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What does peace require?

For sake of argument then what happens when a polar bear decides to eat you do you shoot it or tell it where the sauce is while you can still speak ?
Meaning that circumstance will force you to draw the lines to a large degree, you either surrender control or you use controlling methods, the latter is not a peaceful state.
 
^Like I said, it's relative peace. What you're describing (no polar bears being killed for self-protection) would be absolute peace. The bear eating you or you protecting yourself is not entirely controllable, just like death itself is not ultimately controllable. What is controllable is war, famine, pollution, etc.
 
Who says peace is the be-all end-all? Society is meant to be chaotic, and a person is meant to be both a microcosm and an antithesis of the whole. Maybe....
 
Pegasus said:
^Like I said, it's relative peace. What you're describing (no polar bears being killed for self-protection) would be absolute peace. The bear eating you or you protecting yourself is not entirely controllable, just like death itself is not ultimately controllable. What is controllable is war, famine, pollution, etc.
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OK when you agreed with "all life is sacred" I took you at your word, my mistake.
 
^I don't see how anything I said contradicts that... American Indians considered all life sacred but still killed for food and protection...

You're talking in really extreme terms... You can't even drink water in your example since you'll be killing microorganisms.
 
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I am talking in realistic terms because peace in the terms that most people (dedbeet excepted) are talking about in this thread is a peace amongst peoples animals and yes perhaps even microorganisms, all of nature. American Indians also killed & tortured their bretheren, the Aztecs & Maya sacrificied zillions of their own folk - archetypal hippies rarely bear close inspection.
I'd have to stick with my absolutist stance as a relative peace could as easily be described as a low level war - it just depends whether you're winning or losing as to the position you'd take
 
I believe peace does require submission. Submersion of ego. No more subscription to the idea of winners and losers. Cooperation MUST be valued more than competition. We aren't ready.
 
TheAppleCore said:
I think peace requires a universally-accepted ideology that regards all life as sacred, and nature as the highest value. Unfortunately, the current human condition seems to put a price tag on life itself, and has little to no respect for nature.
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voxmystic said:
I believe peace does require submission. Submersion of ego. No more subscription to the idea of winners and losers. Cooperation MUST be valued more than competition. We aren't ready.
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+1 to each of these.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
What is the absolute minimum that any group of people requires in order to keep the number of people doing harm to each other to an absolute minimum? (I would include, as part of this, a minimum of people who are self-destructive because they are not at peace with themselves.)
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I'd say for the proverbial "peace on Earth" to exist, individuals most first find inner peace. The rest kinda works itself out.
 
^sounds like a catch 22 to me.

Primal365 said:
Someone might have said this but I am way to tired to read through all these replies so here it is, the way to peace in a simple set of math equation.

World = the location we want peace
peace = lack of war,violence,evil
People = cause of war,violence,evil
People + world = no peace
So if the above is true then
World = peace iff (if and only if) world = world - people
Or
Peace = world - people
And WALLAH! the solution to peace in simple terms.
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two things:
nature is full of violence even without people; and
it's spelt "voila".
 
^yeah, i'm tired of hearing the "humans don't belong" crap.

without humans, there would be no chance for the suffering on planet earth to end. humans happen to be the one species potentially able to break out of their own cycle of pain and growth-by-death, and in turn, maybe even turn the entire ecosystem of earth into one of bliss, acting for both our species and for our fellow inhabitants o.o

i'm looking a little far ahead, here, but i'm not the only one ;)
 
B9 said:
American Indians also killed & tortured their bretheren, the Aztecs & Maya sacrificied zillions of their own folk - archetypal hippies rarely bear close inspection.
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Hmm, I'm definitely not a hippy.

Protecting life in my view focuses on preventing irrational killing or oppression. My point was about how it is possible to respect life but at the same time understand that death is an inevitable part of living. There are animals such as cats, etc that only eat other creatures for sustenance. The circle of life is not a preventable occurrence, nor should it be (IMO).
 
Hmm, I'm definitely not a hippy.
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OK by me. I just assumed when you mentioned American Indians that you had some hippy in you - I'm sure there's lots of different cultures which regard nature as sacred.

So anyway basically what we're really talking about here is increased cooperation & tolerance of other peoples & cultures & the creation of systems other than violence to play out the power struggles which are encompassed by being part of nature ?
 
^Yeah. I'm not sure that violence can be avoided in every situation, but if possible, it should definitely be removed.

More on power struggles as I see them (going back more to the original topic of the thread, but also explaining my underlying thoughts for previous comments):

"Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes."

-Andrew Bard Schmookler
 
Pegasus said:
^Yeah. I'm not sure that violence can be avoided in every situation, but if possible, it should definitely be removed.

More on power struggles as I see them (going back more to the original topic of the thread, but also explaining my underlying thoughts for previous comments):

"Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes."

-Andrew Bard Schmookler
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But what is missing from his argument is the notion of protection. When you protect, you do it out of peace for everyone and your way of defending is not ruthless and destructive. And come on, some of the people in the "power" tribe *have* to have a heart for desire to cooperate with these new people. Destruction or absorption or the defending tribe has many gray areas. Freedoms can still be given to those who are part of the defending tribe. It's just under a new name.
 
B9 said:
Yes yes the whole world looks to the United States armed forces for protection & feels toward them the way an orphan would feel toward his loving sponsor
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Of course *presses tongue firmly into cheek*, absolutely. =D
 
To have peace we must eliminate greed; how this is done is an other question alltogether.
 
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