Peace
Peace (from the Latin pax), defined in a positive sense, is a state at a social or personal level, in which all the parts of a unit. It also refers to the mental tranquility of a person or society; Negatively defined, it is the absence of war, unrest, or violence.
Collectively, "peace" is the opposite of war. It is an internal state (identifiable with the Greek concepts of ataraxia and sofrosine) free of negative feelings (anger, hatred). That positive inner state is desired both for oneself and for others, to the point of becoming a life purpose or goal. It is also in the etymological origin of greetings: salam in Arabic and shalom in Hebrew mean "peace" or "peace be with you/with you", and are also used as farewell, meaning then "go/go in peace"; On the other hand, salve, the Latin greeting, is a wish for health, a concept that is also closely related. The greeting of peace or kiss of peace is a part of the mass in which the assistants "give each other peace."
In international law, the state of peace is one in which international conflicts are resolved non-violently; and particularly the agreement or treaty (peace treaty) that puts an end to the war is called "peace". There is a branch of the study of international relations called "irenology" or "peace and conflict studies."
One can speak of social peace as consensus: the tacit understanding for the maintenance of good, mutually beneficial relations between individuals; and at different levels, the consensus between different groups, classes or social classes within a society.
Traditional anthropology (already outdated) considered that only the civilized state of cultural evolution considered peace in a positive way, and that states of savagery and barbarism implied a cultural preference for war, considering it an honorable form of life looting other peoples, and exalting the warrior virtues; in extreme cases, ritualizing anthropophagy. In this way, the customs of some so-called primitive peoples were described (thus justifying their colonization), as well as the historiographical memory of some historical peoples (such as the Huns or the Vikings), and of some historical periods considered "dark", such as the High Middle Ages.
Concepts of peace for various authors
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- In the I ChingThe opposite of peace is stagnation. Symbolically, this indicates that peace is not an absolute, but a permanent search. It also indicates that conflict is not the opposite of peace. It is a step towards peace, transforming the conflict, not suppressing it. Nonviolent efforts embody this process of peaceful transformation of the conflict.
- Kant wrote the treaty On life peace.
- Martin Luther King wrote in his Birmingham Charter, written in prison: "true peace is not simply the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
- Erasmus of Rotterdam's Dutch philosopher said "The most advantageous peace is better than the most just war."
- See famous quotes on Wi " (external links).
The notion of peace in the Bible
When the Old Testament uses the expression shalom ("peace" in Hebrew), especially in greetings, it refers to material and spiritual well-being: "Peace be with you" or "with you" (cf. Gn 29, 6) and in this sense he is not opposed to war. Such peace can only come from God himself who wants to give it in compensation for the fidelity of his people to the Alliance even when peace in its fullest sense is expected for the times of the Messiah who is called Prince of peace (cf. Is 9, 6) who also comes to proclaim it even to those who do not belong to the chosen people (cf. Zc 9, 6, Ps 72, 7).
In the New Testament the expression ειρενη eirenē («peace» in Greek) maintains the meaning given in the Old Testament, but is also influenced by the Hellenic context of the word, which implies a absence of enemies or annoyances:
...supporting each other for love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the bond of peaceEf 4 2-3
However, it is through union with Christ and the reconciliation that He has obtained that true peace can be spoken of among all, whether Jews or Gentiles (cf. Rm 5, 1-5, Eph 2, 14-22). It is generally defined, in a positive sense, as a state of tranquility or stillness, and in the opposite sense as the absence of restlessness, violence, or war.
The word “peace” in the Bible has many meanings. As listed in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, some are: “Throughout the Old Testament, [shalom] (peace) encompasses well-being in the broadest sense of the word (Judg. 19:20); prosperity (Ps. 73:3), even in relation to the wicked; bodily health (Isa. 57:18[, 19]; Ps. 38:3); contentment [...] (Gen. 15:15, etc.); good relations between nations and between men ([...] Judg. 4:17; 1 Chron. 12:17, 18); salvation ([...] Jer. 29:11; cf. Jer. 14:13)».
