Peace is not a natural state.

[Night Stalker]

Now before everyone jumps on me with accusations of "war monger" and quotes of "give peace a chance" blaa blaa blaa ....

Peace is not natural. It is a complacent state, a state of tranquility, a state of relative order. The natural world hates order. It thrives in chaos (though Chaos Theory notes that there may be an underlying order to the chaos). Everything is always moving to a higher state of entropy (chaos). Even the act of trying to create order forces unnatural states and creates more entropy.

In the animal world, everything is about conflict and competition. It is about who or what gets the most of a limited supply of resources. Terratory, breeding rights, eating rights - everything conflict. The way to survive is to take by force what you need, everything else be damned.

Now some animals (humans, wolves, bees, ect.) have discovered that on a macro level, it is better for the group for individuals to co-operate and share resources (and in some cases, breeding rights ). But on the micro level, there is still that conflict and competition within the group.

So why do we think we can disrupt and overcome the natural way of things? Every effort that I know of to create peace (versus the end of conflict through submission) has led to violence. Prime Minister Chamberlain tried to "create peace in our time" only to set the stage for WWII (one contributing factor). The peace protests in the '70s led to Kent State. America's acting as the "World Police Force" is well intentioned to promote peace and stability (depending on whos propaganda you believe), yet we are often looked on as evil oil coveting aggressors.

Just some ponderings ....

BTW ... for the record, I'm not a war monger, though I have no problem with war. I think peace in an eviable dream, just impossible to attain.

[Animal]

Peace is impossible to attain, because people don't want it. It is much easier to pick up a gun, and kill someone you've never met rather than sit down with that person and talk to them.
I disagree with you, I think peace is attainable IF we, as a world, want it bad enough. It's just too bad most of us don't.

[Night Stalker]

I don't think it is as simple as "just wanting enough". Considder just your regular every day life. Forget the macro scale for a moment. You work for a paycheck. You compete to get the best paycheck that you can. There are conflicts that you must get through to gather status and resources to justify garnering that paycheck. Then you go home. You compete for the attention of a sig other. That has competition and conflict. While it may not lead to violence it is furthuring chaos and disorder. We all know that it is impossible to make calm decisions when angry, so why would we get angry? Anger itself is a violent on rush of emotions. Yet we can't choose to dismiss anger. We can choose how we deal with and express it, but we can get rid of it. If we could, why would anger still exist after thousands of years? Everything continues to further chaos, and war is just another proof of it.

[ 01-16-2003, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: Night Stalker ]

[Animal]

Originally posted by Night Stalker: I don't think it is as simple as "just wanting enough". Considder just your regular every day life. Forget the macro scale for a moment. You work for a paycheck. You compete to get the best paycheck that you can. There are conflicts that you must get through to gather status and resources to justify garnering that paycheck. Then you go home. You compete for the attention of a sig other. That has competition and conflict. While it may not lead to violence it is furthuring chaos and disorder. We all know that it is impossible to make calm decisions when angry, so why would we get angry? Anger itself is a violent on rush of emotions. Yet we can't choose to dismiss anger. We can choose how we deal with and express it, but we can get rid of it. If we could, why would anger still exist after thousands of years? Everything continues to further chaos, and war is just another proof of it.

In a materialistic world, yes.
Again, I disagree, it is in fact a case of wanting it bad enough, but how bad do you want it? What is everyone in the world willing to sacrifice?
The competition and conflict are there because we choose to let it be.

[Djinn Raffo]

In my heart i know that peace IS possible.

I pray and I hope.. I emanate good vibes and positive thoughts and know that peace IS achievable. I believe in peace and i love peace.

I speak out against WAR, the great injustice, and make a stand for peace while doing so.

Holding true in my heart that peace IS possible, that those who think that it is an impossibility are not brave enough to believe in peace.. their ears have caught the nefarious voice of evil says I.

As hard as it is.. all you have to do is believe and act in a manner that one who believes would act.

Peace is not impossible. If anything is impossible i would say it is war. It is impossible in more ways than one. It is beyond comprehension how impossible it is.

But for those who hold true to peace: war will always be defeated.. if not in this lifetime.. then in the next.

[The Hierophant]

The world is as you see it my friend. It can't be anything else. Personally I think peace is alot easier to obtain than many would believe. It's only when you bind yourself to a material outlook that all of your fears and insecurities drive you to conflict.

You can say it's just nature, but can you even define what nature is? There is alot of baggage behind what a person would define as natural.

Originally posted by The Hierophant: The world is as you see it my friend. It can't be anything else. Personally I think peace is alot easier to obtain than many would believe. It's only when you bind yourself to a material outlook that all of your fears and insecurities drive you to conflict. You can say it's just nature, but can you even define what nature is? There is alot of baggage behind what a person would define as natural.

You speak of ideals, the human animal is not an ideal, it is flawed and there will always be those who seek to dominate others, take what they do not deserve and in generl just be completely anti-social. Untill you turn every human being into an Identicle replicant with no variations, there will always eb violence and there will always need to be those who are willing and strong enough to meet that violence head to head and to keep the barbarians from storming the gates. It has been proven over and over again that even giving people what they want will not turn an evil nasty man into a saint. Chamberlain tried it with hitler, no go, we have tried it with iraq, North Korea, Iran and others. Apeasement does nto work andhas been proven to be a failure countless times throughout history. This 60's peacenik routiene didnt work then and won't work now and will not work as long as humans remain human.

[Timber Loftis]

Night Stalker, you have touched on a debate at the very heart of social theory. If you take a basic sociology course in most colleges, you'll soon find that the two main social model theories are:

Marx: Conflict Theory. Society is always about struggle, conflict, and competition among humans - not just for resources, but also for status and control.

Durkheim: "Organic" theory. I'm using this "organic" term because I can't remember the trendy buzz words for his theory. But, Durkheim postulated that in a society people start to specialize in tasks and work together. It's a cooperative theory of the state of nature. Like cells in the body specializing into different organs, individual people and groups of people specialize according to labor/profession and allow us to accomplish more as a whole. This is basic to all of Durkheim's later works, wherein he explored his notion that absolutely every human behavior could be explained through sociology.

Anyway, what I'm saying is you have begun a debate as old as time. Are we, by nature, Appollonian or Dionysian, being more like Spartans or Athenians [gives appropriate nod the the apparition of Nietszche standing in the room].

Are we beyond good and evil?

[ 01-17-2003, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Barry the Sprout]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Marx: Conflict Theory. Society is always about struggle, conflict, and competition among humans - not just for resources, but also for status and control.

Half right... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Sorry about this, but seeing as this is actually quite connected to my view of peace I thought I might as well correct a small flaw in Timber's description. Marxist theory is that of Class struggle, not struggle amongst people as such. Peace is unattainable due to the struggle between classes, when there are no more classes then there will be peace. The class struggle does, however, breed struggle between workers in order to divide them, and there is naturally struggle between capitalists in an attempt to keep their monopoly on the machinery of production. But ultimately, if you eradicate class struggle then war goes with it. So peace is not only possible, but inevitable. Thats my opinion, but its backed up by quite a lot of work by various people. But then again... isn't everything?

[Djinn Raffo]

Why is it a peacenik routine MagiK? That sounds negative.. a peacenik...?

Timber Loftis.. are we beyond good and evil? What if some of us are.. and some of us are not?

Good points by everyone and like Timber said.. a debate as as old as time.. probably unanswerable because people disagree. Oh well you just have to follow your heart i guess..