It is actually as simple as this: you stand with the vulture or you stand with the starving child. Your choice. My choice. But always a choice. As Rabbi Tarfon, a member of the third generation of Mishnah sages, said : "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
Peace is trouble, in so many ways. The word itself -- which today seems to mean an absence of war, based on an agreement between parties -- is relatively recent in English, replacing Old English frið, also sibb, which also meant "happiness" for our Anglo ancestors. We will come back to other ideas and words which compare to our word peace later, but for now stick with the English since that is the name of the course and that is sort of what brings us together, at least for a start. In particular, I want to play with the Samoan word talofa. But more about that later.
The other trouble with peace is that it seems to run contrary to some of our most cherished myths about human nature and human history. The essential quality of peace is collaborative, co-operative since the notion derives from the idea of a pact or agreement among parties. And that's where things get sticky -- because we all know that we humans are aggressive, self-interested, competitive and greedy. So the very idea of peace goes against our very nature.
Okay, problem solved. We can all leave now. Peace is no longer a problem.
I want to turn that problem around and ask a different question: why is war so common? And in answering that question, explore not only how we can create peace in every step we take, but disentangle the lies of history and the social sciences and politicians that have hidden the simple truth: our history has been a history of co-operation, of collaboration, of amity and embrace, punctuated by violence and war. War, violence, greed, competition have run through all of human history, but not as expressions of our nature. Instead, these things
are aberrations. We will range far and wide -- both in space and in time -- drawing ideas from other cultures and other times. In particular, I will be drawing on three places/times where, through my own intimate experience, different truths showed themselves:
I hope to show -- it is always only a hope -- that what makes us human is our capacity for imagination, beauty, and justice which together form the core of our humanity, a boundless and timeless desire to co-operate. We are human not only because we can co-operate, but because we need to co-operate in order to actually be human.
My hope is that I can offer some of my own -- and many others -- beginnings for an understanding of a few simple but often hidden little truths, and at the same time, offer up a few tools for dealing with the aberration when it arises, and dealing with it with the simplest of simple songs, the simplest of simple dances -- the song and dance of peace. It goes like this:
Peace is trouble, in so many ways. The word itself -- which today seems to mean an absence of war, based on an agreement between parties -- is relatively recent in English, replacing Old English frið, also sibb, which also meant "happiness" for our Anglo ancestors. We will come back to other ideas and words which compare to our word peace later, but for now stick with the English since that is the name of the course and that is sort of what brings us together, at least for a start. In particular, I want to play with the Samoan word talofa. But more about that later.
The other trouble with peace is that it seems to run contrary to some of our most cherished myths about human nature and human history. The essential quality of peace is collaborative, co-operative since the notion derives from the idea of a pact or agreement among parties. And that's where things get sticky -- because we all know that we humans are aggressive, self-interested, competitive and greedy. So the very idea of peace goes against our very nature.
Okay, problem solved. We can all leave now. Peace is no longer a problem.
I want to turn that problem around and ask a different question: why is war so common? And in answering that question, explore not only how we can create peace in every step we take, but disentangle the lies of history and the social sciences and politicians that have hidden the simple truth: our history has been a history of co-operation, of collaboration, of amity and embrace, punctuated by violence and war. War, violence, greed, competition have run through all of human history, but not as expressions of our nature. Instead, these things
are aberrations. We will range far and wide -- both in space and in time -- drawing ideas from other cultures and other times. In particular, I will be drawing on three places/times where, through my own intimate experience, different truths showed themselves:
- Samoa
- Old Order Mennonites
- Gay Liberation Collectives
I hope to show -- it is always only a hope -- that what makes us human is our capacity for imagination, beauty, and justice which together form the core of our humanity, a boundless and timeless desire to co-operate. We are human not only because we can co-operate, but because we need to co-operate in order to actually be human.
My hope is that I can offer some of my own -- and many others -- beginnings for an understanding of a few simple but often hidden little truths, and at the same time, offer up a few tools for dealing with the aberration when it arises, and dealing with it with the simplest of simple songs, the simplest of simple dances -- the song and dance of peace. It goes like this:
