Peace Is Not Enough: Thoughts on Obama’s Nobel Speech
Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, and his acceptance speech, a forum in which legendary statements are often made, was a bit of a dud–at least that’s the impression I got from the media. “War President Accepts Peace Prize” said the headlines…or “President Accepts Peace Prize, Defends War.” Even the Huffington Post headline was mainly focused on the irony of the moment, less on the content of the speech. Lucky for me, I actually read the speech, and my first thought was….what the heck is wrong with the media!!? (At least that’s the PG version.) This was a powerful speech, full of serious thinking and nuance, philosophy, and theology. Obama was staking out a very important and carefully considered realism that doesn’t lose sight of our best ideals, and an idealism that is grounded in the world as we know it. So enough with the snide, isn’t-that-ironic characterizations of the intelligentsia. It’s like they can’t recognize a sophisticated argument, a political statement that doesn’t neatly fit into pacifism or militarism. And the left seemed to be particularly confused. So many commentators were highly critical of the speech (though there does seem to be more appreciation over the last day or so), perhaps because many are upset with the President’s recent decisions on Afghanistan. But whatever one thinks about the difficult problems we face in Afghanistan, and I have serious concerns about Obama’s approach, let me state unequivocally that a great speech was completely missed here, and that I agree with the thrust of the President’s argument. In 2009, Peace—as an ideal, a political position, a philosophy, an attitude, a worldview—is simply not enough.
This issue is close to my heart. And it is one where the Left, with its nonviolent and pacifistic tendencies, too often cedes the wrong kind of ground to the Right, whose enthusiastic embrace of military might too often shows little of the subtlety, nuance, and complexity needed in this age of political self-determination. I actually spent a significant amount of time doing research on peace, pacifism, and nonviolence for an article titled “Is God a Pacifist? War vs. Peace in a Post 9/11 World” for 
EnlightenNext magazine. And what I realized is that peace is a very problematic concept, spiritually and even politically. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the absence of war and conflict as much as the next guy and long for the day when such peace will be global and universal to human life. I also feel strongly that if our species is to have a chance for a brighter future then we must find a way to end the war and violence that are now threatening the very structure of our planetary society. And there is no question that the ongoing development of technology is making the attainment of peace and security in this world an absolutely fundamental part of any sane and survivable future. But how do we get there? Therein lies the rub.
You see, for all the failures of war, peace hasn’t always been a good alternative. Krishna knew it 2500 years ago, and it is still true today. Witness the tragedy in the Balkans or Rwanda, or the slaughter in the Sudan, or World War II not that many decades ago. No one has yet convinced me that there is or was a nonviolent solution to those conflicts, as much as we would like there to be. In the long term, of course, anything is possible. But we can’t allow our dreams of peace tomorrow to cause us to make fatal and disastrous mistakes today. Obama spoke directly to this in his speech. And moreover, I’m convinced that the very idea that peace should be the goal of our human endeavors—politically, socially, and even spiritually—represents an outdated context for our moral and philosophical life. And this is where I would take a step, philosophically and theologically, beyond what the President offered. So what is the alternative to peace? Well, that’s a complicated question that would take a great deal of time to explain, which is why I wrote that original 20-page article. Don’t worry, I won’t spend 20 pages explaining it here, but I did want to submit this simple essay arguing that, at the beginning of the 21st century, peace is simply not enough.
* * *
We do hear a great deal about peace these days. In many respects, it is an extraordinary sign of evolution in the human character. In fact, peace movements, in the sense that they exist today, are a relatively recent addition to human culture, as are current forms of nonviolence which largely began with Gandhi in the early 20th century. Even the ideals of peace and pacifism have hardly been innate to human life. Most scholars agree that the earliest historical recorded peace
movements date back to the first millennium BC. The great King Ashoka, who ruled most of South Asia from 273 BC to 232 BC, initiated perhaps the first large-scale experiment in peace and pacifism when he declared (around 250 BC) that the Buddhist ideal of nonviolence would be the moral law of his kingdom. He may very well have been the first such ruler for whom peace became not only a profound philosophical ideal but a practical way of structuring the life of his subjects. Of course, Ashoka had to subdue his many enemies and secure his kingdom before renouncing war, but nevertheless, the extraordinary policy of this peaceful Buddhist King stands out as one of the first times in history that an entire nation put down their weapons, not simply because there were no more enemies to fight, but because that was the spiritual and moral worldview of their culture.
Some scholars have also argued that this emerging concern for peace, all those centuries ago, was no accident of history. And it was not simply due to the extraordinary benevolence of an enlightened ruler. They suggest that it was influenced by the advent of the Iron Age and the increasing sophistication of weaponry that was introduced into human culture early in the first millennium BC. As kings, warlords, and would-be empires raged back and forth across Persia and the Middle East, from the River Nile to the River Ganges, armed with ever more deadly weapons, the brutality of life increased and so did the longing of those caught in the crossfire to find relief. It is interesting to note that it was also during the middle of the first millennium BC that many of the great religions were initially formed—promising that peace, freedom, and bliss can be found not in this world of suffering but in a transcendent realm beyond. From the otherworldly Nirvanic bliss of the Buddha to the messianic longing of the enslaved Jewish people, from the ideal realm of Platonic Philosophy to the heavenly perfection of Zoroaster, all across the ancient world there arose a sense that eternal rest and peace were ultimately attainable—even if in the here and now such notions proved elusive.
We’ve come a long way since the days when heaven seemed forever separate from earth and our spiritual ideals seemed hopelessly divorced from the reality of our political and social lives. While we may not exactly be living in a world empowered by love and harmony, peace, at least in a relative sense, is something we can now experience in our own lives and work toward as a practical universal goal. And personally, we enjoy lives of extraordinary peacefulness, ease, and rest compared to the ancients. Indeed, many today live in laps of luxury that once only kings and queens enjoyed, experiencing material and psychological comforts our ancestors could only dream about. And amidst this unprecedented explosion of freedom from strife and struggle, a new truth is beginning to emerge: Peace is not enough.
Even as we live lives remarkably free of violence and suffering, we have begun to recognize that peace is not the natural state of life. Change and flux is the natural state of life. And not just change as impermanence, or change for change’s sake. In the last couple of centuries, we have begun to recognize that there is something else going on in this world besides the cyclical turning of the karmic wheel, or the unfolding progression of pre-ordained biblical or Koranic prophecy. We have begun to open our eyes to the fact that life is going forward. We, life, the universe, are all evolving—moving together in a grand forward march of matter and consciousness, hurtling toward an unknown and unexpected future. There is nothing peaceful about that forward march, but there may, in fact, be something spiritual about it. Indeed, this understanding that we are part of life and that life is evolving may just represent the greatest sea change in spiritual thought since our religious ancestors looked at the suffering around them and turned within to find a “peace that passeth all understanding.” Today, we still live in a dangerous and disagreeable world, but looking within, we are discovering that the peace and freedom that we once thought were the goal of the spiritual path are actually the foundation for something much deeper. They are the context for the discovery of what spiritual leader Andrew Cohen calls the “ecstatic compulsion to evolve.” This compulsion is a powerful 
desire to participate in what the late eco-theologian Thomas Berry called the “Great Work,” which is the ongoing transformation and evolution of ourselves, our world, and ultimately our universe. This heartfelt desire to participate in the ongoing evolution of this vast universe may be joyful, difficult, overwhelming, thrilling, and even liberating. But one thing is for certain: it is not peaceful.
There was a time when, at the cutting edge of human development, the goal of our highest spiritual, philosophical, and moral endeavors was peace. This exerted a tremendous upward, positive pressure on a civilization still trying to escape the ravages of its more primitive urges. And it still does. It makes sense that in the human struggle for moral and ethical advancement, many of our first dreams of a better world would be dreams of peace. But as we understand more and more about the nature of life on this planet and in this universe, and as we discover more about the psychological and cultural development of individuals and human societies, slowly our attention is shifting. We are coming to understand that spiritually, socially, and even politically, the interests of our species are best served not just by the noble hope for an end to human conflict or by the understandable desire for a cessation to human suffering, but by participating in the upward surge, development, and evolution of human culture and consciousnesses at all levels. It is a new orientation to life, one that privileges the ongoing challenge of change and development over the psychological relief of inner peace and the political ideal of freedom from conflict.
How will this new orientation look and what will it mean in the practical realities of the day-to-day world? What will it mean for the individual, for the collective? How will it inform the organizations and structures of human society? We do not yet know. Living in such a world may not prove to be easy, and it may not even be peaceful or nonviolent, but whatever the case, a worldview genuinely oriented toward evolution and development, at an individual and societal level, will be unlike anything we have ever seen. I have no doubt that the ultimate results of such a worldview will be an extraordinary global society the likes of which we can scarcely 
imagine today, as different from our current culture as ours is different from the war-ravaged societies of Persia 2500 years ago. But to make it there, we are going to need a guiding vision that transcends the attainment of peace. As peace activist and nonviolent scholar Michael Nagler once told me, “If people try to put peace ahead of evolution, they won’t get either. If they put evolution ahead of peace, they’ll get both.”
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In the context of your statement that … “It’s like they can’t recognize a sophisticated argument, a political statement that doesn’t neatly fit into pacifism or militarism.” I would suggest that NOT ONLY are the media in denial but that, as Richard Heinberg has recently suggested, so also the IEA and ALL our masters of the globe. The real question then remains … will the bottom-up co-creative emergence BE CATALYST ENOUGH for an AQUAL-inclusive top-down, bottom-up co-creative emergence ?
http://my-head.gaia.com/blog/2009/11/we-are-of-course#comment_465111
http://my-head.gaia.com/blog/2008/12/as-long-as-our
http://my-head.gaia.com/blog/2007/3/why-we-fight
.
In line with the great values of Justice and Equality, Peace is a vast and complex virtue, on the one hand universally embraced for it’s apparent simplicity (as the contrast opposite to war) and on the other hand, rarely explored for it’s non-dual nature.
Carter, thank you for digging deeper. Not only did you tease out some of the more important insights in Obama’s speech, you brought forward the evolutionary context.
It’s possible that Peace may be understood more completely when we explore it as non-dual. It requires letting go of familiar definition – a stepping into the experience, “peace”. This is not the peace which lowers our BP as we find relief from stress; nor is it a passive equilibrium. Consider peace as a living dynamic exhibiting both a qualitative aspect within the greater field of consc. and an actual force. This is an active inquiry with a transcendent potential. Worth exploring in the group field?
Thank you.
Very well expressed. Peace is a dynamic, and one that is oppressed by the thought processes that the average person, nation or world cannot purely. comprehend.
One would have to have a stillness and a completeness, hence, the Kingdom of God as it were to be at ease with peace. We by our natures must control others because we ourself are not in control. And if at all only as much focus as it takes to over turn, conquer and kill off those who would stand in the way of total domination. Oh, in the guise of religion or some other selfishness that perverts, putting the demagogue in a position of power, domineering.
It is the dollar or whatever currency it is called by that promotes the big business of war. .Peace that wouldn’t be nearly as costly. Because no one would want to take to be satisfied, they would already be..at peace.
Simple, yes!
Thank you
“Hear, hear, Lesley, re: “Peace may be understood more completely when we explore it as non-dual”
Both “Love” and “Peace” are bandied about as cliches and wishing more than with deep thinking, holistically. If we want them to become manifest and actual instead of merely slogans, we need to become them, in ourselves. This means living peaceably and loving only in the romantic sense but with Agape, the generalized compassionate love for all Creation. Kids, love-struck teens and even adults and church-going folks may not have that understanding of Agape, familiar only with the aspect of Eros as love. Without more understanding of Agape, higher spiritual consciousness is held back undeveloped.
