Can Humans Live in Peace?

[Norsemaiden]

No. I believe that human beings are incapable of living in peace without opression. Peace does not refer to a lack of armed/physical conflict alone, I feel that there is more involved besides physical safety.



Our "civilization" is based on the exploitation of other human beings.

The "state of nature" that exists between individual countries, countries which are not realistically (or really even formally) bound by the conventions and rules of a "society", this state of interaction operates in the same manner.

Just look at Iraq. The United States invaded a foreign country arbitrarily, captured that country's leader, and executed him. They now occupy this country. This is some pretty heavy medieval-style shit going down right here if you stop and think about it in these terms.

Between countries, and between individuals in a "society", the strong exploit the weak, for their own benefit.


Even within our society (I am Canadian), there is, in a sense, no peace. Corporations, empowered by the population's desire to consume, can do whatever they want to us, and get away with it. The government can do the same.

Some would say we live in a society of peace, because we can consume, exploit, and live (or die), in an environment of safety, where we do not need to fear for our safety or wellbeing. While physically this may be the case, economically it is not.

Even physically it is not completely true.

Heck, I got into a fairly serious fight on public transit not three weeks ago, and because neither I nor the person I fought chose to press legal charges, nothing happened to either of us (besides fairly severe physical injuries...).

My girlfriend is harassed on the street daily, by men alone and in groups. She certainly doesn't feel safe from physical harm, not when she is alone in broad daylight.

What you speak of is a situation where only the threat from the law stops a war from breaking out. That is the tension that almost all Western urban areas are now in. Oppression is one way to have "peace" but once the oppression can't hold the anger back, this will immediately break down.
I had no idea it was so bad in parts of Canada.

 

[Norsemaiden]

But an armed murder can still fit within your definition of peace?

I'm pushing the point basically because I don't understand the worth of notions of peace, unless they are applied at an individual level. I don't see that it matters if two countries are at war or not, if their citizens are fighting amongst themselves anyway.

To actually answer the question, yes, I think humans can live 'in peace' but I believe the likelyhood of all humans living in peace for extended periods of time to be very slim, and I don't see that that is a problem.

If it's inevitable then there would be no use in seeing it as a problem, so that's reasonable.
No I wasn't calling an armed murder a breakdown in peace. Not if it's just an isolated incident. But the more it happens then the more it shows an undercurrent of change that eventually leads to war.
Sometimes it is a matter of opinion whether there is peace or not.
According to Colin Powell there is no peace in the US because the civil war is not over until there is what he would consider full racial equality. So he obviously considers that America is fighting an internal racial war of sorts.

 

[felinusz]

"Bad" is relevant I suppose.

If I didn't wear my hair long, and if I wasn't so foolish as to respond to an unprevoked personal insult from another person by standing up, I would be pretty much completely safe during the day in most parts of the city.

There are parts of the city that are not safe for certain demographics, certain racial profiles.

There are many parts of the city that do not "feel" safe at night.



My girlfriend has men whistle at her, approach her, make lewd suggestions to her - but she has never been attacked. This happens pretty much everywhere in the world to young women who are alone?



I have never seen a weapon where I live. People do not carry or use guns where I live, unless they are criminals or police officers. I have never seen a gun here, except on a police officer, in the 21 years I have lived in this city. I ride public transit every day and feel safe enough to sleep on the train. We have free healthcare, lots of jobs, lots of taxes, and a mayor who legitimately tries to not just improve, but fix social problems.


This is turning into quite a rant, but my point with this specific post, is that although there is certainly not economic peace here, there is an environment of relative safety. If my girlfriend got attacked, police would be there very fast. If I didn't choose to bark back at the other puppies, I wouldn't ever get into fights. Every time I have been in a fight, the police have appeared literally within minutes (I won't get into how the police here treat everyone else.... let's leave it at the fact that they enforce the law effectively, which I am glad for).


What bothers me, and truly appalls me about my country, is the economic war which is occurring. The poor people are kept poor, the rich and the corporations are kept rich. The system is "fair", but weighted heavily to those who already posess economic clout, especially when you factor in the media-created urge to consume. A wise man once stated that poor people will quite legally sign their lives away on a contract, in exchange for food, if they desperately need it.

There are people slaving away working overtime at manual labor jobs, who spend a large chunk of their entire paycheque (many use paycheque-advance services which come with interest charges and service fees, and essentially source-deduct their income further, beyond the initial government taxation) on mortgage, food, neccessities. These people all own private-label (because banks won't deal with them due to their poor credit) store credit cards (with 25+% annual interest rates that are compounded daily), and use these cards to purchase their big screen T.V., their matresses, their patio furniture, and their clothing. They are given the ability to own posessions which they cannot afford. This destroys them, and destroys the future of their children - at least without imposing further debt for post-secondary education (which is not free).


