To get things going, a broad coalition of anti-war, peace, environmental, and related activist groups would first need to organize collaborative demonstrations and rallies throughout the country. They could then launch a major campaign by phone, email, and social media to recruit additional supporters. Among them, informed speakers would be made available for rallies, town-hall meetings, and accessible media to explain why the impending war must be avoided and to advocate instead for peaceful reconciliation. All other supporters would be urged to promote the No-War message by means of a steady flow of phone calls and emails to the White House and Congress, postings on social media, and letters to newspaper and magazine publishers. That activity would in turn be supported by sit-ins and other forms of non-violent disruption in order to make clear the seriousness of the movement's demands.
As we've seen from points made in the TED TALK, effective mobilization of a non-violent civil-resistance movement can dramatically shift the power structure in a society from a vehicle for aggrandizing the elite to one that implements the will of the people. That fact suggests in turn that, even in a nation as large as the United States, a small percentage of citizens (though, of course, upwards of ten-million in number) who engage persistently over a period of weeks or months in active but peaceful forms of conflict can in fact persuade the most powerful government on earth to forgo plans to launch an unjust war and, instead, pursue with its adversary a negotiated resolution of differences.
Some Concluding Thoughts
To my own mind, war is immoral at its roots, because it violates the very principle of what it means to be a human being. Though the outcomes of war may have a transitory effect on human history, war itself is in fact not a progressive, but a reactionary, force, serving mainly to reinforce a human mindset that famed psychologist Abraham Maslow called "the psychopathology of the average." A principal manifestation of that pathology is the absence of empathy--an inability to see the world from the other guy's point of view or to walk a mile in his moccasins.
This defect is a concern of every major belief system on earth--and often, too, of secular individuals seized by spiritual insight. Yet, the absence of empathy is essential to war. It enables its political and military organizers to pursue greater personal and national power, while paying no heed either to the cause that drives their adversary, or to the death, misery and degradation they will inflict on fellow humans. At the same time, a drumbeat of supportive propaganda inherent in the culture of aggressor nations gives sanction to this betrayal of humanity and reason, further normalizing the psychopathology it represents.
For me, that psychopathology was clearly demonstrated at the February 2018 opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which had taken on special interest as a symbolic parallel to what appeared to be the beginnings of a promising movement toward peace between South and North Korea.
A dramatic moment in the ceremony occurred when TV cameras panning dignitaries in the stadium crowd captured a handshake between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The cameras then turned to Vice President Pence and his wife, who had also been allotted seats in the VIP section following Pence's diplomatic visit the day before with the South Korean president. However, any hopes the broadcasters may have had of capturing a positive American response to the handshake were instantly crushed. While most of the stadium crowd reveled in the signaled possibility of a resolution of tensions between the two Koreas, Pence and his wife--in a scene emblematic of the Bible's unforgiveable sin against the Holy Ghost--sat steadfast in sullen silence. The Pences then remained seated as others rose to cheer the North and South Korean athletes who paraded by in joyful unity.
Just a few days earlier, the Vice President had announced in lugubrious tones that the U.S. would "soon unveil the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever." And, he said, "We will continue to isolate North Korea until it abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile program once and for all." As presented, such actions seemed intended to complete the strangling of the North Korean economy, perhaps at the cost of civilian famine and death. It left no hint of any willingness, or even statesmanlike capacity, to understand the North Korean missile program from the adversary's point of view and, on that basis, to negotiate a settlement of the attendant issues that met both sides' vital interests. Instead, the American position was barbarically one-sided: We're stronger than you are, so we can dictate terms and you have to accept them. In view of the continued stalemate in subsequent efforts to negotiate the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program, it is once more evident that bargaining demands made without regard to the needs of the other side are destined to fail.
If mankind is to achieve a positive outcome of its evolutionary development which is now mainly cultural, not biological--it will have to arrest and reverse this pathology. The immediate reason to do so is of course self-preservation. Unless we learn to convert conflicts with adversaries into negotiated settlements that respect both sides' needs, it seems likely that at some point one antagonist or another will resort to nuclear or other mass violence that risks annihilation of the human race.
Yet, eliminating the scourge of war can serve an even more significant end. For self-aware human beings, a life without war that remains beset by the psychopathologies of egoism, constant antagonisms, and a lack of meaning and purpose is in my view little better than no life at all. Seen from that perspective, the possible ultimate achievement of a legally-binding universal agreement to abolish war would function most importantly as the sign of a moral turning point in human history. It would signal to all of humanity that respect and empathy for others, and a willingness to reconcile their needs with one's own, constitute the soundest basis in any situation for resolving differences and achieving constructive collaboration. If an approach to other people based on that mindset were in fact widely adopted, it would herald a new normal in human behavior that could enrich the human experience we have accepted as normal with yet undreamed-of levels of creativity, meaning, and joy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
