Think Peace Part 5

Peace - a philosophy of relationship

The fifth of six articles exploring the meaning of peace.

Every entity is only to be understood in terms of the way in which it is interwoven with the rest of the Universe.  Alfred North Whitehead [footnote 1]

This series of articles has presented the biblical shalom - 'peace' - in terms of integrity and health in relationships. [footnote 2]  The present article is a philosophical exploration of what this might mean.

The first part explores the extensive ways in which we are related to one another.  The second suggests the specific quality of relatedness that peace involves and requires.  The third section then redefines 'violence' in terms of a violation of relationship, and the final section explores the dilemmas and difficulties that this throws up for the 'just war' and 'pacifist' traditions.

The process universe

Imagine any system of relationships - the parts of a hand, the organisms in a forest, a family, the musicians in an orchestra, the stones in a desert - and we can observe the following: that everything in the system owes its existence to other things; that everything is related; and that everything is changing.

These three observations are true of all systems of relationships and belong to a single proposition: that all things are related and in process.

This proposition belongs to process metaphysics, which is a way of understanding the structure of the universe in terms of relationships changing over time.  Process metaphysics have enjoyed a long tradition in many of the religious philosophies of Asia; Alfred North Whitehead was among the first to introduce the concepts into Western philosophy in the early 20^th Century. 

He observed that even the most apparently solid object, such as a stone, is a confluence of physical processes occurring over time.  The notion that a stone consists of fixed, inert 'substance' and exists independently of its context is convenient but not borne out by close observation.  In reality, a stone is involved in a system of relationships that is far greater than itself.  With this observation, Whitehead invited us to re-imagine the universe, in which all objects and events are understood as ever-dynamic processes interwoven with the rest of the universe.  Consider, for example, that every time we cook a meal or have a conversation, a confluence of processes is taking place, in which all the parts are affected by one another.

Persons, communities and nations can be understood in the same way.  As Thich Nhat Hanh observes from a Buddhist perspective, if we trace our development as persons back in time, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that we are ultimately made of compost and will become compost again. [footnote 3]  We owe our existence to the world's existence and so belong to a universal process, which Thich Nhat Hanh celebrates in one of his poems, Love Poem, of which this is part:

Your eyes are beautiful.
I am aware that they are impermanent.
But what is wrong with impermanence?
Without impermanence, could anything exist at all? [footnote 4]

*   *   *

Within this process-oriented understanding of existence, we are all involved in one another through the systems of relationships to which we belong.  This includes not only our immediate social context but the whole of humanity and the ecosphere as well.  This means that within any system of relationships, 'I', 'you' and 'we' are distinct but ultimately not separate from one another.  It also means that when I act, you act, or we act together, we are all affected; and that my interest in being alive, yours and ours are each distinctive but all inseparable.

Two political implications of this process-oriented view are that peace and war are always in process in the here and now, and that change is an inevitable result of any action.  It is worth looking at these in turn.

Peace and war as process

In the process universe, we can never stand at the beginning of an event; wars (and states of peace) are always in process.  For example, whilst a leader more cautious than Tony Blair about war might have kept the UK from invading Iraq, a process-oriented view would recognise that the causes of that war were more complex than the convictions of a Prime Minister.  Like all events, wars are born out of myriad prior events, not least out of wars that have gone before.  The Iraq invasion began to become more probable just as the 1991 war was finishing.  That conflict, in turn, had its roots in a stream of events leading back at least as far as the British occupation and suppression of Iraq after the First World War. [footnote 5]Hence, a process-oriented view of the universe sees in one war or injustice the birth of another.  This becomes more pronounced in a 'globalised' world, where the links between geographically disparate communities and events grow stronger.  Witness, for example, excessive carbon emissions, violent insurgencies ('terrorism') and acts of state militarism; wherever these take place, the whole planet is affected.

A process-oriented view can also help to frame the practicalities of peace.  For example, in terms of achieving global security, a process-oriented approach would prioritise tackling systemic causes of insecurity.  In practice, this might mean emphasising sustainable development, environmental stewardship, inclusive government, the rule of law, progressive disarmament and fair rules for international trade.  The conventional security paradigm, by contrast, conceives of security as a national concern, not a global or local one, and looks primarily to military forces to deliver it.  For example, the UK is currently spending £30.8bn on the military compared with £6bn on foreign affairs and overseas aid combined.  This traditional emphasis on national military means has the counter-productive effect of generating global insecurity, as the level of military expenditure worldwide indicates.