In regard to Obama’s speech on the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think the criticism was not a criticism of the speech, but a criticism of the actions the speaker was taking as he added troops in Afghanistan. For thousands of years, various governments have had people with creative intellects, that can make eloquent speechs and such. In the old gangster movies, the gangsters would usually refer to a lawyer as a mouthpiece. The fact that the US has huge numbers of troops in the mideast certainly belies any assumptions that these wars are defensive. These wars are spun for domestic consumption by claiming that their purpose is to free the citizens of such countries. However, polls of mideasterners consistently show that the vast majority of mideasterners do not approve of the US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Historically, the official speechs and statements of the great powers have expressed the highest aspirations of mankind. Unfortunately, these speechs have usually been coverups for gangster like aggressions. The popularity of gangster rap in my opinion is a reflection of a realism pointing to the gangster nature of the realities of the political scene. After the Norman Conquest, Norman was the official language of the court;whereas Anglo Saxon was the language of concrete reality spoken by the peasants. The language of the court was designed to use beautiful words to disguise the realities of power;whereas the Anglo Saxon was usually a means of making reference to existing concrete realities.
In regard to Obama’s speech on the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think the criticism was not a criticism of the speech; but a criticism of the actions the speaker was taking as he added troops in Afghanistan. For thousands of years, various governments have had people with creative intellects, that can make eloquent speechs and such. In the old gangster movies, the gangsters would usually refer to a lawyer as a mouthpiece. The fact that the US has huge numbers of troops in the mideast certainly belies any assumptions that these wars are defensive. These wars are spun for domestic consumption by claiming that their purpose is to free the citizens of such countries. However, polls of mideasterners consistently show that the vast majority of mideasterners do not approve of the US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Historically, the official speechs and statements of the great powers have expressed the highest aspirations of mankind. Unfortunately, these speechs have usually been coverups for gangster like aggressions. The popularity of gangster rap in my opinion is a reflection of a realism pointing to the gangster nature of the realities of the political scene. After the Norman Conquest, Norman was the official language of the court;whereas Anglo Saxon was the language of concrete reality spoken by the peasants. The language of the court was designed to use beautiful words to disguise the realities of power;whereas the Anglo Saxon was usually a means of making reference to existing concrete realities. The contempt Jesus expressed for the Pharisees was an expression of the historical role of men of letters to use verbiage to disguise much less noble motives.
Absolutely, verbiage and the little member that is the tongue has sunk a lot of good…
Is peace some ideal, far off in the future of people once they have evolved enough to be peaceful, or is that, as I may suggest, just an illusion.
For almost all of us peace is an idea, not an actual fact in our daily lives. We may talk and give speeches and write articles about peace, but our actual daily lives are filled with all kinds of conflicts both large and small. We really have no idea what peace is at all other than what we’ve gleaned from the fancy descriptions, poems, speeches and oratory.
Religions, Politics, the U.N., philosophers, sociologists, etc have all tried to contrive a path to peace, but none of them have succeeded. This is a fairly self evident fact.
So what will bring peace? Is peace even possible? Or, is peace just an ideal created by the mind as an escape from the horror of war and conflict, the prison of our little
small minded existence?
Can there be any such thing as peace in the world if I myself am not first in a state of peace? (not imitating Christ or Ghandi) etc. But must I not go through a radical change for there to be peace in myself and only then can there be peace in the word. I am not separate from the rest of the world. The politicians, priests, guru’s etc all propose methods for bringing peace but very few of them ever ask must I not start with myself and without a radical revoloution of the very mind itself, there will never be peace.
Then the question arises, is peace some kind of thing I gain for myself, as the admirable words of the
President the article writer quoted said, “psychological relief”. Is that peace at all as Obama suggests, the search for inner peace may just be a selfish journey seeking another form of self gratification.
I don’t think many people are really interested in this kind of approach to peace at all. It means no one can help me, that I have to deeply go into my own violence and suppresion, defense mechanisms. passive agressive behavior, etc. I’m going to have to confront what an actual greedy animal and egotistical bastard I am if I am ever to radically change and even attempt to know what the real meaning of peace is. n
That’s the taboo subject regarding peace, no matter how left or right we may be, which is how barbaric, how self centered, how primitive and violent I really am in spite of all my ideals about peace etc. It’s taboo to go into how much I deceive myself and procrastinate changing, and how insensitive I can be about actually bringing about peace in myself and therefore others when I’m persuing pleasure while the whole world burns like Nero’s Rome.
Only when I’m confronted by an immediate catastrophe do I act, and continuing in this fashion, the time may soon come when it’s too late to act, considering how advanced we have become destroying each othger. So what are we going to do. Only seriously asking that question is there going to be any chance of there being peace in any shape or form, or without any shape or form. Take it or leave it.
Exactly, we continually, revert to standing still. there is no growth because there is no truth..What sounds good in spin. When we can be honest ourselves, then that will be the start of peace, when the world that is in each one of our perspectives, that we take with us, that we project into the world that WE are..then this sad very sad situation will continue under the banner of I’m right and those who agree with me, everyone else is wrong and an enemy…Truth..sets free..not spin
Thank you
You sumed it up very well.
As I stumble along my path from “Old soldier” to inner Peace and then?? I am often confronted by those who have Grand ideas of peace and tell others what they are doing wrong but have them self not found it.
“I can not change the world but if I Change the world changes”
Peaceful
I read Obama’s speech also and am with you completely on how largely deaf, dumb and blind the media seems to have been in response to it.
His speech did make me think of your article–Is God a Pacifist? So it was great to your post and your excellent essay. It takes Obama’s own considered perspective which in itself is breaking new ground in our times, and propels the discussion way further into the true great evolutionary context for these issues, where the real answers and the real questions lie.
The end of your essay really grabbed me…we don’t know how this new orientation will look…it will be unlike anything we have seen…yes, how thrilling that is and in a sense we have barely got started.
Obama’s speech is mundane. He presents fighting in Afghanistan as given; does not spend any time to reflect on the culpability of his own country’s actions; defends acts of war that peers have not recognized to be justifiable, at times – even illegal.
“Wars are justified in defense of territory and lives”. How would that sound if it came from the Dalai Lama?
The Peace prize is for those who put humanity above everything else. Obama’s goal is to win the war for his country. Saddam could have said the same.
Well said !
Obama’s duty is to win the war for his country. This is his solemn duty as President to the extent that he believes that victory, however defined, is a vital national interest. Let others concern themselves with humanity, if they are so inclined and have the hubris to know what humanity wants and needs. But accept that fact that the President must do what he is sworn to do-protect the nation.
It sounds to me you are trying to find “fur in eggs”. Obama´s speech has been quite mundane, as Chui Tey said . Bush, Hitler and many other killers could have used the same words. In fact they used, but they didn´t have the same the appraisal and tolerance we are having with Obama, because of the hope he represented to us, the rest of the world.
Well said, Chui Tey.
It’s dismaying enough that for the first time in many months, the majority of Americans are for the war, mainly thanks to the democratic base which has lined up behind Obama, who is apparently their dear leader. But now we have opinion pieces from so-called spiritualist sources jumping in behind unfettered war.
To me, this highly specious piece of ‘reasoning’ (to use the word loosely) is nothing more or less than one giant logically fallacious, straw dog argument. It builds the entire argument without once resorting to a single fact based argument in regard to Afghanistan. It contains however, all the usual ammunition, starting out with flowery feel-good adjectives about Obama’s speech without a single fact based argument in suport of such characterizations; and it includes all the usual ad hominem attacks on those who argue otherwise, with the typical smearing reductionist approach to their viewpoints.
There isn’t time (or energy) to parse this entire piece in a mere letter reply, so I’ll satisfy myself with just one minor specific, which I think illustrates pretty well the loose logic and general use of fallacy that runs through the entire piece:
He says, “Of course, [King] Ashoka had to subdue his many enemies and secure his kingdom before renouncing war…”
Uh, well, in case it went over anyone’s head, Afghanistan is not part of the American “Kingdom”. So unless the author is putting forward some insidious supportive argument for the idea of American Empire, the entire history here of King Ashoka, as interesting as it admittedly was, is utterly irrelevant.
Sometimes people who get lost in sophism need to remind themselves to keep their eye on the ball.
His eye is on the ball, Terry and the ball is power and control just like every other pretender. To quote Clarence Darrow, “When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I’m beginning to believe it.”
I totally agree with you, Terry. The article is not soundly based and quite fallacious.
All the thoughts and philosophies shown here are beautiful, I love that, too, but we forget something here: our dear Obama is pushed, he is not doing (nor saying) just what he thinks, what he likes. He is saying what he “has to” as a political leader of a country. That is real poltik. And what is real politik? Money, “money makes the world go round, war go round, war go round…”
I”ve read two of Obamas speeches and I too am confused by the reactions of the “News” Pundits.
Left and Right
If there is a Moral here it seems gather all the information I can and then make MY OWN DECISON
Some how the concept that with all rights come RESPONSIBILTY fits.
On Peace, it seems the concept that Peace is not the Absence of Conflict but resolving it with our Violence makes some sense.
As an Old Military man I view Violence as the act of Physically Harming others.
A good Argument seems healthy and necessary it we are to reach what ever the next step in our evoultion has to offer.
With all due respect, Mike, your view of violence is cripplingly restricted.
Thank you for the feed back.
True is appears restrictive but for many it could be a starting place.
I am aware there are deeper levels of awareness.
I can tell you with some certainty that it is difficult to consider higher levels of transisitation when you do not know if you or your family will be alive in the AM.
I’ve only recently become aware of this site and am most gratified to find so many people willing to give deep thought to many of the concepts that I”ve considered for many years.
On the other hand I consider my self a piratical man, I am often struck by those who have a wall full of degrees but little piratical experience regurgitating philosophy about ”peace” as they gladly hide behind the shield that those whose willingness to deal in violence provide them.
It seems that many of us are on a journey that seems to have us at many different locations on the difficult path.
Peaceful
Thank you Carter for this insightful take on Obama’s speech. As you accurately illustrate, Obama defies the inert dogma of leftist passivism and right wing militarism by adopting a “carefully considered realism that doesn’t lose sight of our best ideals, and an idealism that is grounded in the world as we know it.” This uncharted territory explains much of the criticism Obama endures including some of the comments leveled at you.
For me, one of the most telling and hopeful lines of Obama’s speech was his reference to “the continued expansion of our moral imagination.” I’m not sure if Obama is versed in evolutionary spirituality, integral theory, and spiral dynamics (we really do need a single term that summarizes these interdependent schools), but he seems to intuitively grasp the developmental imperative that lies at the heart of this emerging worldview.
Elements of this Evolutionary Age are described wonderfully in your article above, and one passage bears repeating:
“We are coming to understand that spiritually, socially, and even politically, the interests of our species are best served not just by the noble hope for an end to human conflict or by the understandable desire for a cessation to human suffering, but by participating in the upward surge, development, and evolution of human culture and consciousnesses at all levels. It is a new orientation to life, one that privileges the ongoing challenge of change and development over the psychological relief of inner peace and the political ideal of freedom from conflict.”
Thank you for bringing this critical perspective to your analysis of current affairs – - – keep it coming!
