourselves about the ways that we define concepts like peace, ethics, and justice. Any thoughts?
1 comment:
This is not spam, if you can believe it. As your post demonstrates, the path to peace is likely related to the questions we ask to get us there, including what we think it will or should look like. A professor of mine considers skill at argument as a fundamental building block of a community, for argument, defined as the art of rational disagreement, and understood as an activity of thinking on behalf of the community, is perhaps the only way humans can truly maintain a dialectic of unity and difference. The definition is broad, sure, but I think it's an interesting way to begin thinking about the goals of community and the skills required for it.
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