Transforming relationships

The second implication of a process-oriented view - that change is an inevitable consequence of every act in a relationship - invites attentiveness to how we relate to others in every sphere of life.  The life and teaching of Jesus place great emphasis on the potential of relationships for personal, social and political transformation.  His parables and miracles are all concerned with transforming relationships and his final witness to the powers that be was undertaken in direct relationship with them.

Jesus transformed his relationships, many of which involved conflict with others, by what he brought to them.  In the Sermon on the Mount, he advises us to recognise this same power-in-relation in our own lives:

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its flavour, how can its saltiness be restored? (Matthew 5:13)

The 'flavour' of salt is its power to affect what it encounters, which it can do in two ways: to transform something positively and to preserve it from deteriorating.

A Quaker (and more broadly Christian) perspective is that we do not own the power that transforms, for it belongs to a life larger than our own, but that we can participate in it, allowing it to transform our lives and so our relationships with others.  A faith commitment and a faith community should therefore help us to receive and cultivate this power of 'saltiness' for positive change.

However, for Jesus - and for us - this is not enough while there are oppressive social and political structures that prevent relationships from being positively transformed and flourishing.  For example, the logical outcome of the current world trade system is billionaires and paupers.  As Jeffrey John has argued, the primary purpose of Jesus' miracles is to challenge social marginalisation such as this. [footnote 6]

Jesus exemplified this personally by confronting the powers directly and bearing their violence.  In this way, I think, he 'carried' their fear, which required extraordinary compassion for the persecutor.  The transformative power of such a profoundly relational act is one of the mysteries that Christianity seeks to articulate.  In an act of this kind, violence, or sin, is borne by one party in such a way that it helps to liberate all.

The preservative quality of salt - that it maintains the integrity of something in relation to a hostile environment - is also significant here.  In this respect, we might also understand Jesus' warning about not losing our 'saltiness' in terms of the need not to allow our lives to be dictated (or 'decomposed', as it were) by the unquestioned norms of our social context.

For example, if we live in a context of violence, then we must try to preserve ourselves against becoming part of it, and so adding to it.  By refusing to participate in physical violence, as a conscientious objector does, for example, she weakens the basis of violence itself.  It takes courage to stand against our context in this way, which should caution us against casually judging others for their violent choices when made in circumstances tougher than our own.

These two implications of a process-oriented view of the universe - that peace and war are always in process in the here and how; and that change is a consequence of every act - may be crucial to the way we understand peace and commit to it.  There are other significant implications for peace of process metaphysics, two of which are worth touching upon briefly now.

Two further implications

First, change can be unexpectedly sudden, but a process view cautions against relying on this kind of 'miraculous' change to deliver peace.  Positive change is generally a longer process of progressive steps.  For example, whilst it is true that all the nations could lay down their arms spontaneously tomorrow, disarmament is far more likely to be a process of progressive steps, including building confidence and trust between conflicting parties.  As such, the goal of disarmament assumes and requires that a wider process of change is taking place.  Nations and communities that do not trust one another or see no alternative means of ensuring their own safety are unlikely to receive disarmament proposals readily.  For example, Israel's nuclear arsenal and Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions are largely reflections of the insecurity that each nation experiences in relation to the other.  This does not get them off the hook, however; the intransigence of both parties in relation to one another is pushing the Middle East to a future nuclear stand-off.  Although the process of positive change is generally a slow one, it does still depend on radical acts within it.  Arguably, little could galvanise the global nuclear disarmament process more effectively than the decision by one nuclear weapons state, such as the UK, to disarm, for example.  Radical action within a system of relationships creates a tension within it between how things are now and how they could be different.  In so doing, it charges the system with the potential for change.  For example, the Trident Ploughshares group has made effective use of legal action taken against it to energise the debate about the legality and morality of nuclear weapons.

