I turned on Bill Moyers’ Journal on television last week and found him talking to British scholar Karen Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong told him how she had developed the capacity to see the world as someone radically different from herself saw it, in this case, the prophet Mohammed in 7th century Arabia. This was a compelling moment for me because this is a subject one does not often hear about in today’s discourse. Moyers and Armstrong had a fascinating exchange on what happens to someone who has learned this skill of seeing the world as another sees it, particularly if that other is an enemy. Anchored in the world’s spiritual traditions, Ms. Armstrong has recently created, with many others, a Charter for Compassion, which she also talked about with Moyers. What does the ability to place oneself in the world and experience of another have to do with cultivating compassion?

Learning a New Skill that Goes Against the Grain

The entire transcript of this conversation is available at the PBS website, as are the emails from people who watched the show. Much of the conversation between Moyers and Armstrong concerns the difficult challenges of learning the skill of practicing how to really see the world as others see it, or as Ms. Armstrong says it, “re-creating” their world view. This is a vital skill for forwarding world peace. Armstrong describes how the resistance to practicing this skill is rooted in the ego, i.e. that we love arguing and making people wrong. From there Moyers and Armstrong jump into a discussion of world politics, from terrorism to fundamentalist religions. Armstrong urges listeners to hear the unspoken needs and emotions underneath the political rhetoric, to calm and quiet the public passions.

Human Beings Love to Criticize Each Other

Many people wrote in to express their opinions about this show. When you read these letters it is interesting how few of them actually cite the main ideas of the show, i.e. the skill of learning to see the world as others see it, the issue of the ego and how it expresses itself in the realm of politics and religion, and how human beings love to make each other wrong. Many of the letters were highly critical of Moyers and Armstrong. Which makes you wonder if those listeners really got what the program was all about. Interesting!

To Practice Compassion Daily Brings Peace

I have never read any of Ms. Armstrong’s books before but I was deeply impressed by her maturity and by who she is as a human being. Anyone who has been able to take the profound spiritual step of imagining themselves into the worldview of other human beings so different than themselves, especially ones from other centuries and cultures, has performed an amazing feat of transformation. We are all so anchored in our egos, believing that our identities are our true selves, that we are have tremendous resistance to opening the doors to finding our commonalities with other human beings, especially those we label enemy. This is terrifying for many people. Yet, when we take this step, the peace it brings is profound and liberating beyond measure.

Those who have been reading Peace by Design know that talking to enemies and seeing life from the viewpoint of the other is at the very heart of this transformational approach to creating a world at peace. I urge you to check out the Armstrong interview with Bill Moyers. I also refer you to blogs I have written previously on this topic.

• www.peacebydesignblog.com/letting-go-of-enemy-making
• www.peacebydesignblog.com/partnering-with-the-islamic-world
• www.peacebydesignblog.com/learning-to-be-at-peace-with-differences
• www.peacebydesignblog.com/seeing-the-world-as-others-see-it

Have a comment? We want to hear from you? Have you experienced seeing the world as others see it? tTell us about it.  What are your experiences with compassion in action?

It is not often that a film leaves me awestruck, literally speechless and filled with wonder. I had seen pictures of Andy Goldsworthy’s sculptures in nature before, yet seeing this film about him, and watching him in the act of making his ephemeral creations is something altogether splendid and unique. It brought me to a state of intense aliveness and excitement. It is rare that a work of art can do this.

Sculptor Works in the Natural World

Andy Goldsworthy, a Scottish sculptor, has been quietly following his own path for more than two decades now. He does not work in a studio. The natural world is his canvas. He is fascinated by the energy of the universe as it manifests in stones, rocks, flowing rivers, flowers, sticks, berries, bracken, snow, ice, branches, everything that one finds in nature. He uses no tools but his hands. He creates forms that may last minutes, hours or years, until they melt or sweep away in the tides, rain or snow.

Goldsworthy Fascinated by Flow of Energy and Time

“Art for me is a form of nourishment,” he says in the film. He is fascinated by the energy that flows through the landscape, not to hold it or stop it, but to be one with it, to witness it. You will see him create an extraordinary looping icicle sculpture by breaking pieces of ice and sticking them together with saliva. Magical instant beauty!