Ok, but try not to blindly follow everything Obama says and go on every logical and rhetorical detour he may take around the sad fact that he accepted the award less than a month after announcing sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to fight a potentially “unwinnable” war (if there ever truly is a “winnable” war that is). I support Obama for the most part, but I’m not just going to follow along blindly because it is the easy thing to do. Certainly I think he deserved the Nobel prize for his potential and evident actual leadership regarding international multilateral disarmament through the United Nations, though the breakdown in process of the U.N. Climate Change conference in Copenhagen illustrates how hard and yet necessary attempts to negotiate legally binding and verifiable treaties as well as actions taken by individual governments (especially the United States!) as well as communities and individual human beings belonging and self-identifying as citizens of the world and universe and therefore essentially unified with all fellow humans, plants, and animals on planet Earth. Or at least that is the way I see the situation right now, and I hope that in 2010 further steps are taken to negotiate and implement nuclear disarmament, clean energy, and environmental protection and preservation actions and laws and efforts throughout the world, though of course localized in our particular communities and nation (United States for me). Though I still prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the world and universe over merely an American and/or United States citizen. As Tiny Tim said “God Bless Us, Everyone,” not just any one particular group, ideology, culture, or nation. Peace to all and have a wonderful transformational peaceful balanced integrated happy growth year in 2010!
Joshua,
Your grasp and actual perspective on what it means not to participate in tribalism is laudible. Where we seek security in groups, tribes, nations, etc. we only create more havoc. Most of the violence happening in the world today is being carried out in the name of religion. It is only when people like yourself stand apart from the whole idea of security and groups that there can ever be a chance for human beings to live in a world free of division and conflict.
I always say “I’m a citizen of the anti-matter universe, and if any anti-matter universe tries to mess with us we’re going to kick their _ss.
Now having an insight into the shallowness of the “psychological relief of inner peace” is something I can wholeheartedly go for. That phrase however ignores the
other psychological challenges to modern man which are numerous and far more important, including the need to shed the violence inherent in nationalism and tribalism. Even the family can be an isolating group and can impede
both the individual and society while also being a major part of all kinds of endless strife and family law, divorce, child custody, or clans, feuds and so forth.
There is also the psychological challenge of ending the attachment to greed, understanding pleasure and fear, of course, self deception, not to mention lack of clarity, distorted views, and so forth. These have little to do with the psychological relief of inner peace but a lot to do with the dramatic if not drastic need for humans to go deeply into the whole structure of our psychology. I don’t feel it’s dogmatic to assert, but rather a logical fact, that if people don’t undergo a complete radical psychological change, there can not be the possibility (outside of some bizarre scientific miracle to change behavior) of solving the serious problems the world has, from hunger, violence war, etc. and even to the challenges of leisure time, automation, the geometric increase of computational speed genetics and the robotic revolution that is soon to come.
If we try to do anything, while still in the neurotic mindset, which is thousands of years in the making, everything we do, and all our relationships will be tainted by that.
So first we must solve our psychological problems if there is ever to be a peaceful society. After all the world, society, etc. is not some conceptual object in the etheric realm. Society and the world is you, me, us, them and is dictated by the state of mind in which we find our selves functioning right now. That is something, with or without all the talk and speeches, that we can’t avoid or escape.
What hi falutin rhetoric. This “new orientation to life” is comprised of exactly what that allows it to challenge “the psychological relief of inner peace and the political ideal of freedom from conflict.” Obama has consistently engaged in obfuscation and specious language to engage the less than astute among us. What exactly in his program moves you to buy in to his ignoring the tenets of our Constitution to achieve his dubious goals? Why would you place your trust in the hands of a person who speaks with forked tongue?
peace is not an outdated concept.. the methods to attain peace are what is missing in our eductaional systems.. we are taight vilence.. towards other humans and especially towards other species.. and towards this planet in general.
peace will only ocme about when humans understand that this planet is one being.. that every creature is part of our family.. what will create peace is not another war nor some vague concept that we are evolving
perhaps even the concept of evolution should be reassessed or discarded.. why.. because it implies that life is moving from something lower to something higher.. better.. more valuable.. and that type of thinking is what makes humans believe they are somehow superior to what came before .. and to what other species that exist..
peace will come when humans learn to respect honour and have gratitude for all that this planet is..
humans have become the locusts of this planet.. the reason vampires and werewolves are so popular in today’s movies and stories is because humans have become the vampires and werewolves of this planet.. but we refuse to see that in ourselves… but the reality speaks for itself.. we have decimated ravaged the planet.. raped the planet.. and we have shown no regard for other beings..
basing existence on economy instead of ecology will never create peace.. there is an old parable of a pilgrim who was wandering for years in search of a certain sacred temple. one day the pilgrim came upon a monk sweeping the path. the pilgrim asked the monk..”could you tell me where is the temple.” the monk replied “The Path Is The Temple.”
when humanity wakes up and truly understands that this planet is the sacred temple.. right now.. humanity is trashing the sacred .. this planet and our bodies are not some practise place to evolve into some higher state whether it be physical or spirit.. the dance is now..
or quite simply humanity will go the way of the dinosaurs… and in the process we will create so much collateral damage to all other aspects of this planet we will leave behind a cemetary..
thou shalt not kill .. treat thy neighbour as thyself would like to be treated.. this includes not only the human species.. but every sentient being.. and every aspect of this planet is sentient.. this planet is the womb of humanity and all other beings.. it is the one who gives birth to and nourishes all of us.. it is time to wake up or wipe out ourselves and others..
thank you for opening this opportunity to engage in communication
Sir Bravo for your statement, especially what you said about evolution. Obviously evolution scientifically has been proven, however the concept of humans evolving towards something, making progress towards a better tomorrow, which is the movement from the present fact of what is to an idea of what is better in the future is insidious and dangerous. We hear that word thrown around a lot recently even by some of the wise and more popular teachers who we in this forum are probably most familiar with. Unless you define the word, evolution, one is setting oneself up for procrastination and stagnation, evasion and a type of violence you described against man, the environment and our partners the animals.
It is an important issue, which one has to examine closely: if there is an inherent danger and distortion in looking at things in terms of evolving.
As for the speech, I don’t have the space here to explain all the whys and wherefores but as a human on this planet, I do not accept or believe in the concept of self defense.
That may shock a lot of people, however, self defense is at the core of all our problems, both psychologically, socially, in relationship, politically, and geopolitical. It’s a topic which can’t be discussed fully using hypothetical situations and one that most people too quickly make conclusions about in favor of violence.
Thank you for your effort and insight into Obama’s acceptance speech. In addition to delving deeper into the content of the speech, I thought you emphasized the positive aspects rather than the negative. It seems to me that if we all would emphasize the positive rather than the negative that we would benefit evolution and advance peace as well as make life on our planet more enjoyable.
Thank you for sharing your mind’s thoughts with us! It is always fascinating to read your articles & the comments they inspire for a fresh point of view.
From up in Northeastern Canada — a thumbs up to the speech of President Obama — I believe his ideals are deep and high, but if politics contiues to be the “art of that which is possible” , it should be recognized that he and all leaders must work within the realm of conditions that actually exist, not within some idealized structure of what might be.
And a big thumbs up to this article— it is ground-breaking, and deserves wide attention and discussion all over the world at all levels.
It moves the discussion of war and peace away from the eternal clash of idealisms, into a new context which does not offer slick answers, but something way more important — a spirit of hope.
Thank you Carter. The universe, Earth, Gaia, Life is evolving whether we like it or not, or are aware of it or not. The issue, it seems to me, is conscious awareness of our creating and participating with others in Evolution by the choices we make in all aspects and dimensions of our individual and collective lives, including moral, ethical, and where we buy our groceries. As human beings we have the capacity to choose, to make choices. There is always the process of continual choice in how we live our lives. That is the cutting edge of evolution — how awake are we. Do we choose kindness and inclusion and endeavor to resolve conflict non-violently or do we choose, again in all the choices we make, consciously or unconsciously, separation, exclusion and divisiveness. Our President needs to put his money where his mouth is.
Ideally, in pursuit of individual and collective evolution, a peaceful environment is a crucial factor. And to place our country in a more compromised state and further deplete our resources and diminish our capacity to fortify our homefront could be potentially dangerous. Yet somehow I think Obama realizes this, and is also privy to information which informs him that we are in far from an ideal situation, and thus his consequent realistic and practical approach.
I believe the impulse to evolve is a positive energy that seeks to create. In the political realm this would translate into the creation of jobs and medical care for all U.S citizens, the creation of improved access to education that not only instills a respect for a multiplicity of perspectives but also educates people of ways to lead greener, more sustainable lives. Ideally we would focus on emboldening our own country not for the sake of power gained through victory in combat but to serve as an example that might doesn’t necessarily make right – right makes right.
However, I assume that Obama is basing his decision on the idea that America’s path to evolution and creation, and its’ destiny to be a gently authoritative moral voice in the world, is severely compromised or threatened. Life afterall must be protected before it can ever evolve beyond the quandaries and dilemmas that threaten its’ existence. And the idea that evolution can occur in the context of a peaceful resolution may seem naive and idealistic to Obama.
Perhaps it is time to engage with a piece of peace (word play intended) that we can pragmatically engage with and develop tools for conflict resolution that does not have to maim or kill.
It has been said that war is a failure of imagination so let’s imagine other ways to engage.
Conflict can lead to expansion, it does not have to lead to war. We will always have conflict as long as we engage in life. Lack of conflict is unrealistic, war is barbaric. Peace can be approached in pieces.
Well said,
Each step I take is a step towards where I can choose to go next.
I’ve heard it said that any orginism that ceases to grow starts to die.
Peaceful
I must say something here. You all talk and write but never experienced. I was born in 1925 in Rome, Italy. I survived the bombings and starvation and I state today that World War II WAS INEVITABLE. During twenty years before the war, Politicians, Dictators and all sort of mentally disturbed political chiefs yelled loud at each other across Europe, from Spain to Russia, insulting, menacing filling the environment with vibrations of deep detestation, revenge, menaces and hatred. Over the whole continent was a dense cloud of terror and loathing, a black mantel of hate, like a dense electrical storm. It all came down killing Fifty Two MILLION people, 52,000,000 dead, torturing wounding and harassing many more. Humans create wars because of their selfishness, fear, egoism, jalousie, envy and intolerance. Peace is a condition of universal GOODNESS and tolerance.
Peace and war are only empty words: Humanity must change!
I agree that President Obama’s speech was brilliant intellectually and reflective of his deep philosophical nature. However, I feel it was a form a sophistry in that it justified his decision to escalate the war effort in Afghanistan as a noble cause and failed to mention the motivations behind this decision having to do with domestic politics and the imperial thrust of U.S. domination of the world’s resources.
The media may have missed the power of the philosophy of his speech, but the disappointment felt by those who thought he was the leader ushering in a new era of honesty in the U.S. was the bigger story they omitted.
I wrote a response to him at my blog “Dear President Obama”, http://prayerswithpresidentobama.blogspot.com/
Dear President Obama,
Hearts all over the world were sinking as you tried to buoy them up with philosophy at your Nobel Prize acceptance speech. The mood of the world would have been wild celebration had it been given one year ago despite the lack of on the ground achievement. Then, you were the bright light that was bringing a whole new kind of political vision and action to the world from the most powerful position in the world. Now, through a long series of decisions capped by announcing at West Point that you are sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the mood has changed drastically, my own as well. You characteristically, humbly and honestly expressed your doubts about the rightness of being awarded the prize,
Progressive blogs and websites are half-filled with the writings of those disillusioned, angry and betrayed. The other half are filled with the righteous scolding of those who “knew all along”, that your very own campaign statements revealed, your politics were exactly what we are seeing. In my circles, (all people who worked for your election), it is common to hear sneering and cynical references to you. But beneath the cynicism and anger is grief. Something many of us hoped for seems gone.