Second, it is precarious to conceive of violence as a legitimate tool for achieving noble ends.  This is to think of violence as an event with a definite beginning and end, rather than as part of a process.  As a process, the harm of violence resonates beyond the act itself in poisonous ways that we cannot always see, as the complications resulting from recent interventions over Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq testify.  It could not be otherwise in a relational universe in which all things are involved with one another.  This should caution us against the assumption that war can be used as a tool for removing evil as a scalpel can remove a cancer.

Freedom and responsibility in the process universe

To recognise that we are subject to a system of relationships larger than ourselves, as process metaphysics does, is not to imply that we are incapable of free choice.  As the previous article in this series argued, our peculiar human privilege and joy is that we can choose how we live; our burden of responsibility is that we must, for peace and violence are made possible in the power of this choice.

So if peace concerns 'choosing' integrity in relationships, then what does this mean?  A further observation about systems of relationships can help to answer this.  If we imagine a forest ecosystem, for example, we can see that it is characterised by two principles: differentiation and unity.  There is a differentiating principle, in that we see in a forest many unique species, each inhabiting their ecological niche.  There is also a unifying principle - the ecosystem itself, of which every species necessarily forms a part.  There could be no forest - indeed no life at all - were either of these two principles absent.  Remove the unity of the whole system or the differences between the species, and there is no ecosystem.  A forest, then, is not only a unified whole, not is it only a large number of independent organisms, but both these together.  The same is true of any kind of relationship or nexus of relationships, including human society: if we see only what brings us together, or only what makes us unique, then we cannot relate to the world for what it actually is.

If this seems an obscure observation to make, consider that entire political systems are based on emphasising one of these relational aspects over the other.  Marxism, for example, tends to emphasise the unity of society, capitalism the freedom of the individual, and in this difference lie many of the strengths and weaknesses of both.  Marxism aims to make the parts of society instrumental in serving the whole but in so doing may curtail the liberty of the individual.  Ostensibly, capitalism aims to allow the various parts of society to flourish through competition with one another, which is empowering to a point but also marginalises many.  In these ways, each system delivers both freedom and oppression because of the way one relational aspect is emphasised over the other.

If integrity in relationships depends on valuing both differentiation from and unity with, then peace depends on maintaining a creative tension between both principles.  That is, on the one hand, peace affirms the uniqueness of each person or particular community - it values what makes us different from others.  On the other hand, peace also affirms what unifies us with others.  The suggestion here is that when what differentiates us is valued together with what unifies us, there is shalom - integrity and authenticity in relationships.

If we look at each principle in turn, it will be clear why a commitment to peace concerns valuing them together.

Differentiation from: 'I matter'

When we emphasise what differentiates us from others, we act as if 'I matter', which is true.  To do this in a relationship is to behave as an agent: 'a person or thing that exerts power or produces an effect'. [footnote 7] For example, a customer in a restaurant behaves as an agent because they determine which meal the chef prepares.  In relational terms, then, we behave as agents when we seek to influence or resist others. 

The statement 'I matter' is the seed of individualism, in which the prime political object is the individual rather than the group.

Individualism becomes harmful in relation to others when, for example, I act as if I matter and others do not.  That is, in relational terms, individualism is harmful when it results from affirming the differentiated aspect of our being and denying the unified aspect.  Similarly,  a nation state with this attitude would behave on the principle that 'our nation matters; others do not'.  A society of pathologically individualistic people, or a world of unilateralist nation states, would create a more insecure, unjust and violent world.

Unity with: 'You matter'

The converse of agency in a relationship is instrumentality.  In this case, we are not trying to influence others but others are influencing us and so we become instrumental of their will.  This can happen by our choice, for example when we listen to what someone has to say.  It can also happen by the power that others hold over us, for example if economic circumstances force us to take a low-paid service job.

In relational terms, to behave in ways that allow others to influence us is to say, 'You matter,' which is true, and so to emphasise ourselves as unified with others.  I suggest that we take the statement 'You matter' to be the seed of collectivism, in that if we all say 'You matter, I act for you' to one another, the prime political object becomes the group, rather than the individual.

Collectivism becomes harmful when we act as if others matter but we do not; that is, when we are passively slavish in relation to others.  This is to affirm, whether by desire or necessity of circumstance, that which unifies us with others and to deny what differentiates us.  In this case, we risk becoming mere instruments for others to exploit.  At the political level, collectivism will be harmful when the needs of an individual community or nation are neglected in favour of those of the group of nations as a whole.