For his part, Jesus gives a mystical meaning to peace in the New Testament, affirming that he himself possesses it and can give it to his disciples (Jn 14:27). This peace is of a different nature from that offered by the world (material goods, prosperity, health, etc.) and could only be obtained through faith and obedience in Him. This version of a divine and supernatural peace seems to be affirmed by Paul of Tarsus in one of his letters (Flp 4:7), since he writes in it that the peace of God surpasses all understanding and therefore it is understood that it is outside of human logic.
Inner peace in the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church maintains that the lack of peace in the world comes from the lack of peace within man:
Indeed, the imbalances that fatigue the modern world are connected with that other fundamental imbalance that plunges its roots into the human heart. There are many elements that are fought in man's own interior. Outside of a creature, man experiences multiple limitations; he feels, however, unlimited in his desires and called to a higher life. Attracted by many requests, you have to choose and give up. Moreover, as a sick and sinful person, he rarely does what he does not want and stops doing what he would want to do. For this reason he feels in himself the division, that so many and so serious discords provoke in society.
And they also affirm that contact with God will be what brings peace of soul:
Communion with God is a source of serenity, joy, tranquility, it is like entering an oasis of light and love"
In order to achieve this communion, they postulate many ways, among which is the discernment of the spirit taught by various authors but systematized in a singular way by Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises.
They even postulate that the devil seeks to take away peace from man and that it is a sign of the things that come from God.
Pax Romana
Pax Romana ("Roman peace") was the situation of relative peace achieved in the Mediterranean basin during the High Roman Empire (1st and 2nd centuries after Christ), and different paraphrase of that expression (Pax Mongolica, Pax Hispanica, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana) to the historical situations in that a military power exercises its hegemony.
Pacifism and non-violence
Pacifism is opposition to war, militarism (including conscription), or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace activist Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ahimsa (do no harm), which is a philosophy Central to Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While the modern connotations are recent, having been explained as far back as the 19th century, ancient references abound.
In modern times, Leo Tolstoy revived interest in his later works, particularly The Kingdom of God Is Within You. Mahatma Gandhi proposed the practice of strong nonviolent opposition to what he called "satyagraha," central to his role in the Indian Independence Movement. Its effectiveness served as an inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr., James Lawson, Mary and Charles Beard, James Bevel, Thich Nhat Hanh, and many others in the civil rights movement.
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to oneself or others under any conditions. It may stem from a belief that hurting people, animals, and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve a result, and may refer to a general philosophy of refraining from violence. It can be based on moral, religious or spiritual principles, but the reasons can also be purely strategic or pragmatic.
Nonviolence has "active" or "activists," in the sense that believers generally accept the need for nonviolence as a means to achieve political and social change. Thus, for example, Tolstoyan and Gandhist nonviolence is both a philosophy and a strategy of social change that rejects the use of violence, but at the same time sees nonviolent action (also called civil resistance) as an alternative to passive acceptance. of oppression or armed struggle against it. In general, advocates of an activist philosophy of nonviolence use a variety of methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, mass noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action, and forms of social, political, and social intervention. cultural and economic.
Theories
There are many different theories of "peace" in the world of peace studies, which involve the study of de-escalation, conflict transformation, disarmament and the cessation of violence. The definition of "peace" it may vary according to religion, culture or subject of study.
Balance of power
The "realist" Classically, the key to promoting order among states, and therefore to increasing the chances of peace, is the maintenance of a balance of power among states, a situation in which no state is so dominant that it can & #34;lay down the law to the rest". Exponents of this view have included Metternich, Bismarck, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. A related approach, more in the tradition of Hugo Grotius than Thomas Hobbes, was articulated by the so-called 'English school of international relations theory', such as Martin Wight in his book Power Politics (1946, 1978). and Hedley Bull in The Anarchical Society (1977).
Since maintaining a balance of power in some circumstances might require a willingness to go to war, some critics saw the idea of a balance of power as promoting war rather than promoting peace. This was a radical criticism of those supporters of the Allied and Associated Powers who justified entry into World War I on the grounds that it was necessary to preserve the balance of power in Europe from a German bid for hegemony.
In the second half of the 20th century, and especially during the cold war, a particular form of balance of power emerged, mutual nuclear deterrence, as a widely accepted doctrine of the key to peace among the great powers. Critics argued that the development of nuclear arsenals increased the chances of war instead of peace, and that the "nuclear umbrella" made it "safe" for smaller wars (for example, the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring), making such wars more likely.
Free trade, interdependence and globalization
It was a central tenet of classical liberalism, for example among English liberal thinkers of the late 19th century and early 20th century. XX, that free trade promoted peace. For example, the Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) said that he was 'educated' in this idea and held it unchallenged until at least the 1920s. During economic globalization in the decades leading up to World War I, writers such as Norman Angell argued that increased economic interdependence between the great powers made war between them would be useless and therefore improbable. He made this argument in 1913. A year later, the economically interconnected states of Europe were embroiled in what would later become known as World War I.
These ideas have gained prominence again among liberal internationalists during the globalization of the late 20th century and early XXI. These ideas have seen capitalism as consistent with, and even conducive to, peace.
Game of War
The game of peace and war is a game-theoretic approach to understanding the relationship between peace and conflict.
The iterated game hypothesis was originally used by academic groups and computer simulations to study possible strategies of cooperation and aggression.
As the peacemakers grew wealthier over time, it became clear that waging war had higher costs than initially anticipated. One of the well-studied strategies that most rapidly acquired wealth was based on Genghis Khan, that is, a constant aggressor who continually wages war for resources. This led, in contrast, to the development of what is known as the 'taunting nice guy strategy', a peacemaker until attacked, improved simply to win with occasional forgiveness even when attacked. By aggregating the results of all pairs games for each player, multiple players are seen to gain wealth by cooperating with each other while bleeding a constantly aggressive player.
Socialism and Managed Capitalism
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century socialist, communist, and left-liberal writers (for example, Lenin, J.A. Hobson, John Strachey) argued that capitalism caused war (for example, by promoting imperial or economic rivalries that lead to conflicts). international). This led some to argue that international socialism was the key to peace.
However, in response to such writers in the 1930s who argued that capitalism caused war, the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) argued that managed capitalism could promote peace. This involved international coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, an international monetary system that did not pit the interests of countries against each other, and a high degree of trade freedom. These ideas are the basis of Keynes's work during World War II which led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at Bretton Woods in 1944, and later the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (later the World Trade Organization).).
Justice and integrity
Borrowing from the teachings of Norwegian theorist Johan Galtung, one of the pioneers of the field of peace research, on 'Positive Peace', and from the writings of Maine Quaker Gray Cox, a consortium of theorists, activists and practitioners at the John Woolman College experimental initiative has arrived at a theory of 'active peace'. This theory posits in part that peace is part of a triad, which also includes justice and integrity (or well-being), an interpretation in keeping with biblical scholars' interpretations of the meaning of the early Hebrew word shalom. Furthermore, the consortium it has integrated Galtung's teaching on the meanings of the terms peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, so that they too fit into a triadic and interdependent formulation or structure. Vermont Quaker John V. Wilmerding posits five stages of growth applicable to individuals, communities, and societies, in which one first transcends 'superficial' consciousness; that most people have these kinds of problems, emerging successively into acquiescence, pacifism, passive resistance, resistance, and finally to active peace by engaging in peacemaking, peacekeeping, or consolidation peace.
Law and international organization
One of the most influential peace theories, especially since Woodrow Wilson led the creation of the League of Nations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, is that peace will advance if the willful anarchy of states is replaced through the development of international law promoted. and it is applied through international organizations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations and other functional international organizations. One of the most important early exponents of this point of view was Alfred Eckhart Zimmern, for example in his 1936 book The League of Nations and the Rule of Law.
Transnational solidarity
Many "idealistic" about international relations - for example, in the traditions of Kant and Karl Marx - have argued that the key to peace is the growth of some form of solidarity between peoples (or classes of people) that spans the dividing lines between nations. o States leading to war. [46]
One version of this is the idea of promoting international understanding between nations through international student mobility, an idea most powerfully advanced by Cecil Rhodes in the creation of the Rhodes Scholarships and his successors, such as J. William Fulbright. [47]
Another theory is that peace can be developed between countries on the basis of active management of water resources. [48]
Lyotard's Postmodernism
Following Wolfgang Dietrich, Wolfgang Sützl [49] and the Innsbruck School of Peace Studies, some peace thinkers have abandoned any single, comprehensive definition of peace. Rather, they promote the idea of many peaces. They argue that since there can be no single, correct definition of peace, peace must be perceived as a plurality. This postmodern understanding of peace was based on the philosophy of Jean Francois Lyotard. It served as the foundation for the more recent concept of transrational peace and transformation of provoked conflicts.