One Astonishing Image After Another

In another scene you watch as red liquid trickles over a rock face in a tumbling stream, and one thinks instantly that this is blood. Then one discovers that Goldsworthy has found iron oxide pebbles in the stream, pounded them into dust and dissolved them in water to make the blood red liquid and then poured it into the stream.

Goldsworthy wanders through the town where he lives in Scotland, describing its sheep herding history and picking bunches of yellow dandelions as he meanders. Later the camera pulls back to reveal a hole in some rocks in a stream bed filled with a mass of gold dandelion heads. The shock of the gold delights the eye.

At one point Goldsworthy painstakingly creates a fragile hanging sculpture of twigs. It is so delicate. How long can it survive? As he attaches one last piece the whole lacy structure collapses in a pile around him. I felt a deep sense of loss at first, as if a child or a beloved pet had died, and then I thought, “This is just part of life–all things die and some things have very brief lives–let it go.”

It’s About Paying Attention

As I was watching this film these words from one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver, The Summer Day, kept going through my head:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention . . .

In the end, Goldsworthy’s work, and Mary Oliver’s poems too, are about paying attention to this exquisitely beautiful planet we live on–and falling in love with this world, knowing that each one of us is part of this creation.

Connection of Rivers and Tides to a Peace-Filled World

What does Rivers and Tides have to do with creating a world that works for everyone? What does all this have to do with creating a world at peace? I think it has something to do with experience peace right here, right now by looking, by paying attention, wherever we are, by noticing the sun, the sky, the rain, the stars, the trees, and the blessed and infuriating and wonderful people who share this extraordinary planet with us.  Perhaps then, when and if there comes a time when we have to choose to go to war, we will remember the preciousness of life itself and the beauty of our glorious, living earth and we will put away our guns, think of future generations and let love guide our actions.

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When I created this blog in April 2008, I announced my intention to publish regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays. I have lived up to this commitment over the past year. Together, my guest bloggers and I have produced over one hundred blogs about peace. My vision of peace was, and is, one of possibility, of what could exist on this planet, if enough people chose it consciously: a world filled with joy, fun, abundance, a world that worked for everyone. This would be a world where violence would become less and less relevant. War would gradually disappear as human beings began to shift their thinking, their listening and their speaking about peace, war and armed violence.  What they intended with the full force of their will, would come to pass.

Overwork and Exhaustion Leads to Freedom and Joy

I have always believed that I should be the change I wish to see in the world. A recent crisis in my life showed me that I was not, in fact, living out what I most deeply cared about.  I was close to breakdown, was exhausted from overwork. I was not having any fun and it seemed I was working constantly on this blog and doing it all by myself. My life had no joy. I was in despair and was close to giving up. Last week I finally saw that I could make a new choice about how I live my life and about how Peace By Design is written and conducted as an enterprise.

No More Hard Work!

I have chose to take an entirely new approach at this point to bring integrity to my life and to the blog, so that everything in my life reflects my passion for a life founded on and committed to joy, aliveness, love and a peaceful planet. In effect this means “no more hard work”. I am now revoking my promise to publish every Tuesday and Friday. I will now be writing blogs only when I am filled with joy, love or inspiration! I may write five times a week or once a month.  My promise is to follow the joy, to look for that which is fun, enlivening or that which excites me or turns me on. This is a bold and exciting experiment in my life and frankly, I feel liberated, set free! It is a very strange feeling and it’s making my heart beat faster and I notice I’m kicking up my heels in a little dance. Whooee! This is fun!

We’re Having a Party and You Are Invited!

I invite you, my readers, to join me in this experiment in peace and full living. I am eager to find more guest bloggers. I am looking for people to share their ideas for how we can create a world that works for all beings. What visions do you have for a peaceful planet? How are we going to get there? Do you want to review books or films? What other topics should we be writing about here?