While it’s possible to over-dramatize this, it’s also easy to underestimate the consequences of this mood shift. Rational or not, it is palpable and real, even if covered over. Something has died and most Americans don’t deal very consciously and appropriately with disappointment, let alone death. Denial, anger, withdrawal and cynicism are common defense mechanisms against grief. But they are not great rallying forces for dealing with the onslaught of the mad-dog right wing or advancing a truly progressive change in the U.S. and the world. The heart has been taken out of the movement that grew up around you as you offer us a philosophy that rationalizes among other things “just war” rather than “ending the mindset of war”.
I don’t buy into the cynicism or the sneering judgments of you. My own experience with even local politics informs me of the incredible subtlety, complexity and seduction of the trade-offs that appear necessary to stay relevant to the issues about which we care. Not the least of these is future elections which will determine the longevity of our efforts. Jesus admonished those who would throw stones to check first for their own purity of mind and action. Who among us has not compromised on truth when we sensed we might lose the position we’ve worked all our lives to attain, especially one that we continue to hope will do some good. It is true as well, that you didn’t so much misrepresent your views and plans as allow us to mis-perceive them.
We all have different roles to play. Yours, as not only “head of state”, but “head of empire”, has its own rules, constraints and demands. I continue to believe that you are attempting to do good while I very strongly disagree with so much of what you are doing including the choices in the people with which you surround yourself. Good people can see things very differently. There are good people who believe American military action in Afghanistan is the right thing even though they know that the American empire mostly seeks to profit its ruling elite. There are good people who hear your words and see only a cynical attempt to rationalize a deal you’ve cut with that elite. There are those of us who hear the one within you who truly believes we need to heed the teachings of Martin Luther King and Ghandi, that “the love that they preached – their faith in human progress – must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.” There are those of us who, even across what appears to be a great divide, join you when you “reach for the world that ought to be – that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls”.
There are still so many challenges ahead. Along with death comes rebirth and renewal. I choose to strengthen my resolve not to put my faith in leaders but rather in that divine spark within everything that exists and to allow that to guide me towards alliances and actions that move us towards a more just and peaceful world. I do feel that you have made a drastic mistake, a terrible miscalculation, but I will be praying for and with you from the other side of the barricades as I stand and march against yet another war, heartbreakingly, “Obama’s war”.
May the divine spark within you guide you,
Alan Levin
Thank you
It seems you have summed up what I’ve been attempting to put to paper for some time.
Some how I am begaining to feel like I did after the death of JFK,RFK and MLK .
None the less I know in the end it is ONLY me that can change and that that I will.
Peaceful
What is often overlooked, and entirely crucial to any discussion of human behavior and spirituality is the the stark reality that not everyone is at the same level of spiritual growth.
For example, how many sane, rational people would yell at at 6 month old to stop grabbing a hot stove? Not many. Why? That child is at a level of growth that doesn’t allow us the luxury to simply rationalize with that child. Someone has to protect, and discipline, that child to foster its growth.
Move forward to a child that is bigger than his chronological age might suggest. My son is 9, but is over 5 feet tall. Many times people will expect him to behave like a teenager. Imagine their surprise when a simple rebuke results in tears or other behavior not normally associated with what appears to be a teenager.
Now let’s move forward to the world at large. Being rational with some doesn’t result in a rational reply. They reply with hatred and violence, because it is what they know. It is ALL they know. You can talk nicely to them all day long and they will still kill you and steal your money as soon as you turn your back on them. They will still attempt to kill you and your family in the name of God, and believe they have done a good thing. They will build nuclear weapons, not to protect themselves, but to kill others.
It is naive and stupid to believe that everyone is at the same level of spiritual growth. Remember, the United States is not only the most advanced financially, but is likely the most advanced spiritually. Many of the people we deal with don’t even understand the basis for a peaceful existence, and won’t learn that lesson in this lifetime.
Finally, if you are truly spiritual, you stop clinging to this physical existence. All of us are eternal, here to learn. Some will have to die trying. Some will have to kill to advance the lesson of others.
I’m anxiously awaiting the outcry.
It’s actually incomprehensible for me, how anyone can justify war for peace.Isn’t all failure the other wars we are waging against Drugs, corruption and other umpteen number of things, enough to show that war has never been successful . At best , it has eliminated an existing enemy and created new ones.
It’s hilarious, that American soldiers have been engaged almost all the time in warzones across the world,since 5-10 decades and the president of the same country talks about peace.
The author, should have suggested some alternatives to the ongoing war, based on hard facts and good understanding of the socio political scenario.
I have had the privilige of being in touch with Jeff Carrera in the past and again thank you for this kind of opportunity. Trying our best to reach for peace, enlightenment, better and safer world may be a noble cause, but I’m concerned that this is not quite enough. If we do not know individually, why that spark of insight — enlightenment — occurs, interest to reach for it will never be adequate to achieve peace in the world. If EnlightenNext can’t show a good reason to each individual why he/she should reach for the higher state of mind, we fail in the effort to have the world we seek. The large majority of people want to know why a mystical experience occurs. Your organization seems to have the platform to transmit the much needed answer, something I do not have. I feel, however, that I do know why that gift occurs. There is a basis, evidence and logic to it. Why does it occur? It occurs when we take the time to analyze things we already know. Just as Franklin thought about the possibilities in lightning, so too we must look at the possibilities in the mind’s “lightning.” From infants we begin to learn and learn and learn. Much of what we learn we take for granted. It is here where our attention must be turned.
Emmanuel J. Karavousanos
Author and Speaker
It is my deepseated belief that the first lesson one should learn about power politics is that because there is often a huge discrepancy between word and deed, one should always judge a person of power on what they actually do, rather than on how good their speech-writers are.
The second lesson I believe is that all forms of authority have to be questioned, and their legitimacy has to be proven. By legitimacy I mean, that a state can only be said to be a legitimate power-construction insofar as it seeks to protect the weak against the strong. The state is itself of course among the strong factors of society and therefore measures should be taken so as to limit the possibility of misuse of its power. If a state fails to do so and/or actually works on behalf of the stronger voices and structures of power within society, it finds itself in a crisis of legitimacy. In the context of a socalled democracy where you cannot run for president unless you are a millionaire, and can finance your campaign with money collected from strong and self-serving interestgroups, it will be very hard for any american president to act on behalf of the weak instead of the strong.
Obama has not done anything yet that could charaterize him as a man of peace. He has been disingenous about the pretext for the war on the people of Afghanistan, which is now being escalated even though it is very uncertain whether Osama bin Laden is even in the country, and who the Taliban actually are. He has refused to make the former administration accountable for their crimes of torture and unprovoked war that has cost the American public trillions of dollars. He has held his hand over the telecommunications industry that illegally surveilled the American population under Bush, and interestingly enough AT&T were coincidentally among the great contributors to the democratic presidential campaign.
Obama might have good intentions but nevertheless the US has handed out hundreds of billions in contracts to the military-industrial complex in 2009 alone. Money that could have been spent on feeding, clothing and schooling the poor both in the US and abroad. Remember that this is redistribution from the weak to the strong. He is doing nothing to stop Monsanto from poisoning the world with its herbicides and non-reseedable GMOs. He therefore he finds himself in crisis of legitimacy.
What the world is seeing right now are interrelated crises that all are connected to the neoliberal economic order of globalized capitalism which has an ever increasing bottomline as its primary motive, while the climate, the plight of the people of the world and the rights of the poor and weak factors within the world community, are not of great interest to the powers that be.
Lofty rhetoric is easy and cheap. No one is clothed, fed or guaranteed a life in safety by words such as ‘clothing’, ‘food’, ‘peace’. Only concrete actions can do this. I don’t see many of these.
I understand the fastest growing segment of religious belief in the US and maybe the world (?) is Spirituality without the belief in God. Maybe a disillusionment for organized religion that appears a large part of our problems and conflicts that seem not to be able to clean up their own houses, so to speak.
What does it mean to be Good Without God? Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, asks this question in his new book, which explores the faith of the nonreligious. It may sound like a contradiction, but Epstein believes that human ethics are independent of belief in a supernatural power.
This is possibly (undoubtedly?) where spiritual belief is headed in our times and consonant with Enlightenment Next’s message of evolving enlightenment. ??
How can you think like that? Obama is not the antichrist but is the closet thing to the antichrist. If you preach enlightenment I will think that at least you can see that. You are still very far from recognizing a minimum truth.
Thanks Carter for the splendid mash-up of idealisms, realisms, political and philosophical positions, dominant attitudes, prevailing world-views, peace-dreams, universal goals and the pointing-out of enormous waves of assumptions, presumptions, concepts and perspectives that is argued and solidified into the conclusion that “peace is not the natural state of life.” Well, old buddy, it certainly isn’t – when it’s simply a samsaric concept juxtaposed against the false dichotomy of war. As Katie would inquire, “Can you absolutely know it’s true that peace is not the natural state of life?” Are we simply tormented by our existence that’s humorlessly and eternally bearing down on us? Hm.
Also inclusive of what’s been spelled out thus far is the assumption that all is moving evolutionarily “forward”, i.e., attention is shifting with an “upward surge”, thus the concept of “change” itself reins supreme. It’s as if a new deity has been born called “change”. And lest we forget, someplace within this massive malaise, there is a “guiding vision”.
As long as we assume the false dichotomy that separation (differences are not separate, just different) is real, i.e., peace vs. war, evolution vs. devolution, enlightenment vs. un-enlightenment, spirit vs. matter, or any configurative dilemma as such, and there remains a perpetual seeking from the foundation of this dilemma to realize authentic solutions, then the dilemma-dream simply dances harder within its own cul-de-sac, only in a bit more perpetuated, convoluted and complex manner. As such, life is dominated by an adventure-as-contraction/separation, and remains a very treacherous and fundamentally unhappy affair. It’s like a mass of conventional impulses colliding into each other within the confines of the Hadron Collider. How can authentic peace, or anything possibly arise beyond mere conjecture and brilliant-yet-separational-concept-making as it merely sloshes around in its own mud-filled soup?
Now that we know the structure of the illusional-ichotomous-dream, permit me to humbly serve up a bit of jib-jab for consideration: for the dream of separation and false dichotomies to come to an end, there is what one adept calls leaping from the “holy jumping off place” where “feeling without limitation” is revealed and lived in its fullness. As Adyashanti titled his book, it’s “The End Of Your World” as you knew it.
What becomes crystal clear from this “holy-jumping off “space” is this: the waking state is actually no more substantive or concretized than the dream state. Knowing and directly experiencing this allows the preceding or prior-to, center-less, boundless, luminous brilliance of pure Presence or “feeling beyond limitation” to spontaneously arise, along with all the conventions of limitations or modifications of Presence itself. It’s a both/and occurrence or what has been referred to by others as non-dual multiplicity.
By realizing and living from and as Presence (feeling without limitations; I’d use the term “Authentic Love”, but it’s too loaded), one then recognizes they have always possessed the inherent capacity, the “space”, to fully relate to, and BE non-separate from all limitations that arise and fall, waking, dreaming, sleeping, gross, subtle, causal, etc., in this world or any other world. In other words, the false dichotomy of subject and object vanishes, thus the end of all false dichotomies. It’s not however a matter of victoriously achieving some glorious subjectivity. It simply and directly reveals what we know of the dream situation, and brightly illumines any “position” we’ve assumed in any relative state of consciousness, waking, dreaming or sleeping.
Without Presence, or “feeling without limitations”, not a single thought, concept or experience, is anything but a permutation of a false-dichotomous dream. Check it out for one’s self. Seeing starkly into the dream is seeing directly into the motivating distress of all things happening, and remaining totally understanding of it as it arises, while simultaneously being fully liberated from self-possessed tendencies and illusions. Both/and.
