Are we still Here?

Competition vs. Cooperation: The Secret for Peace

If millions of people are willing to spend time and endure risk to give it to future generations, peace is probably attainable in the near future.

One excellent review of the 323 conflicts between 1900 and 2006 found that if 3.5% of a population works for a given cause, even regime change, they almost invariably succeed.¹

We have certainly started. An estimated 1500 organizations dedicated to peace are operating now. What must they do to finally get what they, and nearly everyone else want? Just about every government official and just about every one of the people governed believes that peace is better than war. After 400,000 years of our violent history, what’s lacking, what is the mysterious missing link?

It seems to be us. Multiplying the population of our war-pocked planet, 8,000,000,000 x .035 = 280,000,000 people. We just need to inspire ourselves in sufficient number. Ironically, probably 7,999,999,990 people want peace, but that hasn’t made much of a difference. Why not?

Priorities: Although wartimes rob people of food, clothing and shelter, we people focus on these basic needs and spend our lives providing them to ourselves and to our dependents, rather than approaching the cause of their scarcity. How can a somewhat rational species fail to see the cause and effect relationship here. A change in outlook may reveal, and even provide the missing link.

Right now, and for millennia past, we see survival as ourselves vs. a personal or an impersonal something. It may be a beast, or the Old Man and the Sea, or an enemy army, or a competitive suitor or business or scientist. The motif, right out of Darwin, is compete. But things are in the process of change as we are, far more than ever before, the dominant species on this heavenly body. Today, in climate control, in ecology, in animal rights, and in science, we’re all on the same side against nothing but our own bad habits and erroneous thinking . If we were one mammoth corporation, (and we are not that far from it) the mission statement would now contain the words ‘cooperate’ and ‘coexist.’ The bellicose impulse to conquer and vanquish is a sure way for all of us to lose.

…………………………………Are we still here?…………………………….

It's a big shift. The 2024 US budget for defense was13 – 15% of the federal budget, about the same as Medicare. Science and research got 2%; NEA got 0.003%. Our books, movies, operas, even songs glorify war. The holy books, the bibles new and old, the Koran, Njal’s saga, Gilgamesh, even the Mahabharata are all about war. As a dramatic theme it almost can’t be beat. I say ‘almost’ because the drama of bringing the different factions bent on making each other’s lives miserable – the warring parties – bringing them kicking and screaming to the lasting peace they all desire is even more dramatic. It will make the transition from the Stone Age to the Information Age look like a new pair of shoelaces. It will be the most significant change in almost a half-million years of human history. The politicians who achieve it will bask in long-lived glory.

………………………………..Would you rather be here?……………………………

How do we get there? It’s like chess. How many moves in advance can you take seriously? Right now we all can see one move: “If I don’t make a living, my dependents and I will seriously suffer.” Maybe two moves: “If my country is conquered, I’m not sure how I’ll make a living.” People believe the third move ahead: “If there were no war, food, clothing and shelter would be a lot easier to secure.” They believe it, but do enough people consider it a real heavy-weight option when they’re planning their lives? Until they do, things are unlikely to change.

What will increase that number? Expose people to the fact that war takes from people the very things they’re fighting to retain, literally life and liberty. Then remind them that they do not have to sign-up or agree to get out there and kill. No one can make them do it. Also, they must get it: war is not inevitable.

All the planes, ships, guns, missiles, tanks, electronics, uniforms, barracks, kitchen utensils and the supporting industries that make the transistors, screws and tires and army camps, etc. are just material evidence of the underlying spirit that creates them: competition for survival. That was true for simpler people in simpler times. Now the people of the world quite clearly must cooperate to survive. But the novel mission-statement “We must cooperate to coexist,” has a great deal to contend with. It is a multi-modality undertaking that largely involves the recipients of the NEA: Our stories, songs and performances. Cultural change seems to start with the arts.

On analogy with science-fiction, we may need something like “society-fiction.”

How would rival lovers manage in a world without violent confrontation? So far as I can see, competition will continue in 10,000 ways, but, e.g., what lovers compete for can never be won violently. Automobiles did not replace horses because Henry Ford beat up a blacksmith. Our model society must change from the most militarily successful country to the one that is best for its citizens. Which country would you like your children to live in? How can you help arrange it that way?

It's a bit strange: we must rouse interest in something almost everyone agrees with in the first place, almost no one in their right mind opposes, yet has failed to happen for 4000 centuries. Peace, believe it or not, has simply been too low a priority. But now it lurks right up there with, or even within, life and liberty.

It’s time to think 3 moves ahead.

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1. Chenoweth E. and Stephan MJ. Why Civil Resistance Works. Columbia University Press, New York: 2011.