As I look outside my window this afternoon the sun is shining. Spring is coming. Sun dapples the evergreens and their boughs sway in the gentle breeze. Despite all the enormous problems in the world right now, this moment is incredibly beautiful. I am at peace and deeply grateful for the gift of life itself. I am eager to hear from you.

Wanna play? Get in touch! Leave a comment.

Some people had difficulty with the blog I wrote on March 2, 2009 about the name calling going on between liberals and conservatives in this country that occurred after  President Obama’s speech to Congress about the fiscal crisis and the country’s future. It appears that I have far more faith in the capacity of all Americans to come up with creative ideas for the country than do many other citizens. Some readers have expressed their doubts to me that Republicans and conservatives lack the ability to come up with any viable ideas for dealing with the financial meltdown or our future.

Faith in Conservatives to Serve Comes from Dynamic Facilitation

Why do I have such faith in the capacity of conservatives to eventually come up with good ideas that will serve the country, even if we haven’t heard many of these ideas yet? Does it come from my basic stand in like not to make or keep enemies? Perhaps. It also comes from the fact that I’ve had training in a process in which people from diverging opinions routinely work on solutions to difficult problems and come up with breakthrough solutions. It is called Dynamic Facilitation and it a form of eliciting transformational thinking in groups. It is radical, exciting work. Once you have participated in it, you will wonder why the U.S. government is still doing business the old argumentative way.

Choice Creating Brings Out Best in People

Jim Rough, the originator of the DF model, has been teaching this work since 1990. The DF facilitator establishes a zone of thinking and talking known as Choice Creating, where sudden shifts and unexpected breakthroughs are normal. This is especially useful in times like these, when people face a collective challenge, and need to pull together with all their creativity, to face it. They need to bring their highest and best selves to the task. I can’t think of a better time than right now for our national leaders to use a process like Dynamic Facilitation.

What Dynamic Facilitation can do:

• Resolve the really BIG issues
• Build community
• Assure excellence of ideas and problem solving
• Build a culture of decision making that is collaborative and respectful
• Develop participants to reach new levels of empowerment
• Improve meetings from ordinary (bickering?) into great ones

Dynamic Facilitation Focused on the Issue, Not on the Egos

In DF meetings, participants face the front. The meeting is all about the issue or challenge to be faced. It is not about personalities or egos. Each participant is equal and the facilitator is there to assure that each participant is fully heard. As a result each participant is:

• Authentic
• Open-minded
• Open-hearted
• Learning
• Engaged
• Efficient
• Respectful

A Process of Deep Integrity and Deep Humanity

I took a Dynamic Facilitation workshop in 2008. It was a remarkable adventure in being seen, fully listened to and completely honored as a human being, no matter what wild thoughts I shared.  I participated in a group which considered the issue of human violence from a deeply thoughtful place and I was moved beyond words by the deep humanity of the process.

Hey President Obama and Nancy Pelosi–Listen up!–Try this!

Because of this experience I can say, with passion and full knowing, this process would work with Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, legislators and executives, with anyone who wants to make a difference in the financial mess our country is in today. I commend the Dynamic Facilitation model to President Obama, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to members of the Opposition Party, and to all interested Americans.

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In the middle of the worst financial crisis in memory, President Obama gave a powerful and masterful speech to Congress and the American people last week. The speech received rave reviews from American citizens. Yet since the speech Republican leaders and media figures have been ranting and issuing calls for revolution and calling the President every name in the book. The rhetoric verges on hysteria.

Name Calling From Both Republicans and Democrats–Why?

What is going on here? Why are bright, highly achieving people from the government, media and financial worlds acting so bizarrely? Why are some forming Sons of Liberty groups and holding Tea parties? It’s not only the Republicans who are acting weird and calling names. The liberals on the left aren’t doing much better. Consider the blog from Bob Cesca on Huffington Post called The Wingnut Revolution which is dripping with sarcasm. I can understand Cesca’s frustration; his sarcasm is, under the circumstances, understandable. The question is, is this a helpful response?

Paul Jenkins, another Huff Post blogger, uses phrases like nut jobs and barmy to describe a list of Republicans who have, according to him, gone off the deep end. There are few people who have the patience to inquire into what is going on, to ask the deeper questions. Why bother? Because we are in a national crisis of unprecedented proportions and we need every-body’s help to solve it. If we keep calling names back and forth, we keep the discourse on the level of children bickering. Kids who call each other names get their feelings hurt. This kind of climate gets nasty very fast and it becomes impossible to work together.

President Obama has some extraordinary skills and keen instincts about where to take the country. His bipartisan impulses are wise ones. However there is one skill he lacks. He doesn’t have the skill of helping people to complete negative experiences and feelings from the past. He has never learned how to help people air whatever feelings of complaint or hurt are lingering from what has gone before, whether it is the last election or the fight over the stimulus package. Until people are complete with the past they cannot work together to create a new future. This is a vital skill to have and it is disappointing that Obama and his team do not, apparently, know how to do this.

The Republicans are needed to help heal the financial crisis. They are needed to help heal the energy crisis, re-invent the health care system and to re-design the education system. They are bright people and they have ideas and when those ideas are solicited from people who are no longer burdened down by resentment and negative feelings, but enlisted in solving the country’s problems they will come forward with dynamism and creativity.  Republicans are disorganized and frightened with their party in disarray. Democrats have been in this position themselves and can afford some compassion. It’s not a pleasant place to be. Indeed, the whole country is frightened.

People in our country, and our national leaders in particular, lack the skill of being able to be present to intense emotion and to contain that emotion so they don’t say the first rash thing that comes out of their mouth. It’s called emotional intelligence. They lack the skill of deep listening so they can work together respectfully in partnership. Perhaps this crisis will teach our leaders and all of us some valuable and much needed skills.

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The Three Laws of Performance is not the kind of book I usually review on this blog. Written for an audience committed to improving the performance of business organizations, it might be hard to see what this book has to do with creating a peaceful world. I have also written about transformational peacemaking and shifting the conversation about peace and violence in the world. The ideas outlined in this book, though oriented toward the business community, are eminently transferable to the larger challenge of creating change in the international geopolitical arena where war, terrorism and genocide take place.

Authors Share a Commitment to Unprecedented Results

The authors, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, share a lifelong passion centered around one question: How can people perform beyond their limits? Zaffron became involved with this issue during the 1970’s with the EST movement, and is now CEO of the Vanto group and is an executive and board member of Vanto’ parent company, Landmark Education. Logan has been an associate professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of South California and is also a consultant to many Fortune 500 companies. Together they are committed to bringing transformation into corporate settings. I am a graduate of Landmark Education, which has touched my life and shaped my thinking.

Extraordinary Stories of Amazing Achievements in this Book

In many anecdotes and stories Logan and Zaffron share stories of the organizations they have worked with and the remarkable changes that have happened as a result of the work they have done with people in groups. One of the most remarkable of these, to my mind, is the ongoing work, in South Africa at the Lonmin platinum mine. They continue to work there with 25,000 employees and 300,000 people in surrounding communities to transform their futures. It is astonishing and thrilling work, not the least because of its scale and its boldness of vision.

The three laws apply to individuals as well as to groups and are universal:

1. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.
2. How a situation occurs arises in language.
3. Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people.

A New Idea: Taking Transformation to the World Stage

The authors give clear coaching about how to put these laws into effect in one’s own life, whether one works alone or in an organization. Despite the example of the Lonmin mine, no one I know in transformational circles, is actively talking about the potential for transformation to assist in making radical and rapid changes in international war and peace situations.

Pioneers Who are Currently Using Large Scale and Transformational Processes

One who comes close is Don Beck, the creator of the Spiral Dynamics model. While Spiral Dynamics is an evolutionary model of human and cultural dynamics, and not a transformational model, Don Beck used it during South Africa’s transition out of apartheid and is currently using it in experiments in the Netherlands and in the Middle East. Others using transformational peacemaking approaches are Arnold Keiser at the Organization for International Cooperation and Jack Berriault at the Israel Palestine Project.

The Future Holds Whatever We Can Create

For my money, transformation is the next wave in peacemaking. It is has worked before in history. Human beings decided to end slavery and slavery ended. A group of people decided they had had enough of tyranny and declared their independence and a new nation was born. If enough people on this planet decided they had had enough of war and violence, war would end. If enough people decided they wanted to create a world that worked for everyone, then we would create that. If enough of us want that, we can make it happen. We have only to choose it and intend it.

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The world’s economic system is in free fall.  President Obama and his team are hastily applying fixes, hoping they will work, as are world leaders, but no one really knows how to put humpty-dumpty together again.  This started in the U.S. with a mortgage crisis. The first reaction of the Bush administration was to bail-out Wall Street.  It has only occurred to a few that a complete re-invention of our whole economic system is needed. Now is the moment to create a system that works for everyone.

David Korten’s New Book is a Must-Read

David Korten  has written a new book called Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth (Berrett-Koehler Publishers: San Francisco, CA, 2009), a must read for those of us studying current fiscal events.  This book is particularly important for those starting to see the relationship of money to violence and wondering how to create a sustainable planet, one where people are free to love each other, where everyone can grow into a ripe old age.

Wall Street Creates Phantom Wealth–Let it Go

With advanced degrees in business from Stanford, and years of experience in business strategy and economics, Korten knows what he is talking about.  The central piece of his thinking is that Wall Street creates phantom wealth.  The wealth the financial industry creates is hollow; it is not based on anything real in the world.  A giant house of cards, built up over the past thirty to forty years has suddenly collapsed.  While large numbers of people in that industry enriched themselves and lived like kings, middle and lower class Americans, and others like us around the world paid dearly for those luxurious lifestyles.

Divisiveness, Rage and Terrorism Make Sense Now

It is no wonder that there has been so much divisiveness and rancor in American politics and no wonder that bitterness and rage has built up among the have-nots of the world has now spilled over into terrorism directed at the United States.  American consumers are not blameless in this economic collapse. In Time magazine’s recent list of 25 People to Blame for the Economic crisis, the American consumer was on the list. That includes everyone in the United States!

Envisioning Societies Based on Real Wealth

Korten points toward a new economy based on real wealth:

Real wealth is a healthy, fulfilling life; healthy, happy children; loving families; and a caring community within a beautiful, healthy natural environment. It is a fulfilling means of livelihood that affirms our inherent worth and service. It is a peaceful world. These are the things of real value and the only truly valid measure of economic performance.

This is Main Street wealth vs. Wall Street wealth.  Korten issues a call to action to Americans and people all over the world to demand a new economic system from our leaders. At this critical juncture in the world’s history we can have the kind of world we truly want, if we have the courage to insist on it and are willing to work for it.

An Inspiring Prayer for How We Might Live

I will close with a prayer I received at a presentation on socially responsible investing (Trinity United Methodist www.tumseattle.org) .  The prayer suggests we emulate Jesus, one of the world’s greatest teachers.

I pledge, o God, to discover how much is enough for me to be truly fulfilled, neither rich nor poor, and to consume only that. I pledge, o God, to be part of the discovery of how much would be enough for everyone-not only to survive but to thrive-and to find ways for them to have access to that. May this offering of restraint and justice teach me to live like Jesus, healing my life and the life of the world. Amen.

Questions of Inquiry

1. What impact do you foresee the current financial crisis having on the world in terms of war and outbreaks of armed violence?

2. What possibilities can you envision for a monetary/fiscal system that works for everyone?

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The recent wildfires in southern Australia have presented some of the most horrific images in memory, made all the more so by the news that some of those fires were deliberately set by an arsonist.  200 or more victims had little chance to escape the fiery inferno because of the severe drought that has ravaged Australia since 2002.  More than a few scientists attribute this drought, in part, to global warming.  We are just beginning to see the terrible impact of climate change on human beings.