So it becomes crystal clear that before one arrives at, and thus becomes potentially stuck (whatever one believes or holds onto in the mind is where there is stuckness) in various conclusions about this, that and the other, the prerequisite “step” is to naturally move into, and BE the “space”, the “view”, where one is unable to radically differentiate themselves from a single thing, even a mote of dust, or for that matter a massive constellation. It’s a “view”, a way of Being, beyond the false dichotomy of nirvana and samsara. Once feeling without limitations is lived (only Here reveals Here), then it behooves one to speak from this “view”, where one is not resting up against anything, no matter how spacious it may seem, i.e.; Cohen-ism, Wilber-ism, Murphy-ism, Buddhism, Hulk-Hogan-ism, et al., which are all wonderful – as far as they go, but in the final analysis are inherently limited. Stepping stones are wonderful and well-serving, as long as one isn’t left stuck on one in the middle of the river. ?
Again, may I submit: before jumping to conclusions about anything, fully “feel with no limitations”, and THEN flow with it’s spontaneous movement with natural ease into all relations, as all relations.
We ARE all relations, beyond two-ness and oneness. From HERE, I emplore you to express, talk, write, sing, etc., about whatever arises. Whatever is encountered from “feeling without limitation” spontaneously presents itself, and is fully appreciated for what it is, as is, in momentless moments. Just as it comes, it goes, graced with gratitude and love, whether it’s full of dramatizations and distractions or not. In any case, whatever arises is met with awe and wonder. It naturally melts like snow falling on a warm sidewalk – moment to moment – making space for the freshness of the next whatever. ?
From the fullness of “feeling without limitations”, there’s no such thing as “gradual dancing”. ?
“the upward surge, development, and evolution of human culture and consciousnesses at all levels”
This I think is better understood when we see that the necessary transformation is contextualized by seeing that we need to shift ourselves from within a Sickened Society into an Enlightened Society.
And yes what we consider to be enlightened will always evolve and deepen but this is not a process that has just started but one that has driven humankind and perhaps all of LIFE since its conception.
Therefore the how of evolution is becoming aware of the parts of ourselves that are stuck or caught in the old Sickened Society and the parts that are already located in the Enlightened Society. This process of awareness or truth-gathering is conscious evolution.
The question is, what is our Ideas of the Enlightened Society which we use to orientate and guide our evolution.
Thus it is both the development and creation of our Ideas of the Enlightened Society and the process of becoming aware of the different parts of our Being which inhabit the different Societies that is the basis of our Reality, our moral perspective and our political ideals.
In this respect, is Peace enough. Well probably not since most if not all people (and possibily sentient beings) will think that the Enlightened Society does not simply comprise of Peace but also Love, Equality, Respect, Justice, Compassion, Empathy, Generosity etc etc.
And Carter, you can (and should!) have peace along with change flux and chaos. These two aspects of life out of many are not mutually exclusive.
I fully agree with Chui Tey.
Carter you say, “This was a powerful speech, full of serious thinking and nuance, philosophy, and theology.” I am amazed with your naiivity. This speech was written by a well-paid speech writer, a political hack, assisted by war-mongers of the Pentagon. Obama has no time to think and reflect. But naiivity is becoming an American trait.
Lets consider this… Try changing “Obama” with “Stalin”, “Mao”, “Hitler” and your article still works.
Should Obama have sent more forces to Afganistan? American forces are now stationed in about 100 countries. Would you, Carter, want Iranian forces stationed outside Washington? If not, how can you justify why America should have its forces in these countries, who never attacked America? The US should have pulled out all its forces.
Another point… America never attacked Russia, China. It does not want to attack Iran or North Korea. It just wants easy wars, those it thought it would win, to provide circus for TV-addicted Americans.
This piece amounts to a bare assertion of the effective obsolescence of non-violent ethics, without providing for a middle-term that might begin to offer a susbstantial argument for its loss of primacy in the 21st century and beyond.
If, for example, “We are coming to understand that spiritually, socially, and even politically, the interests of our species are best served not just by the noble hope for an end to human conflict or by the understandable desire for a cessation to human suffering, but by participating in the upward surge, development, and evolution of human culture and consciousnesses at all levels”, why/how does this sense of already exclusive, and unexplained priority become, in the next para, “a new orientation to life, one that privileges the ongoing challenge of change and development over the psychological relief of inner peace and the political ideal of freedom from conflict.” In what, precisely, does such an apparent “priority” consist? Why should a non-violent personal and global ethics be exclusive to it, exactly? Why does the “ongoing challenge of change and development” explicitly, in these terms, repudiate the need also for an ongoing concerted effort towards the basic evolution of a less reactionary, ego-reified, defensive self that remains the largest cause of all violence in the world, and the main object of concern for spiritual-psychological transformative practices, Buddhism in particular?
Secondly, how could “the upward surge, development, and evolution of human culture and consciousnesses at all levels” (whatever that is, exactly, which also lacks substantive characterisation) possibly exclude a fundamental attention to the mechanisms of anger, hatred and ignorance that (again) remain the largest part of the cause for human conflict?
Lastly, “I have no doubt that the ultimate results of such a worldview will be an extraordinary global society the likes of which we can scarcely imagine today” sustains the tone of non-signification, bordering on the incredulous, by ignoring the most bald fact of human history: that far from ‘evolving’ into radically new forms of Being, human life, from Persia c.250 BC, to the present, and likely into the future, has remained ambiguously dogged by an ongoing and deeply debilitating commitment to violence as a (deeply ineffective) form of resolving differences. Surely an attention and responisibility to that reality must remain at least one of our major projects of evolution.
I believe President Obama’s and his political ideal of freedom would make Alfred Bernhard Nobel very happy.
Taken from Wikipedia Mr. Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. He owned Bofors, a major armaments manufacturer, which he had redirected from its previous role as an iron and steel mill.
A friend sent me a link to your essay and I found it extremely synchronisitic to something else that has come to my attention; that is, a book published back in 1997 called”The Fourth Turning”. It is uncanny how the predictions set forth for what we would be experiencing today are so dead-on. The authors almost predicted a Barack Obama coming into the picture as U.S. President, though not mentioning him by name. Yes, there is a season to everything (turn, turn, turn.) The U.S. is currently in Winter, but within this, we can be sure of the reutrn of Spring (though it may not come until around 2025.) Just as China is currently in a Spring cycle which will eventually turn to Summer, then Autumn and, eventually, Winter, in turn. The world works as one, evolution serves the Whole. Peace, war, peace, war…and the human race grows in consciousness.
Thanks for your insights, really enjoyed them!
It is a new orientation to life, one that privileges the ongoing challenge of change and development over the psychological relief of inner peace and the political ideal of freedom from conflict.
as I reread these comments I question the part about psychological relief.
it seems to me inner peace MUST come before we can move forward to a higher level.
I am reminded of the comments from an old Army Sgt.
“”Do not hate your enemy, he too thinks he is fighting for God and Country, AND hate spoils your aim.
With out inner peace how can I clearly know if I am following my inner voice or the voice that has been programed into me by an angry sociaty.
how can you say the idea of freedom from conflict is a political idea rather than an understanding that it is a necessity for survival of the race.
Thanks for any feed back.
It is important to remember that we enjoy the relative peace we enjoy in our lives today because certain individuals in the past chose to focus on creating a more sane and peaceful world. This means taking risks for peace which naturally pits one against those who would choose war and oppression. But, this also means choosing a just cause which stems from having the courage to say “no” to a cause which is built on false motivations.
Most wars are motivated by greed and lust for power. Iraq and Afganistan are no exceptions. Let’s remember where Bin Laden got his training from or who helped Sadam to power. And, then there were the arguments with which Iraq war was sold to us and the conviction which many of us held that these arguments were true.
Behind most wars, including the first and second world wars, you will find these dynamics at work. The first world war was a blatant grab for more money and power by a few and the second world war grew out of the effects of this crime against humanity.
People with substantial power must finally have the courage to say “no” to the interests of those who feed on war. Not to perpetuate the cycle of destruction. Ghandi had it right. The means produce the character of the ends. Hence the radical notion of non-vioence. Truly new and evolutionary. Not realistic? If we can create reality, why not start from this top end and not from what we already know about human potential for violence?
Especially, in a critical century like the present one when the fate of the world will be decided I find it to be irresponsible to be speculating about other possibilities which include war as acceptable means. Einstein’s warning is still valid: the third world war begins when we forget the second.
Timelessly astounding, the famous phrase from a general and no liberal in American politics, President Eisenhower: “beware the military industrial complex”. If you want evolution through friction, why not go to the core of the issue instead of justifying, to any degree, a war which is just another product of a string of corrupt policies and intrigues from the past?
Personally, I am a Obama supporter. But, is the war in Afghanistan REALLY necessary? Will America actually be endangered if it were to end and will the Afghanistan people tuly be better for this war? We continue to react to chains of actions and reactions from the past and this process is perpetuated by people in power who have their own agendas. It is just unfortunate for Obama that he is caught in this web.
At some point, if we are to survive, more people will have to reject such reactions and question such motivations. Not get on a bandwagen which has greed and power driving it. A hopeful sign was the truly mass demonstrations throughout the world prior to Iraq war -the first time in history such an event occured internationally, simultaneously and prior to the outbreak of a war. This is the direction for our evolution. Let us put our efforts into promoting such outcomes.
I listened to the President Obama’s Nobel Prize Acceptance speech and read the transcript as well. As of me, it was in order.
Now turning to Carter’s essay “that if our species is to have a chance for a brighter future then we must find a way to end the war and violence that are now threatening the very structure of our planetary society. …….But how do we get there? Therein lies the rub.” How we get there will keep the mankind haunting forever.
Down the millennia Buddha, Christ, Mohammad et al couldn’t establish lasting peace in the world. Ashoka’s and other examples of sporadic peace are nothing but blips on the sands of time.Everything is governed by the absolute law of impermanence. So wishing for permanent and universal peace will as always remain a “wish” – ever beckoning to be fulfilled in some unknown future. I don’t think it verges on pessimism; rather it is admission of stark realism. So, to establish peace we have to constantly wage war.That is what President Obama meant surely. That may sound paradoxical but we have to accept that it will always remain inevitable.
I don’t know if moderation is to be done by me. I won’t mind even if it is excluded altogether due to whatever reason you may think proper
Folks, let’s not pump helium into a really rather basic and perennial issue, that of how to handle inevitable conflict in human relations. In our own one-to-one relationships, how often is it “necessary” to take up arms or go into actual combat? Is it impractical to extrapolate from this to conflicts between international entities? Is it too sophisticated to conclude that only actual defense is morally defensible? I think Obama royally obfuscated the “peace/war” issue in his Nobel “peace prize” acceptance speech, and actually furthered the cause of rhetorical deception on behalf of the growing spectrum of greedy war proponents (see neo-con support), all of whom want to expand war as a direct resource acquisition tool. It was high-flown oratory trying to carry aloft flimsy, floozy logic. Extremely disappointing. An extension of American triumphalism. His noble sentiments are not heard from victim populations, are they?
Duality in thought and interactions needs urgently to preclude war – this would not preclude conflict, but simply its resort to the extreme “solution” (war) which proves over and over and over to not solve conflict but to perpetuate it.
If you think this is ineffectual “leftist pacifism”, then I recommend that you join the infantry and get a first-hand taste of what Obama et al merely fly over.
I add my appreciation for Carter’s perspective that peace is not the prime strategy or immediate goal for this point in human history; processes for supporting individual evolution are far more urgent.