Peace: 'I, you, we matter'

Clearly, individualism (as agency) and collectivism (as instrumentality) are both important aspects of how we relate to one another.  However, each in their unmoderated form reflects 'bad' relationship, insofar as it feeds conditions of relational breakdown, injustice and violence.  This is why peace, as integrity in relationships,  seeks to sustain a creative tension between valuing what makes us different and valuing what brings us together.

Since the quality of relatedness in peace affirms differentiation and unity together, so it also integrates agency with instrumentality, and individualism with collectivism.  So peace, as shalom, affirms that 'I matter'; that 'you matter'; and in holding the two together as one, necessarily affirms that 'we all matter'.  As such, a fundamental statement of shalom is, 'I, you, we all matter.'  This is as much as to say 'I love' or 'we love', in that it reflects a desire for shared freedom. [footnote 8]

Perhaps most importantly, peace affirms mutuality in relationships, for one cannot say 'I, you, we matter; I love' and seek to dominate others.  Within a relational understanding of the universe, in which we are all involved in one another, peace is only real when fully shared; one person or group cannot enjoy it at the expense of another.  Nor can we treat others' lives simply as means to an end, however noble that end may be, for we cannot share peace with someone we treat only as an instrument of our own will.

So in peace, what it means to become fully alive in relation to one another; what it means to love; and what it means to work for inclusive freedom in the world are aspects of the same commitment.

This understanding of peace also helps to define solidarity.  To say 'I, you, we matter' is to assume standpoints in the world that are, respectively, centred with the self, with 'the other' and (ultimately) with the world as a whole.  Solidarity consists in this standing with, and is therefore a necessary aspect of a peace commitment.

*   *   *

As is often said, our Western cultural paradigm is generally individualistic, for it encourages the 'I matter' more than the 'you matter' and the 'we matter'.  By and large, flourishing is generally considered something for an individual to try to do, rather than society as a whole.  Margaret Thatcher's remark that there is no such thing as society but only individuals epitomised this relational emphasis on the individual at the expense of community.  The United States' cultural emphasis on liberty, which is increasingly expressed as the rights of an individual to pursue personal goals, and of itself as a nation to protect its own freedom, also tends to overlook the importance of liberty as a shared experience, in which we pursue shared goals.

In these respects, our social culture risks favouring the differentiated aspect of our being (what makes us an individual) and neglecting the unified aspect (what brings us together in community), with harmful results.  However, it would be cynical to characterise Western society as rampantly individualistic.  Compassion, which is common to all of us, [footnote 9] shows our humane resilience to the extremes of individualism.  Compassion means literally 'suffering with another' but we might more profitably consider it as 'feeling or resonating with another', since this includes sharing in another's joy, as well as their grief.  Unlike pity, compassion involves standing in solidarity with 'the other'.  As such, every compassionate experience and act manifests and emphasises what unifies us and helps to balance a cultural bias towards the individual.

We also see compassion at a social level to some extent in government spending on overseas development assistance, in emergency appeals for disaster relief, and in social movements campaigning for economic justice, for example.  Perhaps some of the strongest evidence of compassion at a political level is that most of our taxes are used to advance the education, health and social security of strangers.[footnote 10] 

Even so, the desire to flourish in isolation from, or at the expense of others is generally harmful both to others and to oneself, as the previous article in this series argued.  Similarly, a nation state with a strongly unilateralist foreign policy will undermine international relationships and its own interests in the long-term.  For example, North Korea is one of the most unilateralist states in the world and also one of the most isolated and embattled.  Similarly, as the security analyst Paul Rogers has argued, the ambitions of United States neoconservatives to reshape the world on their own terms is a dream as futile in the long-term as it is pernicious now. [footnote 11]

Shalom in relational and process terms

This process-oriented understanding of peace, or shalom, is of a dynamic field of interactions and creative tensions within a rich plurality of differences - the full flourishing of our humanity and ecology.  We might therefore define shalom as:

A dynamic state of relational authenticity, in which we flourish individually and together in our social and ecological context, and a process of activity oriented towards that state.

