Response to Liv's blog Oct. 22

 Liv Brown in her blog writes about human interconnection and the difficulty of its realization on a global scale when she says, “it became apparent that I am working from a model that can be very idealistic and something that much of the world cannot relate to.” My neighbor asked me what I’m studying in school today.  When I said Peace Studies, she said “What’s that?” I then mumbled something about conflict and she started laughing because she knows how conflicted a life I’ve had.

I too would like to be and stay awake to the interconnection of all beings.  It seems to be a path of nonjudgmentalism, activism, baby steps, giant steps but what it distills down to for me right now is the c word, capacity.  Building a capacity to engage is really the essence of becoming a thread in the woof and weave of peacebuilding.  Lately I’ve come to understand that my view isn’t constant, it changes often and  it changes even more rapidly through engaging with readings, people, history, current events and my own capacity to be in flux .  Maybe the authors and activist’s that we’ve been reading and seeing are breaking that idealism down into pieces that we can chew on and use in some way to bridge that gap between them and us.

Response to Jeremy's blog Oct. 7

Jeremy Scott responds to Falk's article "On Humane Governance" by highlighting two aspects of his normative project, taming war and abolishing war.  Jeremy writes that categorizing war into two dimensions is confusing it will also allow us to believe that war is okay, it just depends on how it's approached.  " I think that "taming war" is saying that war is okay and that once it is under control it will be used properly and efficiently, but seriously does anyone think that a "tame war" is less damaging and destructive then an "untamed war[?]"(Scott) I agree with Jeremy and also see, as does Jeremy, that war is not just going to disappear overnight.  Falk's "taming war" is a brief history of attempts to regulate war and dilute the intensity of it through "principals of religion and morality."(Falk 251)  He readily admits its failures and his own disappointment and states that there needs to be stronger attentions paid to abolishing war, the central issue of the normative project.   

I just finished reading Betty Reardon's "Sexism and the War System" which takes into consideration the idea that war is a masculine linear creation and is limited to this structure.  She's ultimately saying that to engage the feminine view with the masculine will "produce" a better outcome for peace. She says that peace activists are more aligned with a feminist agenda because they are examining the well being of women from an economic, political and non aggressive perspective.  I found it fascinating that she wrote this article in 1985!  She was a visionary.  I think Barash put her article after Falk's for a reason.  Emmanuella talked about reading Reardon's article right after reading Falk's and it leveled out her view, that's what it did for me too.

   

Global Economic Solidarity

The end of poverty is the most urgent challenge of our generation Jeffrey Sachs declares in this lecture given in 2007. (167)   He asserts that peace will never be a viable option if economic development in third world countries aren’t attended to: “An army can never pacify a hungry, disease-ridden and impoverished population.” (167)  He says we need to access science and technology to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how to meet this challenge.

The “ladder of development” is a way for impoverished countries to join into the world market and benefit from global development; when they integrate into this system they begin to make progress.   Sachs says that the problems then are the countries that aren’t part of this system, and have been in effect overlooked by globalization.  Africa is the most notable example of this.  He dispels the idea that the only obstacle to Africa’s development is the corruption factor, the general myth, and goes on to further explain that the other obstacle not usually taken into consideration is its “ecology, history, weak infrastructure and …population growth.”(168)   Identification and awareness of these problems then allow for the scientific solutions to be engaged.

Sachs names these obstacles to breaking free of poverty as low food production, disease, and infrastructure and population growth.  His insight into a solution is built on technologies, insecticide treated bed nets that will help reduce mosquitoes and the spread of malaria, antiviral medicines to treat AIDS and HIV. Agronomy, the science and technology of cultivating and using plants as a sustainable and renewable resource is a way to build farming communities that would in turn use high yield seeds and create food sources.  Population growth occurs at such high rates because, Sachs assets, of the high rate of infant mortality, thus families have more children to compensate for their losses or projected losses.   Non access to contraception and education for the women and girls are also an integral part of population growth.  The girls don’t have the opportunity to go to school and work so are encouraged to have children and mother.