In 2008, Dietrich broadened his approach from the many peaces to the so-called five families of peace interpretations: the energetic, moral, modern, postmodern, and transrational approaches. [50] Transrationality unites the rational and mechanistic understanding of modern peace in a relational and culture-based way with spiritual narratives and energetic interpretations. [51] The systemic understanding of transrational peace advocates a client-centered method of conflict transformation, the so-called elicitive approach. [52]
Education for peace and culture of peace
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize (in Norwegian and Swedish, Nobeles fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes that were instituted by the Swedish arms manufacturer, inventor and industrial Alfred Nobel, along with the awards in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature. It has been granted annually since 1901 (with some exceptions) "to the person who has worked more or better in favor of fraternity among nations, the abolition or reduction of the armies raised and the celebration and promotion of peace agreements", according to the will of Alfred Nobel himself. By the will of Nobel, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Committee of the Nobel, a five-person committee determined by the Norwegian Parliament.
This award is the only one awarded in Oslo (Norway) — the other four are awarded hours later in Stockholm. Since 1990, the award has been awarded annually on 10 December at the Oslo City Hall—previously, the award was awarded at the University of Oslo Law School (1947-1989), the Norwegian Institute of the Nobel Prize (1905-1946) and the Norwegian Parliament (1901-1904).[chuckles]required]
Because of its political nature, the award has been subject to different disputes through its history.Flags of Peace
In 2016, at the initiative of Trapped in Suburbia, experts in global communication, with the support of UNESCO, a flag of peace was designed for each country, commissioning its design to prominent artists and graphic designers from each country. The idea was born given the difficulty of reaching a consensus on a single flag, since the symbols, the concepts of peace and even the colors have different meanings in different cultures. On the other hand, globalization has made us see the importance of respecting the local within a global context.
Measuring peace
The difficulties that arise when trying to define the concept of peace may explain why there are so few attempts to measure the state of peace in the different nations of the world. The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the levels of peace in the countries of the world and to identify some of the forces that drive peace. The Index measures peace defined as the absence of violence. The project approaches the task of measuring peace from two sides – the first goal is to create a world peace index and scoring model that ranks 149 nations by their relative states of peace using 23 indicators ranging from the level of military spending to of the nation to its relations with neighboring countries and the level of respect for human rights. The indicators have been selected as being the best available data sets reflecting the presence or absence of peace, and containing both qualitative and quantitative data obtained from a number of reliable sources. The second objective is to use the data obtained from the Global Peace Index to begin investigations of the relative importance of a number of possible determinants or forces—including levels of democracy and transparency, education, and national well-being—that can influence the creation and maintenance of societies. peaceful, both internally and externally.
Related expressions
- Peaceserenity and calm.
- Peace be in this house. Way to talk to you that you generally greet when you enter it.
- To the peace of God. Way to talk to one another or some conversation.
- Peace for the choir. To have rages and disdain in some community or family.
- Be quiet. Welcome, leave or without offense.
- Give peace. Give a hug or kiss an image in sign of peace and fraternity, as it is done in the solemn Masses.
- Peace or peace. Greet some kissing him in the face as a sign of friendship.
- Leave anyone alone. Don't bother him or bother him.
- Rest in peace. Save yourself, get the bliss. Piously it is said of all those who die in the Catholic religion.
- In peace and act. Locution equivalent to with view and consent.
- In peace or with the peace of God. Frase with which you courteously fire any one you were in your company or conversation.
- Meter or peace or peace. Mediating or interposing among those who surrender or contend, trying to appease and put them to reason.
- Peace and bread. Expression with which it is meant that these two things with the main cause and foundation of public stillness.
- Rest in peace. Rest in Peace.
- Get peace and safety. Free one of all dangers and risks.