This understanding invites a re-examination of the meaning of 'violence', to which we now turn.

Revisiting 'violence'

If we understand peace as integrity in relationships, then violence is that which violates relational health or the directed process towards it.  Within this understanding, a definition of violence as the use of physical force is deficient.  We can apply physical force to another without violating relations with them, as we do in any contact sport; in restraining the suspect of a crime; or in moving another person urgently from the path of danger.  All these involve the use of force, and all can take place in a context of, and even as an expression of, relational health.  At the same time, we violate relations with one another in many ways that do not involve physical force at all, for example by lying.  The equation of violence with force does not therefore bear scrutiny well.

This redefinition of violence has implications that many would resist, but which I think we should accept.  For example, amateur boxing is often considered a violent sport.  However, insofar as it is a sport involving two people using coercive physical force against one another by informed, mutual consent, it does not violate the relationship between them.  We could argue that boxers fail to recognise that they are committing violence against themselves, but it is primarily their right to make that judgement.  Professional boxing is less easy to call non-violent, for it is steeped in violence in other ways as a commercial enterprise.  Rugby offers another example of an essentially non-violent activity that affirms the central importance of the coercive use of physical force.  However, a fight on the pitch would transgress the boundaries that the game places on the use of force, and so would be a violation.

There are also many examples of violence, in the sense of relational violations, that do not involve physical force at all.  In the sphere of personal relationships, an attempt to manipulate, scapegoat, or shame others would be a violation of the integrity of relationships.  At a political level, consuming unsustainable amounts of the world's natural resources and causing excessive pollution are violent, for they violate the integrity of our relationship with the wider world.  Buying into consumer culture is violence in that it feeds economic and ecological marginalisation.  Other acts of violence would include attempting to subjugate or oppress others physically, psychologically or emotionally, as well as passively accepting oppression by another against oneself; even the 'mind-forg'd manacles' with which William Blake says we oppress ourselves represent violence against the self. [footnote 12] Other violations of relation include attitudes of selfishness, carelessness, callousness, wanton ignorance and indifference, insofar as these arise from a knowing and therefore chosen negligence.

That this definition of violence excludes certain kinds of acts of coercive physical force and includes certain kinds of non-physical acts does not imply that all acts of violence are of like severity.  For example, it would be absurd not to distinguish the moral difference in the scale of violence between drinking from a plastic cup and prosecuting a war.  Even so, although these two acts are different in scale, in relational terms they are broadly of the same nature.  Both cause and contribute to harm and suffering; both violate the integrity of relations; and both impinge on the dignity of others and of society as a whole.

Within this relational definition of violence, none of us can escape implication in it, including those of us working for peace and even those with a strong pacifist commitment.  An unsettling but unavoidable conclusion is that we are all involved in violence.  This does not mean that our lives should be oriented towards violence, however, for it is in choosing to turn ourselves towards peace that violence begins to diminish.

Difficulties and dilemmas

This relational definition of violence presents dilemmas and difficulties for both the pacifist and 'just war' traditions.  The prevalence of war and entrenched oppression are sore challenges for anyone who wants to engage with the world in a positive and practical way in the cause of peace. 

The just war advocate cannot escape the fact that within an understanding of peace as the integrity of relationships, it is not possible to choose to harm another person (or fight a war) without violating those we harm and kill.  This is self-evident but still needs saying while violent acts continue to be framed in humanitarian terms.  Typically, to wage war is to elect others to suffer and die for purposes that we, not they, have chosen, when few of us would be willing to bear that suffering ourselves for the same ends.  This is to treat human beings on a large scale as means, rather than ends, and in this respect is a massive violation of relationship.

For example, many believe that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been for a noble cause and that the US-led coalition was vindicated when it succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein from power, although many Iraqis believed there were better means of doing so.  The cost of the action will never be fathomed, however.  Over the last two years, the war and occupation have led to the deaths of as many as 100,000 people with many more than this severely injured, traumatised and bereaved.  Of these, unknown numbers were killed by the coalition's choice of indiscriminate weaponry and military tactics.  Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, rarely mentioned and again uncounted, were killed and severely injured.  Most of these were young people or conscripts, many burning and bleeding to death in tanks and trenches in the name of freedom under the weight of the 'shock and awe' campaign.  Many of Iraq's key national assets are now in the hands of Western corporations.  After the recent elections, the promised new era of freedom and prosperity is difficult to envisage while there is a protracted insurgency, political infighting, renewed oppression of many women and key social infrastructure that still lies ruined after years of sanctions and war.  Our own armed forces have also suffered: in the UK and US, the young are recruited into soldiering on a prospectus that deliberately does not (and could not) convey the horrors of war.