The resources to help the countries in poverty, Sachs says, need to come from the global community of wealthier nations.  We need to not only help them to create their own local economies and infrastructures, but we need to offer and commit to a significant financial support.  The Nordic countries have done this as social welfare countries.  They have extended their systems to others and have actively practiced their values and “eliminated poverty in their midst and achieved the best heath outcomes in the world, they have also fostered the confidence to extend such solidarity to the rest of the world.”(171)

Sachs concludes with some rules of solidarity: use scientific evidence, states should take an active role, and honor our commitments to fight poverty.  He again reminds us as he did in the beginning of the lecture, that “we are all in this together, that

our fates, economic and otherwise, are shared, and that the defeat of poverty will be a victory of security for all on the planet.”(171) 

           

I noted that this lecture was given in 2007, before global economic disaster manifested so clearly.  I wondered if any of his perspectives might be different had the global climate been as contrasted as it is now.  I thought this was kind of idealistic and then was reminded that a lot of the authors that we’ve been reading are idealistic and visionary.  I did think about his population theory regarding not having birth control and compensating for child mortality. This has truth in it however both times that I read it I thought that sex just might be a free pleasure to them, and maybe they love children and maybe mothering is more highly valued in their culture than it is in the west. I’m thinking there is a lot of complexity in this issue.

Food * Health Joy Justice Nature

How can we make locally grown food accessible to everyone?  How can we transform people from consumers into citizens?  What does it mean when the goal of a society is to save time? How do we reinvent the food system? How can we design a food system that ensures health, accessibility and is affordable to everyone?  These are some of the questions that Food addresses.  Des Kennedy narrates the documentary and begins locally, in his own garden in British Colombia.  He holds up a tomato and asks us to consider if we know where it was grown, what has it been sprayed with, how long has it been in a warehouse, where was it shipped from and how has its genes been modified?  He bridges this into the question, “When did we start believing that how food looks was important?”   Kennedy draws us in to this controversial conversation with an open line of questioning and then provides us with intelligent and thought provoking answers from devoted food activists. 

Debbie Field shares some of the benefits of FoodShare Toronto.  Food sharing  is a community event, an occasion and an opportunity to participate in a social sphere and culture. Food becomes a common commodity and a way to appreciate local agriculture and restore and reinvest in the financial economics of the local community.  Eating properly is an investment in proper nutrition and good health so it becomes a social action that supports a cohesive community.  

Kennedy also makes a powerful point when he says that food banks, not community food shares based on local agriculture, are repositories for left over industrial foods, and are a “permanent reminder of an economic system gone awry.”  They let the government off the hook by redistributing “industrial waste”, as he refers to industrialized food.  Community based local food shares build community and awareness of environment, economics and ecosystem.  Food banks that are subsidized by industrialized foods continue to feed the problem and are not a sustainable solution.

The documentary highlights the Brazilian city Bello Horizonte, as a model of sustainable agriculture and ecological integration.  The government is on board with keeping the citizens well fed and sees food as a basic human right.  The government must guarantee food security to its citizens so they make sure that  good, nutritious food is sold at affordable prices.  The government also makes sure that the food is accessible to urban areas through mobile delivery. 

This system sustains rural farmers because it gives them the economy to continue to produce foods that not only feed the citizens of the local area, it feeds the residents of the local cities.  This system is renewing on many levels. It changes the relationships of the food producers to a more respectful societal role, they are humanized and therefore embedded into the communal system as an integral part of it.  Sustaining farmers and rural farm land becomes a political issue as well.  Bello Horizonte understands this and  is aware of how urban sprawl will affect agricultural land reserves.