I would like to add to this point by suggesting that the rising enthrallment with nondualism can be seen as related to the dominant desire for peace; both seek to realize the Oneness in which contrast and controversy cannot exist.
However, both philosophical ideologies of nonduality and pacifism fail to recognize or hon0r the primary role of consciousness evolution in the experience of humanity. Only when we fully accept that each being is here to develop through increasing degrees of awareness – and that each is at a different point in that process – can we accept that human learning happens primarily through experiencing contrast with that which we are growing beyond.
The key to minimizing suffering from such contrasting experiences is to grow faster and smarter; to evolve beyond the need to learn exclusively through violent conflict with what we don’t want to be.
I think Obama recognizes that “smart evolution” is about encouraging positive cultural reforms that enable individual development (e.g. quality education especially for girls in Afganistan) rather than purely destructive military force types of engagement.
While “peace” will hopefully be the ultimate outcome of the journey of all human souls, we cannot bypass the interim, progressive, step-by-step learning experiences needed for realizing our highest potential consciousness.
I must say I disagree with the entire thrust of your argument supporting Obama’s continuation of the illegal wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. After hearing his escalation speech and reading his Nobel Acceptance speech I too was moved to commenting on them.
“War Is Peace and Where to Put the Nobel Prize”
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5395.shtml
Nick,
I read your article. Good job. It was thoughtful and correct.
It’s true that we can’t have a war on terror when war itself IS terror and your analysis of the historical posturing and propaganda used to justify our own terrorist actions.
The one point I differ with however, if I understood you properly was that it had not been proved that Bin Laden was responsible for 911, however in on of the video’s
released of him about a bit more than a year after the incident he did take credit for the attacks, mentioning that the members of the terrorist cells on the planes didn’t themselves know the ultimate nature of their mission until the last minutes of the operation, implying of course a confession.
On this subject I refer those who aren’t familiar to the wonderful work for peace by the late Coleman McCarthy, which you can find searching Google or Wikipedia.
He said, “It’s too easy only to blame the militarists, racists, sexists and other pushers of violence for the mess we’re in. What is harder is self-examination, moving beyond caring by looking inward to ask the personal question: What more should I be doing everyday to bring about a peace and justice based world, whether across the ocean or across the living room?”
“The most important act of peacemaking? Your next one. Few of us will ever be called on to do great things, but all of us can do small things in a great way.”
“Wars aren’t stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.”
I will best remember this non-violent man for explaining his parameters regarding vegetarianism:
“I won’t eat anything that can cry out to or has a mother.”
I continue to be astonished at how the notion of “human evolution” without “peace” being a central integral part can even be entertained by serious people! Virtually every spiritual leader in all traditions through time has held their light firmly to this ideal. I think I’m almost hearing some voices in this forum suggesting that “peace” is an impossible ideal and the times require more flexibility (i.e., more war). Do you know what the implications of this are? I believe that if you had ever tasted the reality of it, you would have far deeper reservations. There is no “just war”, there is just war. A “leadership” that deviates from the ideal of true peace — don’t over-think what that is, every sane person knows — is an obsolete leadership. Obama is not progressive, he is obsolete in one year. Open your eyes. Google “drone”. See. Question all authority.
The willingness to jettison peace and nonviolence as an ideal and vision of the way the world should be is antithetical to the tacit and implicit meaning of the speech Obama gave, as well as the traditions and wisdom of all cultures and peoples and philosophies and worldviews that make up the web of connections that we enjoy now as we may work to create, preserve, and reflect the intricately and necessarily interrelated and connected ideals of peace, justice, feminism, radical progressive spirituality / religion, ecological and economic sustainability science, and equality of opportunity and common but differentiated responsibilities of the global international and transcendental pragmatic evolving transformative social and ecological movement on the left and right side of the political spectrum balanced for the best possible outcome of the future world that should be for many generations to come for Peace, Love, and Understanding!
phew…
Can peace be found through effort, or is effort in itself violent? Can one force peace upon others? Obviously not.
I’m suggesting that the quality of what we call peace flowers naturally and effortlessly when there is non-doing. I’m asking if there is a different type of action that is complete and is not self centered activity, not action which springs from time, effort or evolution. It takes a tremendous insensitivity to come up with a rationalization for murdering a countless number of human beings. We humans on this earth have evolved into becoming magnificent masters at the art of justifying and committing excusable murder and mass genocide. Congratulations.
I thoroughly resinate with Andrew Cohen’s and Ken Wilber’s Integral Philosophy and the emergence of conscious awareness of the Integral Self. It seems to me that Obama has an innate awareness of this also.
During my idealistic stage I was an ardant believer in passivism supported by conscience and reason. But much to my confusion was intuitively directed to compromise this in action and allowed myself to be drafted into the army as a medic. For many years now I have both intellectually and intuitively seen a much more holistic, integral view of the broad sweep of the evolution of consciousness and its effect on the physical world and bodies. Fifty years ago I vaguely intuited the the vast shift we are undergoing now. This is confirmed by many sources. But as expected, there is very strong resistance by those that are vested in the old consciousness with its attatchments.
President Obama, as he stated, both an idealist and a pragmatist. He has accomplished much more than he is generally accredited for and attempted to start much more, but he opposed at nearly step by these interests with their influence on the economy and Congress. I do not know if all of his decisions are the best. He has always admitted his fallability. But he would get very little of his agenda accepted by Congress if he did not compromise.The Republican Party (not all members of it) are determined to defeat him no matter what they have to do, fairly or unfairly.
With Afganistan, as with Iraq, serious mistakes were made by administrations whose thinking was so strongly influenced by military force. If they had made an earlier attempt to understand the cultures and their histories, using this to guide their actions, we would not be in the fix we are in. As express in Brown’s The Lost Symbol, our nation was designed to be a beacon to human ideals, not a force.
In Afganistan we have a tiger by the tail. Obama sees this, thus his decision to send in more troops while working more closely with the people and their needs and desires, hoping that maybe this will stall complete collapes untill something will change for the better. Whether it will work, nobody knows, but we can all pray and envision a better world as we also work on our own purification.
“hoping that maybe this will stall complete collapses until something will change for the better.”
Former Medic Herlwyn Lutz – Hi! This is former Corpsman Stone!
Get over it, will you? Don’t give these people “time”! You’ve had 45 – 50 years of “time” to see “change” Where is it? This is the End of Time. And the beginning of Peace. Let’s make it simple: get on or get off the peace train. The peace train is SYNONYMOUS with the “evolution” train. No evolution without peace, plain and SIMPLE. Don’t keep over-thinking it!!! Those who somehow justify mixing war with evolution – great — see you way up ahead, if you can catch up!!!!
Thanks Jack, you nail it.
exactly.. war does not and never has lead to peace.. only peaceful means leads to lasting peace.. if one is thirsty one does not sit by the fire.. one drinks water.. similarly if one wants peace.. one does not make war.
i wonder what it would take to awaken every person with a weapon to just put down that weapon and refuse to harm another being.. human and non human.. could humanity evolve to that level or are we doomed to die out like the dinosaurs did.. ?
I found this to be a very well written, and impassioned article, but it does nothing to help me temper the main fears I encounter when advocating for the ‘conscious evolution’ movement – that it is ignoring the current battle lines to create a toothless ideology which can only get traction in wealthy and relatively peaceful pockets of the world like the US seaboards. Just like the criticisms levelled at pacifism in this piece, the conscious evolution narrative does nothing to tackle conservatism on its own terms. Instead, it creates a third perspective equally as gluttonous, not operationalised, disengaged and unrealistic as post-modernity – and in fighting the Left so stridently, unfortunately affirms some of the core errors of conservatism. There is never a discussion of how the majority of the world’s population might develop these lucid structures of consciousness while continuing to battle for mere survival, and often at the hand of globalist business elites and US military domination. The ‘problems in Afghanistan’ were created by the US elite to complete the Carter Doctrine of obtaining a fiefdom over crude oil in the Middle East. Cheney’s unending war on terrorism (which is now Obama’s) has always been a ruse for this far more sinister decision. So, the Left rightly criticises these unnecessary acts of theft and aggression, and poses peace as the rightful alternative. While I agree that using the sword is sometimes the most appropriate action, in this case, it is unequivocally not. It’s hard not to think that the perspective presented here is endemic of a core problem with the ‘conscious evolution’ or ‘integral’ movements in providing geo-political commentary – a complete absence of a workable and defensible political theory couched squarely in the actual problems facing human life here and now. A spiritualist perspective without this political theory seems like a disgraceful act of first-world excess which should rankle all of us struggling to live in the face of a crippled and unethical system of conservative business rule (Republican or Democrat). I believe Elizabeth Debold’s wise political analyses of gender issues should stand as a beacon for this movement when considering the impacts of a true development in human political relations incorporating post-metaphysical spiritualist perspectives.
I think a much better speech was given by Nobel recipient for literature Jean Paul Sartre, when he said:
“This prize means as much to me as a sack of potatoes”.
That was the entire speech. Short and to the point. Sort of Zen in it’s expression.
I really laughed when I heard Obama (and I love the man and his administation more each day) say “I accept this award with great humility”??? How brash, how silly and arrogant!” Please Mr. Obama, don’t expose your conciet by claiming to have great humility!
I wonder if the Dalai Lama would agree with Obama’s short sighted pragmatism and the author here. He’s someone who although I admit he’s a great man who has been a major proponent of peace, even though I disagree with him on many issues. One can’t deny that his teaching and presence have had a very marked influence on the world in a positive evolutionary way. I would ask those persons siding with our President’s intellectually contrived point of view to reconsider what H.H. the Dalai Lama’s life example means and if it has value or if he is instead naive and not pragmatic. Should he be more like Obama?
I don’t deny that Obama deserved the recognition for his inspirational and inclusive message that his administration has brought to the world. Still, I’d be happier to see the prize go to someone who Obama stopped from bringing a much greater change to the world, a woman – named Hillary Clinton. Still he is to be highly commended for making her Secretary of State. She’s doing a great and pragmatic job herself! I guess I’m suggesting that in the final analysis, yes Obama’s speech is actually sophomoric and overly complicated and also too simplistic. How ironic is that?
I have to applaud this attempt at understanding war in a larger, deeper context than the limited moral views of much of humanity, which have been a necessary but largely ineffective counteraction to it over the last 2500 or so years, the years of the development of modern civilization.
I also must concur with the assessment that Obama’s speech was a good, perhaps even great one, not in the manner of the great inspired calls to action, the “blood, sweat, and tears” eloquence of Churchill, but rather in the line of the Gettysburg Address: the quiet but realistic assessment of a difficult situation, the acknowledgement of the sacrifices necessary to face it, and the re-affirmation of the ideals upon which the action was based.
And if today were 1863, not 2010, I would perhaps agree with many of Obama’s views. But the world of today is not that of Lincoln nor of Churchill; the conflict we face today is a vastly greater one, a far more profound and far-reaching conflagration which is not understood by the world today, and for which the conflicts described in Obama’s speech are minor preludes.
The sages of ancient India understood very well the purpose and function of war, an understanding which has largely been lost in modern times. That understanding was that it was one of the many necessary forces of an Absolute Supreme being, one casting itself into the infinity of forms which constitute the manifest universe, and which represents an unfolding, a process of continuous and increasing discovery of that Absolute of himself within himself in many guises, and which necessarily involves both creative and destructive aspects, of which war was merely one.
That view has to some extent been expressed in other esoteric spiritual traditions, and later took the more limited form in India, the one that has essentially been retained, which is the more personal formulation of the Puranas, of the evolutionary power of that Absolute expressed in the triple personalities of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, representing its creative, preservative, and destructive aspects.