Global Warming Will Cause Sea Levels to Rise

Over the next century global warming will continue and human beings will see more hurricanes, floods storms of all kinds, but most critically, the melting of polar ice and the rising of sea levels. As the seas rise, coastal areas that are now inhabited will be flooded and whole populations will have to move-islands like the Maldives, Bangladesh, even large cities like New York City and Los Angeles may be submerged.  Large numbers of people will be on the move, in search of new homes, perhaps new countries.  With huge numbers of people migrating you have the ingredients for conflict, a perfect storm of conflict.

Displacement of People Equals Perfect Opportunities for Conflict

I have even heard it suggested that as the world warms, people will migrate to the colder areas of the world, like Canada and Siberia. Think about that. How happy would Russia and Canada be to welcome huge numbers of people migrating to their countries? How glad would North and South Dakota be to welcome an influx of people moving there? Any large displacement and movement of people is difficult and upsetting to the people moving and to the infrastructures and people providing services in the place they go to.  This is a great brew for conflict!  Look at the ingredients: the haves, the have-nots, people forced to leave beloved homes, loss and survival, suspicion of strangers, panic, fear, anger, resentment.

We Need to Start Planning How to Manage Conflict in the Future

There are large numbers of ecological activists and scientists right now who are doing heroic and fabulous work waking up the world to the very real challenges of global warming and encouraging all of us to be more ecologically sensitive in how we live our lives.  There is one additional piece that needs to be added to the planning for the future, however, and that is to begin to prepare for and manage the conflict that will inevitably come as a result of global warming.

Bringing People Together - to Listen, to Arrive at Decisions Respectfully

How should such planning for the future be done? My sense is that all viewpoints should be represented and people should talk to each other with deep respect.  I am awed by the power of the Dynamic Facilitation model to bring people from very diverse backgrounds and viewpoints together, to arrive at a unanimous plan for where they want to go together.  Using Dynamic Facilitation, among other tools, would be a great place to start. It is also clear that the world’s countries will need to learn how to talk with each other, and as we know, most countries lack the ability to talk clearly and directly to each other.  The Organization for International Cooperation has made teaching governments how to communicate with each other respectfully its mission. Check out their work as well.

Questions of Inquiry:

1.  What issues do you see from global warming that might cause conflict in the future?

2. Do you think planning to manage potential conflict in the future is a wise idea?

Are you interested in writing for Peace By Design? We are seeking Guest Bloggers! Please get in touch with us. We are also seeking people who might be good people to interview and those who might want to review books or films for us.  Peace By Design is a community. Join us.

The Profound and Terrible Love of War

This is one of the most unsettling and important books I have read in a long time.  The book begins with a scene from the movie Patton where Patton walks among a field of burnt tanks and dead men, kisses a dying officer and says, “I love it. God help me I do love it so. I love it more than my life.”  Hillman declares if we would grasp how men could actually love war, it must first be understood.

A writer and Jungian psychologist Hillman takes us on a journey into the depths of human consciousness and reaches into the realms of myth for understanding.  What is it about war that creates such a hold on human beings?  There are four chapters in this book and together that shape what becomes a meditation on the nature of war: War is Normal; War Is Inhuman; War is Sublime; Religion is War.

War is Natural, War is Normal

Our natural state is one of war.  Of five thousand six hundred years of written history, fourteen thousand six hundred wars have been recorded. Two or three wars per year. There is always a war going on someplace in the world.  Peace is merely the breath between wars.   War is not only common, it is acceptable. It is in our speech as in war on drugs.  And there are always hawks who can find new enemies and young people to sign up for the fight.

Ordinary Men Do Horrific Things In War

The fact that war is inhuman is perhaps what motivates many of us to become peacemakers. It is the perversions of war, the chaos and dehumanization of ordinary men in battle who rape, sodomize, torture, maim and disfigure the enemy, prisoners and non-combatants, that horrifies  helpless by-standers of the world.  An insanity, which has been called seeing red by some can take over at times in the midst of battle and men find themselves committing atrocities they are later helpless to explain.  Technological advances in precision bombing have only accentuated the ability to kill without connection to victims.  It is no wonder that so many military personnel come home and commit suicide or with chronic PTSD.