Let's talk about post secondary education a little bit more. In my country, you essentially need it if you want to have an intellectual career, or really any sort of career that breaks free of general soul-sucking, television-watching-inducing, brain draining monotony. A college degree will launch one into a highly competitive job-market, where it is difficult to become established without extreme luck, or extreme talent. The "self-made" who dropped out of high school to become rich/successful are either lucky, abnormally skilled in some manner, or are insanely driven.

And further, because everyone who can afford to do so sends their children to University, many degree programs have become under-valued and generally trivialized. A BA will get you in the door, but it won't launch your career; not without the afore mentioned luck or unnatural skill. The "higher end" job market for those with Bachelor's degrees is also crowded and competitive. This has created a need for further education, if one truly wants to persue their dreams and hope to make a difference in this world. Graduate school and graduate degrees have replaced "entry level" University.



Why did I just blither on about all that, I hear you ask.

Well, university education, law school, graduate school, medical school, all of this costs an absolute truckload of money - payable to privately operated educational institutions - institutions which are making a lot of money for themselves. Without it you're stuck in a rut of call-center, retail, and manual labor jobs that don't pay very well, or provide any opportunity to make a fucking difference to it all. The trades are a viable route of course (as is the military ) - and I suppose in the looming post-apocalyptic society, a tradesman will do very very well, having a high chance of survival (I intend to go to Law School myself though, and am working my ass off saving money to do so ).


This educational issue is one aspect of my society that represents a state of econimic war to me. Economic inequality has fueled an income gap that is only growing, while consumption and material desires hold steady. Surely this is not peace. These people are not "safe".

 

[Norsemaiden]

My girlfriend has men whistle at her, approach her, make lewd suggestions to her - but she has never been attacked. This happens pretty much everywhere in the world to young women who are alone?

No - there are big differences. Obviously women don't go out at night to clubs alone unless they are meeting someone there or they are a hooker - but if you just mean being alone in the day or the evening then there are places where women will be seriously harrassed and they are areas where Muslims congregate and Islamic countries (also Turkey) in particular. It is not something European women can expect from European(racially) men at all. There is always the odd drunken letch, but they are odd.
In the near future no one will believe women had such freedom and all "respectable" women will have to be accompanied and cover themselves up like Muslims the way it's going.
This is off topic!
Ok - to make it on topic - there will be war while the Muslims attempt to impose their culture onto the rest of us. That's coming up at some point.

 

[felinusz]

Hahahaha . The muslims!? Try to impose their culture on the rest of us!?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you have it backwards .


Not to say I don't agree with my country's involvement in Afghanistan, given that I feel women deserve equal rights, respect, dignity, fair access to education and high profile jobs.

(Although you have to ask, why the fuck we're in Afghanistan of all places, when there are numerous other countries, in Africa, that need our help much much more. Alterior political-economic motives perhaps?)

 

[OldScratch]

Hahahaha . The muslims!? Try to impose their culture on the rest of us!?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you have it backwards .


Not to say I don't agree with my country's involvement in Afghanistan, given that I feel women deserve equal rights, respect, dignity, fair access to education and high profile jobs.

(Although you have to ask, why the fuck we're in Afghanistan of all places, when there are numerous other countries, in Africa, that need our help much much more. Alterior political-economic motives perhaps?)

I think you are confusing government-lead intervention with culture and individual behavior. You will find that few, if any, here support America or its allies sticking their collective nose into every foreign corner of the globe under the preposterous rubric of "spreading democracy" "fighting terror" "liberating" or some similarly noxious bromide.
What Norsemaiden is saying(if I may fairly speak on her behalf) is that the behaviors you describe are not common to certain peoples, yet clearly are to others. When the "others" come to western nations(by whatever means)there should be a certain expectation of conformity to behavioral norms, etc. However, in a world where we praise and insist upon the social folly known as "multiculturalism" it is of course considered bad form to demand that "immigrants" behave in any fashion but that which suits them. The urban areas of virtually all of the western world are feeling the effects of these arrogantly experimental policies. The Muslim reference would be just one example and is currently a bigger issue in Europe than North America as far as I can tell.

 

[felinusz]

I understand the point now .

I suppose an example would be that there is a 'similar' problem here, with immigrants imposing planned/forced marriage on their Canadian-born children.

 

[infoterror]

I suppose an example would be that there is a 'similar' problem here, with immigrants imposing planned/forced marriage on their Canadian-born children.

Why is that a problem? They're preserving their culture.

 

[OldScratch]

Why is that a problem? They're preserving their culture.