It could be argued that the Iraq war is not typical but in its essentials I think it is.  Critiques of the World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War and the more recent conflicts over Kosovo and Afghanistan would be similar.  The fundamental problems lie not with this war or that war but with war itself.

Even armed peacekeeping, which undoubtedly has had positive effects on some conflict situations, is nonetheless problematic.  It relies for its effectiveness on the threat and use of lethal violence.  It also entails maintaining modern armed forces, which means training people to kill, relying mainly on youth recruitment or compulsory military service, sustaining a massive economic investment and accepting as necessary the extensive environmental damage that the military causes.  Armed peacekeeping also presupposes the existence of a military-industrial complex complete with military research institutions and international arms trade, on which it depends.

In many, although not all, conflict situations, civilian 'peacekeepers' or human rights observers offer an alternative to eleventh-hour armed intervention.  For example, the 1999 Kosovo Verification Mission deployed a small number of unarmed personnel to significantly reduce tensions.  Thankfully, the roles of civilian intervention in conflict situations are now better recognised by some national governments and international institutions. [footnote 13]  However, the prime resource for peace- and justice-making in any conflict is always those directly affected, rather than third parties from abroad.

Pacifists also have no room to be comfortable with their commitment.  Oppression and tyranny present a dilemma when we cannot imagine how nonviolent means - however creative and powerful - will transform a situation but it seems that a violent act just might.  What is authentic for a person who rejects violence as a means to an end?

Jesus' example is that love requires us to be faithful to the life that is larger than our own, even at the risk, although not gratuitously so, of harm or even death to ourselves.  The preparedness to answer this call, should it come, is the way of the Cross, and sometimes expressed in secular terms as 'not peace at any price but love at all costs'.  It seems that to be consistent, the Christian pacifist who preaches against militarism in absolute, ideological terms must be as willing as the soldier to risk himself for his convictions.  The pacifist who is not so willing, and most of us probably do not know whether we are, can no sooner escape the dilemma that oppression presents than the thoughtful just war advocate can escape the dilemma of war.

The dilemmas of both the just war and pacifist positions are acute yet need to be seen in perspective.  The psychoanalysts John Maltsberger and Dan Buie warn, 'The three most common narcissistic snares are the aspirations to heal all, know all and love all.' [footnote 14]  Although we might wish that we could take control of a terrible situation and transform it in the service of peace, this is well-intentioned megalomania of a kind that Jesus rejected in the wilderness.  It does not recognise that our power is necessarily limited by the nature of the relational universe; we are to be an influence where we can but not to substitute ourselves for God.  Nor does it recognise that a peace commitment involves an approach to the world informed by certain values, not the prescription of an imaginary perfection.

So much of the pacifist-just war debate is rooted in a desire to be certain of one's own position.  It is as if it is unsatisfactory to hold a view provisionally, yet uncertainty will always be a part of a commitment to peace, just as it is a necessary aspect of faith.  From any comfortable vantage point, it is easy to supply solutions to other people's conflicts, presuming to speak on behalf of those affected rather than allowing them their own voice and listening to it.  We might first pause to ask whether such solutions are truly within our gift, and whether advocacy in respect of other people's conflict is truly within the sphere of our responsibility.

Our understanding is fallible, our imagination limited and the practical results of our choices unpredictable.  In this light, the thoughtful pacifist and just war advocate, both of whom are genuinely concerned with peace and discomfited by the dilemmas that it involves, have much to share with and learn from one another.  However, if we do not recognise the dilemmas - if we think the choices are always obvious and easy - we reflect a harmful inattentiveness to the matter of life and death that we seek to face.

