D
Deleted member 16771
As noble a goal as world peace is, I don't think it is possible in the current sate that the world is in.
Edit: But also things like this....
That thread was cancer.
World peace
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That thread was cancer.
Ren
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Yeah, horrible.
As noble a goal as world peace is, I don't think it is possible in the current sate that the world is in.
Edit: But also things like this....
I understand where you're coming from.. but don't you think the surest way not to create change is to lose the will to change?
D
Deleted member 16771
Yeah, we achieved peace in Europe after utter catastrophe.
Borders are being 'grandfathered in' now; they have become essentially inviolable in the developed world.
Who knows what will happen in the future, but Fukayama was certainly wrong.
Peace is possible, though, no doubt about it.
Ren
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Yes, it is possible, and I think the trick here is not to conceive of peace as a final goal of "perfect peace", but as a process that can be engaged in here and now.
Ren
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Isn't the question of happiness irrelevant in this case, though?
As for suffering... the idea that peace does not necessarily promote a reduction in suffering sounds odd to me. You'd have to convince me!
Infjente
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Isn't the question of happiness irrelevant in this case, though?
As for suffering... the idea that peace does not necessarily promote a reduction in suffering sounds odd to me. You'd have to convince me!
No, you convince me, please! It's nothing I want more than to be wrong here, trust me!
Ren
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Apparently this is a good book to read to remain hopeful about the future. I have not read it yet, but I hear it's a solid, scholarly work.
This is what the Wiki introduction says: "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. The book contains a wealth of data simply documenting violence across time and geography. This paints a picture of massive declines in violence of all forms, from war, to improved treatment of children. He highlights the role of nation-state monopolies on force, of commerce (making "other people become more valuable alive than dead"), of increased literacy and communication (promoting empathy), as well as a rise in a rational problem-solving orientation as possible causes of this decline in violence. He notes that, paradoxically, our impression of violence has not tracked this decline, perhaps because of increased communication, and that further decline is not inevitable, but is contingent on forces harnessing our better motivations such as empathy and increases in reason."
D
Deleted member 16771
Very interesting. You're right, 'world peace' isn't necessarily a utopian ideal.
I suppose in terms of political theory, we are in a period of peace right now - the Pax Americana, but that doesn't mean many states don't rankle under domination.
Personally, I can't see the cycle of hegemonic domination > balance of power > crisis changing any time soon.
Infjente
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Apparently this is a good book to read to remain hopeful about the future. I have not read it yet, but I hear it's a solid, scholarly work.
This is what the Wiki introduction says: "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. The book contains a wealth of data simply documenting violence across time and geography. This paints a picture of massive declines in violence of all forms, from war, to improved treatment of children. He highlights the role of nation-state monopolies on force, of commerce (making "other people become more valuable alive than dead"), of increased literacy and communication (promoting empathy), as well as a rise in a rational problem-solving orientation as possible causes of this decline in violence. He notes that, paradoxically, our impression of violence has not tracked this decline, perhaps because of increased communication, and that further decline is not inevitable, but is contingent on forces harnessing our better motivations such as empathy and increases in reason."
I don't read
D
Deleted member 16771
Apparently this is a good book to read to remain hopeful about the future. I have not read it yet, but I hear it's a solid, scholarly work.
This is what the Wiki introduction says: "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. The book contains a wealth of data simply documenting violence across time and geography. This paints a picture of massive declines in violence of all forms, from war, to improved treatment of children. He highlights the role of nation-state monopolies on force, of commerce (making "other people become more valuable alive than dead"), of increased literacy and communication (promoting empathy), as well as a rise in a rational problem-solving orientation as possible causes of this decline in violence. He notes that, paradoxically, our impression of violence has not tracked this decline, perhaps because of increased communication, and that further decline is not inevitable, but is contingent on forces harnessing our better motivations such as empathy and increases in reason."
Solid and scholarly enough for the public, but a lot of historians really dislike this kind of pseudo-history. It's actually come back into the casual discussion right now amongst academics on twitter following a critical article.