Brewster Kneen addresses the issue of seed banking.  He talks about the importance of preserving heritage seed varieties.  This is extremely important because the environment is so fragile that we have to consider the future and build an arsenal of seeds.  He says that food diversity is most important, not perfection of foods.   We don’t need to manipulate food or have control over nature; we need to appreciate and realize that everything is already perfect.  We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

How can we reinvent the food system?  Some of the solutions are:

>recreate systems of reciprocity

>support local farmers

< realize that there’s no class distinction when it comes to eating

>vote with your dollars through every purchase you make

>seek out alternatives

> raise awareness

> create a demand; make a problem that has to be solved by larger food industry

>eat right

Assert, resist and recreate a relationship to organisms inside and outside of ourselves.  This will transform us from consumers into citizens.

This was a terrifically informing documentary.   I worked as a chef for a majority of my life and could appreciate the intensity, clear thinking and devoted action in the film.  I have a large organic garden and share it with my small community.  We just expanded it this year with the help of our friend and tenant who is a Naropa graduate student in environmental leadership.  She has begun to teach me about being a better land steward.  This year when we planted she taught me about seeds and seed banking.  This film filled in a lot of the gaps.  The big awakening from this film for me was thinking about food as a non-negotiable human right,  kind of a duh moment but necessary to put it in a different framework.

Human Rights

Barash paraphrases Jerome Shestak’s interpretation of Sisyphus as a hero in this piece on an overview of human rights.  Sisyphus perseveres in the face of predetermined failure and symbolically communicates “that the human spirit is indomitable and that dedication to a higher goal is in itself man’s reason for living…” illustrating that sometimes the struggle in itself is the best effort for improving human dignity" (185).

  
Included in the piece are  the history, political philosophy, the role of the United Nations, enforcement , relationship to peace and the future of human rights, exposing  the complex web and hierarchy of the most essential element of peacebuilding.  Barash describes a spine of different human rights political philosophies including Liberalism, Conservatism and Group Oriented. These approaches distill human rights into a form that fits into the specific political system.  Barash emphasizes “Western political thought is not limited to individualism and human rights; rather it coexists with respect for -and often virtual worship of- the state” (177).

Barash responds to Richard Falk’s proposal of basic human rights by contrasting it with the political philosophies based on liberal, conservative and group oriented.  Falk's four categories of human rights: basic human needs, basic decencies, participatory rights and security rights are citizen centered a shifted view of human rights that actually benefit the human. (180) Barash points out that human rights are usually  designed to be a protection from the government rather than an obligation of  government, to the people,  to protect individual’s human rights. 

How are the human rights systems, old and new, moving toward human’s rights?  Barash addresses this through a brief outline and critique of the United Nations, international laws and enforcement of them.  He points out that of States interventions which are enacted to facilitate and help are usually subtexts for strong arming, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and an illusory basis for the continuation of nuclear weapons.  “Such actions are of uncertain effectiveness, but they do attract a degree of public attention, while also serving to undercut the presumption that only state-centered approaches are relevant in dealing with violations of human rights”(183).  The parable of Sisyphus demonstrates the endurance of and the surrender to the indomitable human spirit.  The pursuit of human rights is an ongoing process, and worthy of remembering Sisyphus’ journey as path.

Reflection:

 I read this piece twice because there was a lot to understand.  On second reading I realized that Barash is really just skimming the surface of human rights.  As an example, I did further research on Utilitarianism and began to see that if I were to learn more deeply of it, I would have a different view of what Barash is writing.  Another example is when Barash refers to Plato’s, The Republic, I realized I couldn’t use it as a known reference, therefore how could I really understand and contextualize Barash’s writing?  I’m left with a greater understanding of how much I need to learn.  And I just want to say to everyone, thank you.

psychic split

"For these patients whom I analysed had enjoyed good mental health until the moment at which an occurrence of incompatibility took place in their ideational life—that is to say, until their ego was faced with such an experience, an idea or a feeling which aroused such a distressing affect that the subject decided to forget about it because he had no confidence in his power to resolve the contradiction between that incompatible idea and his ego by means of thought-activity" (Freud 1894a, p. 47).