And that view is necessary for a larger, more relevant understanding of the events discussed by Mr. Obama, one which humanity must have in order to face the impending events of the 21st century, events which necessarily must shake humanity to the very core of its being.
Because of this ignorance, the world is largely unaware of the significance of the violent events of the first decade of the 21st century, of the symbolism of the destruction of the World Trade Center, the continual attacks on one of the world’s main trade arteries off the coast of Africa, the attack on the Taj Mahal Hotel, the most visible symbol of material wealth in Mumbai, the center of India’s new materialistic culture, nor the success of the Taliban.
These represent the same destructive force that has acted throughout history to push aside obstacles to the earth-evolution.
And the Islamic extremists, who to a large extent have been the vehicle of this destructive energy, in some ways have sensed the deep falsity behind present civilization, and which is the great attraction of their movement to many contemporary Muslims. But their solution has been to try to replace it with an even worse falsity, the return to a rigid and despotic form of sectarian religious control.
Likewise that destructive force has reignited, or rather refocused, the old energy of tribal egos, the energy that it has used throughout history, replacing the massively destructive nationalistic venue of the last century with the more limited sectarian and ethnic violence of Africa and the Mid East, and the epidemic of gang violence in much of the Western hemisphere.
And that force must be resisted, as Krishna advised Arjuna in the Gita, and which Obama and the Nobel committee have to some degree understood.
But the resistance can only be a temporary solution, for the force which is expressing itself is far deeper and more significant than the world recognizes. And these limited expressions of its action are mere warnings, shots across the bow, relatively innocuous indications of the larger intent of nature in the 21st century.
The emerging Western spiritual community, which has attempted to understand some of the vision of ancient India, yet has been able to grasp little of the larger movements of nature on earth. It ignorantly believes it has discovered something ancient Eastern traditions missed: a collective evolutionary movement towards greater consciousness. And it has largely gleaned its vision of that evolution from the ignorant glimmerings of Western philosophers, recovering bits and fragments of the greater knowledge largely hidden to them, or the superficial understanding of Western science. They have given us a naïve picture of the possibility of an increasingly content and untroubled humanity, moving out of the ignorance of modern materialism, using the ancient methods of inner development, combined with a more considerate use of technological comforts and conveniences, to stroll hand in hand towards a rainbow’s end of happy human existence on earth, perhaps going through some difficulties, but certainly nothing insurmountable by the combination of Eastern spiritual techniques and Western scientific knowledge expressed in some collective effort of human ingenuity.
The ancient Indian seers were far wiser than that. They knew very well of a collective evolution, not perhaps in those words, but rather in the much deeper, more pregnant symbolic expression of those times, which in its brevity contained far more than the West and even contemporary India understands. But their concern was the evolution of consciousness in the individual, for they knew that from it all else flows.
And a more detailed knowledge of the collective evolutionary path of the world was premature, although intimations of a great impending crisis have been expressed in Eastern as well as Western spiritual traditions, mostly around or after the close of the Vedic era–the end of the period of the great Indian sages–and also in the traditions of some of the Central American indigenous tribes, who represented the resurrection, the reincarnation of the principal elements of the old Egyptian knowledge in the West at the time when the Egyptian culture was dying out.
A fuller, more detailed understanding of both the individual and collective evolution of the earth came out of India in the 20th century, one which was accompanied by a new possibility, the development of the capacity within the earth of fulfilling that evolution in a far greater, far more profound way. But this message and its implications have been little understood both by the West and by India.
The message of these modern sages was that man is a transitional being, useful for a particular purpose in nature’s great evolutionary scheme, a purpose which has now ended, and upon whom the curtain is about to close. At the same time, a new evolutionary window has opened, one which has never before truly existed on earth.
And their message is that in order for man to pass through this new evolutionary window, towards an existence that he cannot yet know or imagine, he must give up his humanity, he must let go of every aspect of his mental, emotional, and physical being.
And this movement cannot be collective, it can only be individual, supported perhaps by others who have trod the same path, but nonetheless essentially personal. It requires that each of us now face directly the motive evolutionary force, the unmasked creative Power within ourselves, and assent to its demands.
The events of the first decade of the 21st century have been a prelude, but a prelude towards what? The answer to that question for each of us will depend upon our individual response to those demands. To the extent we can give up our humanity, and move along a necessarily difficult and arduous path, with only glimmerings and partial expressions of an ultimate goal that we cannot know, the prelude will be to an eventual form of existence inconceivable to the human mind, and for which all human superlatives are inapt. But for those who cannot, the prelude will be to something else.
I found Obama’s speech to be an incredibly powerful and inspiring statement regarding America’s role and purpose in world affairs; past, present and future!
I recently saw a great video from an interview on the John Stewart show where the Swiss UN Ambassador was challenged regarding Switzerland’s famous neutrality. It’s a great example of why we must be willing to walk the fine line between war and peace. I think it also points to the fact that there can be certain situations when the position of neutrality and peace is simply immoral.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/john-oliver-confronts-swi_n_380305.html
Eric
It’s interesting that an article put up December 12 is still generating what appear to be thoughtful comments in this forum.
I confess I am honestly puzzled by every “argument” that allows for war for any reason. I believe that when taken apart, each and every such apology will prove bogus. If you are attacked and your life and well-being is genuinely threatened, then I guess you are within natural law to “defend” yourself. As for individual, so for “nation”, tribe, gang, interest group. That is not a moral argument, but simply the survival reflex of any healthy animal. Beyond that, there are no justifications for war. If you disagree, please state such a case in plain english, in language we can all understand. Don’t waft too philosophical, or you may risk sounding foolish. I challenge you, and I will de-construct your “defense of war” into atoms of meaninglessness. Have you been in war? When you have, you will know: there is no justification for this most degrading of all human degradations. It is time for human beings to GROW UP!!!!!
Thanks, Jack.
And thanks to you, Alan, for your beautifully felt and written blog entry, one gem of which I admire so much: “I choose to strengthen my resolve not to put my faith in leaders but rather in that divine spark within everything that exists and to allow that to guide me towards alliances and actions that move us towards a more just and peaceful world.” And thanks to all natural allies, bothers and sisters out there who know that we are now dealing in the theater of the Mind, and that we have the ultimate power, and that our power ends when we consent to war and other failures of human imagination and community. Jack
At the essence of all war (versus self-defense) is the desire to be right. If you are tied to an opinion, you are automatically at war with someone, even if that opinion is that war is “bad”.
All things are good. They are designed to help us grow spiritually. Even the painful, miserable, awful things that happen. In addition, concern over war is simply a failure to recognize that our physical bodies (which is all that war can destroy) are not that important. You can kill a body, but not a spirit. Once spiritual development grows to a certain level, war will cease to exist.
Stop being at war with war.
It is difficult to talk about things like war and peace (or anything of this world) without revealing that we are connected to a point of view. So, with that in mind, let me offer the following questions.
Can you say the words, “war is good” and honestly feel throughout your body/mind that you are telling the truth?
Why do you feel it is important that war cease to exist (as you imply in your last sentence) or imagine it will disappear if we spiritually evolve?
Why should we not make war on war? Isn’t that part of the goodness of everything?
Perhaps it is helpful to admit that as human beings it is not healthy to try to maintain an imagined cosmic view. Rather, to understand that living in a world of duality it is right to “take sides” (to have a point of view of what is good and bad) in helping move towards a better world.
Implicit in all of this discussion which started with the suggestion that war might “sometimes” be “necessary” (I am not quoting Carter Phipps) in the gradual upward sweep of human evolution, are the questions: is war “necessary” now, and is it ever morally justifiable? (Human evolution is not possible to consider without a moral component).
If it is allowed by “evolutionary thinkers” that war will happen despite the protests and sufferings of “pacifists” and victims, then atavism and primitive attempts to take others’ lives and property are integral in the great spiral of forward evolution. All I can say is that this seems to me at the least self-contradictory.
In the modern world, there is more war rather than less. And many signs indicate much more to come. To those who take the view (and taking a view might also be called “thinking”) that human evolution is now rapidly ascending, is this indicative of the acceleration of “evolution”, or is “evolution” somehow stalled?
John, you say “Once spiritual development grows to a certain level, war will cease to exist.” That’s like saying “when I get up, my breakfast will be ready, my clothes put on for me, and my day laid out seamlessly before me.” Nice outcome, no personal investment. You are attempting to separate yourself from the implications of these questions about war.
It is my avowed “point of view” that the shape of the future, starting at this second, will correspond in some degree with our conscious intention. Value judgments are critically integrated into the formation of that intention. If you make no value distinctions, then you might as well say that anything that happens, including, for example, further proliferation of exploitative, pre-emptive, imperial war on the part of the government to which you pay taxes, is “evolution”. Then why be having this discussion at all? It is all, as you say, the defense of a point of view about what we feel is best. Of course!
The results of our intentions will be roughly along the lines of clearly identifiable higher “evolution”, prolonged “stasis”, or perhaps self-destruction. Does it make any difference?
So, what are your intentions?
I understand the entire purpose of this website is to clarify the critical moment we are in, with regard to conscious human co-evolution. To say “stop being at war with war” is a pseudo-philosophical evasion of a responsibility all “conscious evolution” persons have. Dualism is a cosmic given. Take a side, if only in your soul. It matters.
Alan and Jack,
Great thoughts. Even better that I’ve have the opportunity to learn from two obviously erudite, thoughtful people. I suspect that I would have a great time sitting down with both of you and discussing this at length. It would hone my point of view, and hopefully make me a better person.
Might I suggest a book? Power vs Force by Dr. David Hawkins. His description of levels of consciousness is extremely enlightening. If you accept that not everyone is at the same level, then it becomes obvious that your response to the actions of individuals, or groups of individuals (called States or Country’s) is determined by what they will comprehend. To simplify this thought to the mundane, if my dog is running into the street and might be in danger, I don’t sit him down and talk with him (OK, OK, I might…he just doesn’t have a clue). So how do I deal with the dog and the danger? I find physical ways to restrain him, discipline him and otherwise care for him. Unfortunately, some humans have to be treated in similar fashion. Sometimes that leads to war. So, is war good? Just as good as anything. It teaches us how to be better people because it’s painful. Not much different than grabbing a hot stove. Physical suffering can be a great teaching tool.
John
“Great thoughts. Even better that I’ve have the opportunity to learn from two obviously erudite, thoughtful people. I suspect that I would have a great time sitting down with both of you and discussing this at length. It would hone my point of view, and hopefully make me a better person.”
That would be fun, and productive for all participants! But seriously, is this about honing a point of view, or accelerating human evolution/enlightenment?
“Might I suggest a book? Power vs Force by Dr. David Hawkins.” I know of this, but have not read it. It goes now on my list to read soon. “His description of levels of consciousness is extremely enlightening. If you accept that not everyone is at the same level ” —— whoa, whoa… I’m not sure I do accept that, or that I am prepared to be put in that position for you to make your point. .. “then it becomes obvious that your response to the actions of individuals, or groups of individuals (called States or Country’s) is determined by what they will comprehend. To simplify this thought to the mundane, if my dog is running into the street and might be in danger, I don’t sit him down and talk with him (OK, OK, I might…he just doesn’t have a clue). So how do I deal with the dog and the danger? I find physical ways to restrain him, discipline him and otherwise care for him. Unfortunately, some humans have to be treated in similar fashion.” Disagree. 1. Humans are not dogs – just different, and more cognitive. 2. Have you ever listened to a dog? A friend? An opponent? An adversary? An ‘enemy’? Listening can defuse many conflicts. “Sometimes that leads to war. So, is war good? Just as good as anything.” Disagree. Life-lessons (domestic conflict and dysfunctionality, and the roots of international war) should be taken and absorbed by knowing individuals and aggregates. Repetitions (over and over and over, in human history) should not be necessary. “It teaches us how to be better people because it’s painful. Not much different than grabbing a hot stove. Physical suffering can be a great teaching tool.” Are you really up for repeating eons of human evolutionary experience to get to NOW? Please… you are already here, now. Now is what you want, period. Do you want war? Do you want oppression? Do you want injustice? Do you want further delay to your own freedom and “enlightenment”? It is up to you, in this moment. The scenarios you imagine are simply detaining you from what you know is right.