In practice, few real-life situations hinge on whether we take a pacifist or just war position, whereas the practical question of what we can do now for peace is perennial and universal.  Its answer needs to be rooted not in subtle casuistry but in a desire to act authentically in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, interwoven as we are in this relational universe.  That is the theme of the next and final article in this series.

David Gee

Quaker Peace & Social Witness

Appendix - relational aspects of peace

The following table summarises some of the ways that peace integrates differentiation and unity in relationships and the social and political consequences of each, as argued in this article.

 Questions for reflection and discussion

1. Do you think that it is right to think of peace primarily in terms of relationships and the way they change or is there something missing in this?

2. Do you think that there is a dilemma in a 'pacifist' approach?  Can you resolve it, reject it or accept it as unresolved?

3. What can you most strongly agree with in the article and what do you disagree with?

What do you think peace means?

The purpose of this article is to help feed a conversation about the meaning of peace.  Please tell us what you think about this article or send your own views about what peace means.

Write to Disarm, Quaker Peace & Social Witness, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ
Email disarm@quaker.org.uk
Fax 020 7663 1049 

[1] Quoted in the Ecology gallery of the Natural History Museum, London, 2000 [Go back to text]

[2] Shalom and salaam share the same Semitic root.  The context for these articles is the Judaeo-Christian tradition and for the sake of brevity, the Hebrew version of the term is used.  However, the meaning of peace as wholeness and well-being is no less significant within other traditions, including Islam. [Go back to text]

[3] Thich Nhat Hanh: 'Being Peace' (London: Random House, 1992 - UK edition) [Go back to text]

[4] From Thich Nhat Hanh: Love Poem, in 'Call me By My True Names' (Berkeley: Paralax Press, 1993), p. 138 [Go back to text]

[5] For example, see Aburish, Saïd K: 'Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge' (London: Bloomsbury, 2000) [Go back to text]

[6] John, Jeffrey: 'The Meaning of the Miracles', CD audio presentation given at Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival, August 2004  [Go back to text]

[7] Oxford Concise Dictionary.  Another (almost opposite) meaning of 'agency' is to act on behalf of another, but this article uses the term only in the sense specified in the text. [Go back to text]

[8] Etymologically, the word 'freedom' is the state that results from 'love' (Proto-Indoeuropean *pri ['love'] becomes 'free').  See the third article in this series for a discussion of the etymological relationship between 'peace' and 'freedom'. [Go back to text]

[9] A recent experiment demonstrated that the brain registers pain when a loved one is actually experiencing it.  Singer, Tania (et al): 'Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain', in Science magazine, 20 February 2004 [Go back to text]

[10] Whilst it is easy to find examples of pathological self-centredness, pathological other-centredness is also real.  Living vicariously through others is an example of this at a personal level, while Soviet communism, which relegated individual interests to obscurity, is a political example.  A common pathologically other-centred phenomenon is the so-called saviour mentality, in which we project our own need for help onto others, seeking to help them instead of ourselves and doing neither party any good in the process.  To what extent does the desire to meet the needs of others actually stem from unmet needs of our own?

[11] Rogers, Paul: 'Losing Control - Global security in the Twenty-First Century' (Pluto Press: London, 2002) [Go back to text]

[12] It is possible to violate our relationship with ourselves.  A diet based on junk food could be an example of this.[Go back to text]

[13] See, for example, the work of Peaceworkers UK.[Go back to text]

[14]  Cited in Lewis Herman, Judith: 'Trauma and Recovery - From domestic abuse to political terror' (London: Pandora, 2001 - first published 1992), p. 143 [Go back to text]

 Published by Quaker Peace & Social Witness

© QPSW, 2005

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Photographs on this page: The image shows (a tiny!) part of the score of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, which at just 10 minutes long is considered among the great musical compositions of all time.  The piece comprises 40 independent voices grouped into eight choirs of five (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass).  Tallis gives each voice and each choir of five their equal and unique place in the piece, and so a profusion of voices marks the journey of the music.  Each voice and all rise and fall like waves of sound, asserting themselves and yielding to one another within a harmonic tension that is always in flux.  The piece has the character of a community of voices flourishing in relation to itself, evoking musically the integrity in relationships called for in peace, as shalom.  Image © Oxford University Press 1966. Reproduced by permission.

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