Oh, now I get it.  This is what I feel and see in others.  Now the journey really begins.  

On Humane Governance

Reading this piece was a humbling experience.  I had to look up lots of words that I thought I knew because my understanding of them didn’t fit into Richard Falk’s contexts.  He uses words within a framework that imbue them with intense and poignant meaning. To begin at the end of his essay, he uses the word democracy.  One of the definitions in The American Heritage College Dictionary, 4^th Ed., defines it as “common people considered as the primary source of political power”. (377) 

Falk envisions a new global community embodying the essence of democracy.  His vision includes “legitimization of democratic ideas of governance on a universal basis…” (258)   He says that a new dynamic of nonviolence cannot occur without the full engagement of individuals endowed with dignity and worth.  We need to participate in our  local and global communities full cognizant of our roles as active citizens.  

             
            Falk frames his vision of humane governance in the words “normative project”.  Normative in this context is defined as new basic standards for a nonviolent global community.   He breaks this into ten dimensions, evidenced through history, the past, its effect, negatively or positively, the present, which result in ideas outlining intent to new norms of behavior.  He addresses the individual as part of a system influenced by education, culture, politics, environment, spirituality and society and messages the importance of accountability. 

Nonviolent revolutionary politics, the sixth dimension of normative change is about replacing violence with nonviolent action.  Reconstruction of a non violent world can only occur by displacement of violence.  “This sense that nonviolence can challenge formidable power systems is indispensable in relation to the central struggles against war, militarism, and civic abuse of all types.” (255), but the intent has costs and is infused with devoted efforts to change within existing individual and global structures. Falk states that war is embedded within our social institutions, unmanageable because of the flux in power and authority.  The outline of new norms is a way to flush out the inherent historical beliefs and assumptions that continue destruction and might provide a breath of hope.

            
        “Complex ideas are difficult to express simply”, my husband told me when I complained to him about the density of this piece.  I don’t know if this blog expresses any simplicity or it’s just pretentious.  I tried to express my genuine understanding.  It’s good practice.

The Special Significance of Nuclear Weapons and a little “Just War”

I read all our Peace Studies articles this week while I was getting my hair colored for two hours.  As I read the pieces, especially “The Special Significance of Nuclear Weapons”, I experienced a kind of disconnect.   Occasionally I would glance in the mirror and see the image of an aluminum foiled person looking back at me.  The realization of how detached I was from the reading material made me want to laugh and cry.   How strange to be reading about the  profound destruction caused by nuclear weapons and the possibility of human annihilation while partaking in a vanity ritual.  I felt vulnerable and shallow and in defense joked to myself that at least I would die looking good.  It seemed funny in my mind at the moment, but as I kept on reading, the descriptions of people who had survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki came up.  Here is one account;

“The sight of the soldiers was more dreadful than the dead people…I came upon…    many, burned from the hips up…where the skin had peeled, their flesh was wet and mushy…and they had no faces! Their eyes, noses and mouths had been burned away, and it looked like their ears had melted off.  It was hard to tell from front to back”. (71)

Barash and Webel write about the nature of nuclear weapons, matter changed into energy.  The Einsteinian equation E=mc2, or simply put for a non-scientific mind, huge amounts of energy released called fusion, is the character of nuclear weapons.  The effects of these weapons have been witnessed only on two occasions in history on Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the United States.  Nikita Khrushchev said that “following a nuclear war, the survivors would envy the dead”.  (70)  This was reiterated in the accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.  The psychological trauma to the citizenry was devastating, their spirits broken.  