Jack & Alan,
I have several questions. This is not a set-up for me to win an argument, they are real questions.
Are police necessary? If yes, what is their function? If no, how do we avoid having our possessions taken, our women from being violated, etc?
Second question. If you believe police are necessary, then is it appropriate for them to invade a home to apprehend a lawbreaker? (ie-make war)
Third. Doesn’t war, require two willing participants? If they don’t want war, let them stop fighting. We didn’t put a bomb on a plane at Christmas, did we?
There is no hidden agenda here and you can see where I am going. I’m trying to get this down to a level that I can comprehend. When we start talking “war”, etc, it becomes an abstraction that doesn’t mean much to me. The central issue, for me, revolves around practical issues of protection and preservation of my way of life. And, if police are necessary, aren’t soldiers necessary? If so, what should their function be?
Keep it simple for me guys! Terms like Imperialism don’t mean anything to me. Give me some practical tools for understanding how we can not be at war given the extreme beliefs of some individuals. (Won’t extreme beliefs always exist on the bell curve?)
John
John: It seems that you look at life in too simple terms. In this case, instead of understanding the current wars that the US is waging, you have decided to take a rather simplistic “we” versus “they” racial stand.
Yes, Police is necessary. But look at the following stories and tell me if this means police should be able to get away with the followings:
1) http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/fake_electrocution_of_prisoner.html
2) http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w126.html
3) Read more police abuse stories here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-arch.html
So, John, in simpler terms: Yes, police is necessary but that does not mean they have the right to rape and pillage.
Now, John, What is this “we” versus “they?” The guy who had bomb in the plane has nothing to do with the murders the US army is doing in Iraq, Afganistan, etc. I recall that as kids when one person was beaten he went to beat someone else weaker than him. I guess this is the logic you use. War for defense is perfectly legitimate. But the US presence in Iraq has nothing to do with defense. And the US army has so far killed everyone in Afghanistan–the innocents–except Bin Laden. And who does the US support there? A thoroughly corrupt guy called Karzai. Moreover, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussain were trained and financed by the US. One has to be morally bankrupt not to see these errors after errors of the US.
Post-9/11, the US should have focused on getting rid of Bin Laden, not waged a war against countries, or in your simpler world “they.”
Perhaps we should leave Iraq and Afghanistan. In time those who may take over the government of those nations could get strong and, in time, develop the ability to create their own weapons of mass destruction with which they can then attack not only the U. S., but any other country they wish. Sadly, people who want to have us leave Iraq and Afghanistan fail to see that those countries must become free and must have a responsible government before we can leave. I think how lucky we are to be in these United States where we are free to offer our views.
Emmanuel,
You are right! It’s nice to live in a country where we are free to express our views. That’s wonderful. Try living in a country and having no views however, then people won’t be so accepting – they will get quite unhappy about that.
JL
People!
Humanity can not afford the luxury of war, we are now facing a crisis. It is required for us to see and teach the fallacy of the entire point of view or concept of self defense. As long as there is self defense, we can never end violence and will snowball inevitably towards complete destruction. I’m not talking about an animal attacking me but conscious human on human violence, until we can rise above it we will be mired in it and we have reached technologically and biologically with our methods of warfare a point of no return. The probability of having a gun in my house harming me or someone I am close to are far greater than it being used to protect myself.
How does humanity defend itself from extinction? If I must be martyred by not defending myself, if I wind up in that situation, that will do much more to save humanity from extinction than defending little ‘ole me. That is one of the real truths of Christianity. That is the true self defense for the human race – never to raise a violent hand against another at any cost even one’s very life. As Jesus said: “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword”. That one statement by Jesus is probably the statement that almost no Christian is willing to believe. It’s too radical and highly evolved for the average person, even most self proclaimed Christians. Imagine is Christians actually lived that way. They would cause a dynamic, radical and completely explosive change in the world that would set humanity on fire and usher in a spiritual transformation of the world which would be unprecedented.
I take James Love’s points, but I would never refer to war as a “luxury”, as it is always a misappropriation of resources and a deprivation of innocent people in real need.
War “happens” for a number of stated or covert causes, none of which are beyond the scope of a 4th-grader to see through.
War “happens” because two or more parties have been at war since time immemorial, and will not break the cycle. War “happens” because somebody wants something someone else has (land, natural resources, water, etc.), and won’t take the time to figure out how to trade for it or get it elsewhere. War “happens” because certain sectors of the economy thrive on perpetual war materiel manufacturing: making bombs and missiles, inventing and manufacturing sneaky technological advantages, operating what amount to contract private armies supposedly in support of uniformed troops, churning out lies for the press and entertainment media, etc.
In every single case, the energies and material used for war could have been better used. There is no argument to counter this. Probably Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Eisenhower, Kennedy, etc., would all agree.
However, I do not see self-defense as unsupportable. What I would assert is that in most cases, if not all, “self-defense” is the pretext used to mount war actually based on false evidence and lies. But, in the extreme, to give up one’s life to an aggressor with lethal intent would be a wasteful folly. And, in this sense only, prepared military and police are a necessary buffer at this time – if held to high legal standards.
It could be that there are so many “Christians” in the world because few of them practice the “turn the other cheek” philosophy. Or, it could also be that by practicing it, in recognition that the spirit cannot be killed, it would neutralize aggressions that currently lead to war. I think this is the basis of “passive resistance” to oppressors.
I have read the article and all the responses and greatly appreciate this thoughtful discussion with its range of considerations of the deeply spiritual and philosophical to the conventionally political and most pragmatic. It seems to me that one of the confounding aspects of this conversation has to do with the extent to which one accepts unconditional consciousness and/or a conditional, 3-dimensional (virtual?) context, as primary. I myself trust the orientation of my own consciousness to be my personal business and hope and intend to entrain with others who may be predisposed (to be) of (varying degrees of) like mind and spirit. While engaged in this very personal practice, which I find to be of intimate, ultimate, and universal relevance, I recognize the value of also considering how one decides to act (individually and collectively) within our shared realm and so, I would like to address this question specifically.
While reading the January 26th and 27th exchanges, I imagined that I may have heard somewhat of a consensus developing around the “protective use of force” as a practical response to violence, or the “imminent threat” thereof. I was under the impression that the international community had come to a similarly shared understanding that an “imminent threat” was the only circumstance under which force was considered justifiable. Without going into my own philosophical treatise, and putting aside issues of how we choose to orient and manage our own consciousness, this seems to me a reasonable and practical distinction to make for those of us who accept that what we are primarily talking about here is how best to share and preserve the quality of a 3 dimensional, space-time context for interacting with other separate yet interdependent entities in the most fulfilling (equitable?) ways possible.
My question is a practical one. Is anyone familiar with how the international community defines “imminent threat”? How might you define it? It seems to me a matter of degree, which inevitably leads to the realization that we are making value judgments, and choosing strategies for action, based upon perpetually streaming (sensory-perceptual) data and concomitant “pattern recognition systems” whose powers to “determine” (predict the probability of) future events diminishes with increasing variables in space and time … unless, of course, “it” is the only thing left that matters, in which case one have diminished (confined?) one’s realm to that of the known universe. (Anyone recall the “Total Information Awareness” program?) This of course leads into the development of a rationale for use of “pre-emptive” aggression, though it was not my intention to necessarily introduce this into the discussion.
I look forward to your continued thoughtful responses and would also enjoy connecting by phone for those who are interested at 516.541.0280.
Peace Be With Thee,
Ken
Ken,
Remember Iraq? They wanted there to be an imminent threat so they invented one. So many in the administration were with certainty declaring there were WMD in Iraq. One person who was vehemently speaking out that there were most probably none was Scott Ridder, former weapons inspector in Iraq, who they tried to discredit as being some kind of pedophile. It turned out he was correct. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
It’s like the right to privacy and protection to unreasonable search and seizure. Nowadays, we have probable cause which could be anything someone wishes it to be, even an anonymous tip.
It’s like when one of the stage hands on the set of a W.C. Fields movie saw the actor reading the Bible and in shock he asked the well none reprobate, Sir, are YOU reading the Bible????
“Yes,” Fields replied, “I’m looking for loopholes.”
This is why the policy of preemptive defense against a deemed eminent threat is such a slippery slope. Look how things can change from public certainty in May, to everyone knowing the total opposite is true several months later!
Voters in this country claim not to like so called “flip floppers” however if one follows Presidential polls however, one sees that the entire nation can vacillate between favoring one candidate to the other every few days right up until the election which is why they cater to the undecided group, and everyone else is virtually ignored by the campaigns. Does this mean Democracy is where things get decided by a bunch of people who can’t make up their minds on anything?
It’s probably more closely related to the affect of television and advertising on the human brain, the advanced techniques of Madison Ave. and even subliminal messaging which in some way or another is inherent in every ad, speech and media appearance before the public in some form or another. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter which is why there is no justification for war if one wants something other than war. I still maintain that realizing that self defense is the cause of the continuous war for the past several thousand years is not idealistic, non pragmatic or sophomoric but actually is the only realistic way that the behavior of the human species can actually be transformed to something beyond violence. Until one realizes violence must beget violence one can’t escape the vicious cycle of war and retribution. Going like lambs to the slaughter in the worst situation may be the answer to spreading dignity and true compassion to all sentient beings. One doesn’t wish for this to happen and there are first many other steps which those who have skillful means can employ first before
having to succumb to such drastic consequences. Still when called for, that unfortunate end, which is martyrdom, Christ like sacrifice, call it what you will is something that if alone itself can’t inspire people to wake up to something greater, than I don’t believe anything can or ever will.
James –
Do I hear you sanctioning martyrdom as a tool for gaining peace?
I’m quite sure that self-destruction rarely creates as great a developmental or spiritual benefit as remaining embodied and active in becoming more peaceful within oneself and therefy contributing one’s peace and joy consciousness through deed to the collective field of evolving consciousness.
Ken – Your inquiry question probes those murky degrees of violence justification that remind me of dialogues I’ve had about the degrees of human free will. Every decision to act – or not act – has so many complex implications for oneself and those with whom we are interacting that logical dissection of the truly “right” action, if there is such a thing, appears to be beyond full human intellectual capacity to discern.
Every action compels a reaction; some choose no action because they are afraid of retribution or negative reaction while others choose extra-ordinary actions like self-sacrifice and relinquishing all fear of retribution.
The key to right or appropriate action for engaging differences of perspective seems to me to be a function of knowing what specfic word, action, or non-action might inspire even the slightest positive movement in the relationship rather than trigger regressive retribution, escalation of the controvery, or wasteful loss of life.
In my current experience of dialoguing with people holding extreme and polemic fears of socialism and One World governance, I find myself channelling the highest sequence of words, actions, and feelings that will shift another’s perception ever so slightly – perhaps imperceptably over time.
Most importantly, I hold the compassionate container that invites the other into that place of shifting.
The compassionate word is and has always been more powerful than the sword.