October 2014 – Engaging Peace

Two Paths in the Wood: “Choice” of Life or War, Part 1

Posted on October 30, 2014November 15, 2014 by kathiemm

“Choice:” Poetic, Personal, and Political from guest author Dr. Anthony Marsella.*

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both. . . . Somewhere ages and ages hence,
Two roads diverged in a wood,
And I . . . And I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet (1874-1963)

Literary critics have written a lot about this popular Robert Frost poem. All seem to agree that the essence of Frost’s poem is the importance of “choice” in the absence of any knowledge of possible consequences the making of an important decision without knowing the likelihood of the outcomes. This decision requires the willingness to choose, based on personal confidence, trust, and, perhaps more than anything else, courage.

Critics suggest Frost expressed in his poem that there was no better path, but rather that “choice” is our daily reality Choice is always present. Choice is inherent in the nature of human life, and forms the basis for individual and social morality. Unlike other species that rely on reflexive, inborn fixed-response patterns, humans have the capacity for choice, although there may be little conscious awareness of this special capacity. As life unfolds, the consequences of our choices reveal the wisdom (i.e., fulfillment, satisfaction, comfort), and/or regrets (i.e., remorse, penitence, guilt, trauma) of our life.

I chose Frost’s poem as a departure point for a choice all humans face at this time in our world; in my opinion, the choice is between endless war or nurturing and sustaining life. Here I could substitute the word “peace,” but I am uncertain at this point what peace means. People, societies, and nations use the word peace with impunity to benefit their own needs, rather than as a source of mutuality, an enduring condition in which violence, destruction, and war are refused. Enough!

I am asking for a world free of strife, suffering, agony, and endless pain and grief. The apocalyptic horses are exacting their legendary tolls of poverty, famine, disease, and war, amidst threats of extinction, disposable lives, and the exhaustion of natural resources. We are living in the Anthropocene Era (age) in which human behavior, shaped by choice, is the dominant force that shapes our world’s survival. The two greatest capacities of humanity — consciousness and conscience—have yielded to denial and avoidance in favor of reflex and impulse. Cui Bono?

*Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii. Dr. Marsella’s essay was originally published by Transcend Media Service at https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/10/two-paths-in-the-wood-choice-of-life-or-war/ . We will publish excerpts from it intermittently over the next few months.

Occupy Not

Posted on October 27, 2014October 26, 2014 by kathiemm

Sharpshooter, with weapon trained, atop a SWAT vehicle, Ferguson, MO, August 13, 2014.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Jamelle Bouie.

The Occupy Movement has been a courageous grassroots effort both in the US and around the world to resist the:

degradation of democracy,
destruction of human rights,
strengthening of oligarchies,
creeping infiltration of daily life by military industrial complexes powered by the international financial community, and
the disregard and exploitation of most of the world by the 1%.

Right on, Occupiers—including the Occupation Democracy group recently camped out in Trafalgar Square in London!

Occupying for democracy, peace, and justice, even in what are supposed to be the world’s leading democracies, has become a very risky business because of the other form of occupation taking place—military occupation, the insidious product of the militarization of the police.

The armed soldier—whoops, I mean the armed police officer—in today’s photo above was on duty in Feguson, MO, last August in a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) vehicle, increasingly used along with military-style weapons in operations considered high risk and beyond the capabilities of regular, uniformed police, who apparently cannot handle pro-democracy protesters, including college professors such as Cornell West.

“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” signs displayed at Ferguson protests, August 14, 2014.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Jamelle Bouie.

A recent article in the Daily Kos tells us that since 2006,

“police departments have acquired 435 armored vehicles, 533 planes, 93,763 machine guns, and 432 mine-resistant armored trucks- $4.3 billion worth of equipment.” Ask yourself both who is being threatened by all this weaponry and who profits from those purchases.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

News of its Death is Greatly Exaggerated

Posted on October 20, 2014October 20, 2014 by kathiemm

It is alive. It is well. It goes underground and then reasserts itself.

It can currently be seen in Hong Kong, striving for greater democracy, under the name of Occupy Central—Central being the major financial center in Hong Kong, sort of like Wall Street, New York.

Occupy Central was described this morning, Monday October 20, 2014, in the South China Morning Post, as “a civil disobedience movement which began in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014. It calls on thousands of protesters to block roads and paralyse Hong Kong’s financial district if the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do not agree to implement universal suffrage…”

The full name of Occupy Central is Occupy Central with Love and Peace –love and peace being central themes in Gene Sharp’s book, the “Manual of Disobedience.” This manual and Sharp’s other publications have energized and guided a growing number of nonviolent resistance movements such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement of 2011.

Sharp, who has been nominated three times for a Nobel Peace Prize, is founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization devoted to the use of nonviolence in struggles for human rights, peace, and social justice. Many of his books and papers are available free on the Institution’s website. To see, for example, a list of his “198 methods of nonviolent action,” click here. Be inspired: Consider the extent to which many of these methods can be applied not just to Occupy Movement tactics but to conflicts at all levels of society. Become engaged: Join the nonviolence movement.

Who knows why we fight? George knows.

Posted on October 16, 2014November 15, 2014 by kathiemm

In the early days of this blog, we published a series of posts about George Lakoff’s views on wars between values and nations; we revisit some of those posts today.

Lakoff is an activist cognitive psychologist/linguist who devotes great attention to the conflict in values between liberals and conservatives, and the ways in which the family values that are communicated to children can play out in the readiness of adults to make love or war.

For example, in his book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Lakoff argues that while conservatives value a “strict father” morality (using punishment to establish respect for authority), liberals value a “nurturant family” morality emphasizing empathy and democratic forms of conflict resolution.

Lakoff also emphasizes the role of metaphor in the decisions people reach regarding political issues. Many judgments are propelled by a “nation-as-person” or “nation-as-family” metaphor in which industrial nations are viewed as “mature” and knowledgeable while other nations are seen as “primitive,” “backward,” and needing to be taught a lesson.

In his book, The Political Mind, Lakoff explains that ideas with a strong emotional component (e.g., regarding the extent to which wars are considered necessary and winnable) are influenced not just by information but also by how they are framed, the language in which they are embedded, and the effects of that language on the brain.

To learn more about Lakoff’s views about how family values connect with major political philosophies and behavior read this article and tell us what you think.