Barash and Webel write about the technology of nuclear delivery systems, bombers used as launch platforms, ballistic missiles, missiles able to travel at high speeds of delivery, nuclear submarines, functioning on nuclear energy and carrying nuclear missiles, and cruise missiles, pilotless aircraft that travel at the speed of sound and run lower to the ground making them more difficult to detect. The history and application of nuclear technology funnels into the strategic doctrine of deterrence.  It is defined as “the plans that purportedly underlie the accumulation of nuclear weapons, the justifications for their existence, and the expectations as to their use.” (76)  We learn exactly what nuclear weapons are, how they are deployed and what their effects are. The US uses deterrence as its method of defense.  Any country that would attack the US would be mercilessly attacked back.    “The basic premise of deterrence has remained that no country would use nuclear weapons against the other so long as the victim retains the ability to cause unacceptable damage to the attacker.” (77)

Connecting this to Richard Falk’s, “Defining A Just War”, I can use four of the principles of “just war” doctrine, discrimination, proportionality, humanity and necessity to act as a lens to look at deterrence. (136)  The strategic deterrence doctrine is based on retaliation.  If we were to apply the four principals of “just war” than nuclear weapons couldn’t be an option because they can’t fit into any of the “just war” parameters.  The only conclusion is that deterrence is only strategic when it’s based on the principals of keeping human life.

Okay, so I’m trying on new ideas through completely different lenses.  I can see the holes in my thinking and it’s okay, I’ll keep trying.  I like this process, it’s broadening my perspective but it kind of feels like a mental Jane Fonda workout, “no pain no gain”.  I can see how this process of looking helps in my life.  My mother called and I was able to see her point of view for about four minutes. Hallelujah!

Groupthink

 One of the definitions of groupthink as discussed in Irving Janis’ book excerpt is that it is a subtext of nonverbal cues and subtle manipulations, consciously or unconsciously activated within a group.  These subtle messages affect the process of groups in their decision making.  It isn’t always bad news but it is when the decisions are being made with limited, controlled and manipulated information, especially when the decisions involve human lives.   Janis references the book 1984, George Orwell’s big brother story, about Oligarchy and seeds groupthink into the 1984 vocabulary.  This puts the word in a linguistic context and also gives it a connotation of something unjust, : as Janis writes,   “The invidiousness is intentional: groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment”. (32)

  

Janis continues with six main ideas that he describes as “defects in decision making” (33).  All of them are about how information is resourced within the group.  Some of the problems he talks about are not enough examination of the data or reexamination of it, not getting valid outside opinions, or not taking those opinions seriously, or the members of the group are interested only in the data that supports their views.  His point in discerning these behaviors of information sorting is to examine how decisions are made.  Poor decisions are the results of faulty processes that include many forms of psychological, emotional and intellectual manipulation.  

Groupthink is  “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking  that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group,  when members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” (32).    He uses as an example the Bay of Pigs decision and explains the phenomenally dysfunctional history of the process from inception to action to failure.  He “ranks it among the worst fiascoes ever perpetrated by a responsible government” (34).  Contributing factors to this were that all the major assumptions were wrong.  The whole idea was based on incorrect information and assumptions that the event would go the way they planned.  The Nixon/ Eisenhower, Kennedy/ Johnson administrations made up the scripts and expected that they would be followed, not taking into consideration "other options". Janis asserts that groupthink creates a vacuum, a sense of invulnerability to danger.

Robert McNamara talks about the Bay of Pigs in the documentary  "The Fog of War" with a long view of what happened.  The first lesson that he tells us that he learned is to “empathize with your enemy”.  His more recent view holds more wisdom now than it did during the actual event. McNamara in 1962 was a main actor in  groupthink during the Kennedy administration and an even bigger one in the invention of the Vietnam War.  The distillation of his part in the decisions of the Bay of Pigs is that  “it was luck that prevented nuclear war” not erroneous thinking. 

I chose to write about this excerpt on groupthink because it was so rich and difficult and pushed me to think, contemplate and write from a less emotional point of view.  It also hit home, maybe a little too closely.  I have been struggling for many years with my own version and aversion to groupthink in my spiritual community.  I shy away from the vocabulary  used  and actually get stomach aches when I hear a lot of it being used.  When I pulled away from my community I felt like a traitor, all my hard work seemed like it dissolved because I lost the witnessing of my chosen community.  It has taken a lot of time to regain my self confidence and work through resentments.  This is difficult to write about. I will have to take some time to reexamine my experience through Janis' model.