The Awe-fulness of War

The most fascinating chapter is the one entitled War is Sublime for here Hillman explores the idea that war can be a transcendental or spiritual experience, sublime in the sense of terrible and beautiful at the same time.  Soldiers can feel the most profound love for comrades and all fear of dying leaves them.  All senses are heightened. This is a kind of radical aliveness that few of us ever get to experience in our lives.  I had a glimpse of this when I traveled in Hebron in the West Bank in 2003 and knew that shooting could break out at any moment.  It is life on the raw edge.  It may be this yearning for intensity and self sacrifice that lures men into war over and over again.  Hillman calls this meeting the face of the god-Mars or Ares, take your pick.

Will We Ever Find a War to Tame War?

Reading this book leaves one with a sense of helplessness.  War will always be with us. There is nothing we can do about it. Is that really true?  The peacemaker in me rebels deeply against this.  There must be more ways to be radically alive than having to sacrifice oneself in battle! We absolutely do NOT have to murder and slaughter others year after year, century after century.  I will be coming back and re-reading Hillman many times to come.

Questions of Inquiry:

1. Will humans ever tire of war?

2. Is peacemaking a fruitless enterprise?

3. Why are humans so hooked on war?

What was your response to this post? Have you read Hillman’s book? Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Why do we love war so much? I have struggled to understand war most of my life.  If something  was so horrific you would think human beings would stop doing it, but we keep going back for more.

I keep returning to the issue of enemy for without an enemy wars would not take place at all. What is it about us that we have to have an enemy? Does this start with monsters under the bed in childhood? As we grow up  we divide the world into good guys and bad guys, the ones who are with us and against us. There is always the other, the group who is to be disdained because they are not like us.

Blame-Making Is Alive and Well in the Financial Crisis

This is a fascinating time in world history, with a total breakdown in the world’s financial markets and yet a slight pause in-between all-out wars, almost as if we are gathering our breath,  energies (and money) to fuel the next wars. And fuel them we will. Look around . The blame-making that is creating the enemies for the next major war(s) has already begun.

Attack and Counter-Attack Fuels Enemy-Making

We choose convenient targets,  people who have hurt us or  betrayed our trust. In the U.S. this translates into the barons of Wall Street, those who have accumulated huge amounts of money while the middle and lower classes have lost their retirement funds, their homes and their jobs in the current financial meltdown.  There has also been a scathing attack going on by the Republicans in Congress against the Stimulus bill proposed by President Obama.  For the past eight years we had an all-out attack on the previous Republican administration.  Attack, counter-attack.

We Lack Skills in Human Relationships

We call this politics and we act like this is business as usual. We certainly don’t call it enemy-making.  The problem is that this has gotten in the way of creating solutions to the huge financial mess we are in.  We don’t see other ways to lead our public lives than arguing and blame.  We can’t conceive of meeting the other as human being and joining with them to learn what their needs are, to see the world as they see it.   Whether  in domestic politics or in international relationships, we are sadly lacking in basic skills of human relationships.

Getting  Honest About What’s Really There

Were we more adept at acknowledging what’s so, we might be able to honor our fears , griefs and losses  in the present economic recession.  We might admit we want a father-figure to “figure it all out” and to “save us” and we don’t want that person to make any mistakes!  We would admit our embarrassment that we messed up so badly in the past. We could say that none of us knows how to fix the present mess.

And for the great mass of Americans who have lost so much financially, when we feel the urge to blame those others, we might remember that we share some responsibility in this. We charged up our credit cards, bought those SUV’s, bought those houses we couldn’t afford.

Create Life Without Enemies–It’s Possible

We might learn to listen to what’s really going on-inside ourselves and all around us, and then reach out across the chasms that divide us.  The next time our national leaders start talking about those terrible people out there or over there who are menacing us, people whom we might have to fight, stop and think.  Who are they as human beings? What might they want in life?  What if we just sat down and got to know them, talked to them about what they want in life?  We might find life richer, more interesting and rewarding than it ever was before.  Imagine—life without enemies.  It is altogether possible.

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