Not a problem at all...but a fantastic illustration of why multiculturalism is so potentially problematic.

 

[felinusz]

It's a problem in this country, because their children have to an extent assimilated to our culture, because of their peers, because of the media, because of their role models.

So, their children - and the rest of their community's second generation population - find it to be a rather serious problem. The kids want to choose their own partner, and have no qualms about taking their time to find the right one.

Does it bother me? No.

 

[Norsemaiden]

It's a problem in this country, because their children have to an extent assimilated to our culture, because of their peers, because of the media, because of their role models.

So, their children - and the rest of their community's second generation population - find it to be a rather serious problem. The kids want to choose their own partner, and have no qualms about taking their time to find the right one.

Does it bother me? No.

But who is forcing these Muslims to marry people from their home country? Presumably it is their parents, who perhaps have not been born in the West, and whom you assume to be more fundamentalist than their western born children.

Strange then, that it is the YOUNGER generation that is far less inclined to integrate and are the most fundamentalist!

A bleak picture of a generation of young British Muslims radicalised by anti-Western views and misplaced multicultural policies is shown in a survey published today.

The study found disturbing evidence of young Muslims adopting more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues
Forty per cent of Muslims between the ages of 16 and 24 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in Britain, a legal system based on the teachings of the Koran. The figure among over-55s, in contrast, was only 17 per cent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/29/nmuslims29.xml

It is a habit of those who favour "multiculturalism" (which is really about losing cultural identity and blending) to believe that the truth is how their warped intuition suggests it should be. In fact this is usually very far off the mark.

 

[felinusz]

Strange then, that it is the YOUNGER generation that is far less inclined to integrate and are the most fundamentalist!

Well, they are spending the majority of their social time with their peers - schooling with them, engaging in extracurricular activities with them, dating them, and going over to their houses for supper.

They are rebelling against their parent's culture, not against the culture of their peers. So in a sense, they integrate into the culture of their peers fairly painlessly - they certainly embrace it for the most part.

I think if thier peers where religious fanatics, trained as suicide bombers, you would find the same thing occuring, regardless of parential influence.

 

[tagradh]

With the amount of things that can disturb peace such as differing opinions, resources, territory etc and the frequency in which all of these change it seems unlikely, for the time being anyway, that people will.
Even without wars you could easily argue that we don't really live in peace, on a much smaller scale, as people are always arguing with each other. But them humanity is still very young and probably doesn't even have the tinyest fraction of knowledge it will one day.
I can't remember what the other posts said now, hah. Being up all night and still being moderately drunk = fail. ;<

 

[Vimana]

There is always a certain thing that ones mind is concrete on, it's not always the same. Therefore there are people in the world who mix like oil and water.

But peace (according to dictionary.com) is "the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world." So we can disagree as long as we don't fight, I believe that is possible.

 

[infoterror]

If we don't die, we can exist without mortality, in other words.

 

[Έρεβος]

Wondering... why the hell would it be half-desirable for humans to live in peace?

Boy do I love unrealistic, unnatural, biologically damaging, ideologically daft, yet nigh-universally very, very, very desired ideas...

 

[10293847]

To this question, I would ask: Is anything ever a constant?

There is always conflit in certain areas, and peace in others. There is never 100&#37; peace nor 100% war.

Only death (nothing) remains the same.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Wondering... why the hell would it be half-desirable for humans to live in peace?

Boy do I love unrealistic, unnatural, biologically damaging, ideologically daft, yet nigh-universally very, very, very desired ideas...

A relative peace would be good. I suppose it's just that one doesn't want to feel that one is under threat from other tribes wiping out one's own tribe. That's a very unpleasant experience.

Perhaps as long as there are different groups encroaching on each other's territory or threatening to, there will be conflict, but this could be avoided with either careful management and low populations or else resolved by one group of people wiping out their competitors.

Struggle is something to enjoy, but only when there is a chance of advancement, not when it is hopeless and only ruination seems to be the inevitable outcome.

 

[Seditious]

A relative peace would be good. I suppose it's just that one doesn't want to feel that one is under threat from other tribes wiping out one's own tribe.

couldn't Hitler have secured us this peace? So long as anyone is beyond strong opposition that threat goes away and the reigning tyranny lives in harmony, peacefully putting women back in the kitchen, or blacks back on the cotton fields, or gays back in hiding, or children in silence, or whatever...

again, this merely 'no threat' peace sounds horrible to me---I hope Israel or China or somewhere remains to challenge the supremecy of the USA, because a peace under their dominance would be awful.

 

[felinusz]

a peace under their dominance would be awful.

I think that this would apply to any culture.

A peace under any dominance would be awful. Unless you were in charge, on the 'A' team.