  Reading and tasting all these different points of view, from other classes as well,  is beginning to give me a new lens to see through.  Writing about these different viewpoints helps me to discern what my own are, and to examine their origins, effects and validity.   This blog post was an attempt to practice with this new lens.  Is this the beginning of an "open dialogue"?

September 11, 2011 Terrorism

     I would like to start this post with a short excerpt from a book not in this week's readings. It's from It's Up To You, Chapter1, Looking In the Mirror, by Dzigar Kontrul; "We like to see ourselves as strong and in control but we are more like a  fragile eggshell that is easily broken.  This makes us feel deeply vulnerable-and not in a good way. This vulnerable self requires protection, armoring, the gathering of forces, and the construction of walls.  As a result, we become painfully trapped.  We are increasingly fearful of relaxing with things as they are and increasingly uncertain that anything will work out the way we would like"(4).

     I read this shortly after reading Ali Gomaa's piece on the meaning of jihad.  What really struck me was that jihad has many more meanings than just the political use of it as an evil Darth Vaderish enemy trying to squash America.  He educates us to it's internal meaning, that of a personal struggle with armament surrounding the ego, or the struggle to drop the armament that separates Muslim's  from God.  He explains that jihad is "a spiritual exercise of opposing the lower self."(236).  This journey is the greater jihad because it is the journey of a lifetime.

     He mentions another meaning, that of "just cause", which in this case is about self- defense and to prevent aggression. He quotes from the Quran, "Fight in the way of God against those who wage war against you, but so not commit aggression". Islam is a path toward understanding oneself and others.  It's only when the tenets of the religion are taken to an extreme, that it morphs into something different from it's original meaning.
Fundamentalism is a solidification of  beliefs.  This happens in every religion.  If we look at ourselves, the US, we have fundamentalism taking over our political system rampantly.  Look at  Bachman, Perry, Romney, Bush, Palin.

     We have taken jihad and turned it into the world family scapegoat.  We are looking at the symptoms of aggression, and singling out a group and creating the "we'll fix you and then everything will be alright" system.
Gomass teaches us that Muslim extremism is not the fundamental meaning of Islam. As I read each piece, my mind (and heart), kept searching for answers.  How can terrorism, the fear of annihilation, be resolved?  What I kept coming back to was that it can't,  within the same dynamic from which it arose.  Einstein said that  insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Haven't you done this in your life?  I know I struggle with that dynamic daily.    Thich Nhat Hanh , says "Reconciliation is to understand both sides"(227), understanding the suffering of both sides  This is the practice of being able to accommodate contradiction and can and does create a space for a larger geography, and effectively a new dynamic.

     Terrorism targets people, human lives to send a message to the leaders and to create fear. I think it is democracy turned inside out, it is not for and of the people.  We are still in a cold war, compassionless and
inhumane.  So I hope these acts of fear will wake us all up and help us to find better ways to attend to conflict.  I think that ultimately there is no "just war", however, because the  reality is that it exists, we have to take full responsibility for our part.

September 5, 2011 Well, so much is happening. I've been reading articles from PAX 250 all weekend. The articles also dove tail with my Contemporary Ed class. I'm awakening to a world that coexists with my internal life. I want to cry and also fall to the ground in gratitude. I'm having lots of ideas about how to be more active in the community. There is so much information out there and I still feel like I can only do so much. Maybe my capability will increase over time. I've been aware of 9/11 media coverage. It's brought me to understand how important it is to remember history and to remember our own experiences of it through out our lives. I have an idea for 9/11, to create a space for people to come and share their memories of 9/11.  What were they doing that day? Or even the day after? What Q's are important to ask?

September 5, 2011 1:47 PM