Ren
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Ouch! Let me invoke the principle of Russell's Teapot: the onus lies on you to prove that peace does not lead to a decrease of suffering, as it seems more counter-intuitive than the idea (which I defend) that it does lead to a decrease in suffering.
Sounds fair?
D
Deleted member 16771
Right, here it is:
https://magistraetmater.wordpress.c...f-good-history/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
In fact, it looks like the whole special issue of Historical Reflections is open access.
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/vi...ns/44/1/historical-reflections.44.issue-1.xml
https://magistraetmater.wordpress.c...f-good-history/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
In fact, it looks like the whole special issue of Historical Reflections is open access.
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/vi...ns/44/1/historical-reflections.44.issue-1.xml
Ren
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That's great Deleted member 16771, thanks for sharing these resources. Do you mean that they directly refer to Pinker's book?
I have the same reservations that you do, prima facie, but I am still curious to consider its arguments.
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Yes, but I'm not saying that we should lose the will or that we shouldn't even try. I'm just saying that as it is now we aren't in a position where we could establish world peace.
Will we ever be ready? I'm not sure. But I do know that for it to happen we would need a complex change of heart on a massive scale. Of course, that's coming from the point of view of people being inherently evil. So there is that.
D
Deleted member 16771
Oh yeah, Pinker's a serious guy, but there are certain unavoidable category-based critiques which I can't ignore (global per-capita? What about Africa, South America?), but I intuitively agree with him.
Yeah, there's an entire special issue of Historical Reflections dedicated to critical discussion of Better Angels of Our Nature (second link). Published this March I think.
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Ouch! Let me invoke the principle of Russell's Teapot: the onus lies on you to prove that peace does not lead to a decrease of suffering, as it seems more counter-intuitive than the idea (which I defend) that it does lead to a decrease in suffering.
Sounds fair?
Haha, elegant!
Okay, a bunch of questions is the best I can do right now... Who suffers and who's happy in the world? What makes suffering and happiness possible? Can you experience one without the other? If you can, how good/bad can it really get - how much pain can you be in before you physically die or mentally dissociate? For how long can you stay high on happy-chemicals? What happens to your threshold for pain and happiness after experiencing pain or happiness? Why is it that someone from the worst warzone in the world still are able to find meaning in life, while someone who lives in the safest richest place on the planet might want take his own life? So there's a need for experiencing a contrast between suffering and happiness in order to be either. To know how happy you are on a scale from one to ten, you'd have to look at your neighbor to decide. If I swapped my view with someone from a country in war who scored himself the same as I, what would our score be now? Let's say that it is world peace and nobody is really suffering. Will anybody be able to really know if they're happy/living a good life? Wouldn't it be like giving the whole world SSRI? And okay, you could say that it's not worth it, that someone is living a happy life while others suffer if we all could take a little of the burden. That's what I would have loved to be the best solution, but I just don't believe it would be for the greater good. So if a great red button with "world peace" written on it was right in front of me, I wouldn't push it. That does not mean that I don't want to contribute to make life better for as many as I can, because I don't think I'm impactful enough to do too much harm by doing good. Bad and good are basically the same thing because they will result in each other some how some time.
Ren
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I think you are committing a rather dangerous false dilemma fallacy, as well as the fallacy of equivocation between suffering from war and unhappiness. There is probably a fallacy related to over-generalization of happiness in there as well.
You're essentially saying that world peace isn't better than the current state of the world, because peace is not enough to guarantee happiness. But the fact that peace is not enough to guarantee happiness (we agree on that) is by no means enough of a ground to conclude that world peace isn't better than the current state of the world. What would be the harmful consequences of having more peace, or total peace, in the world, compared to the current state of affairs? Surely world peace + some unhappiness is better than the innumerable horrors and casualties of war + some unhappiness.
Happiness is irrelevant to the conversation about peace. You're introducing it by falsely equating it to "absence of suffering".