Proxies - for talking and thinking about peace
Talking, writing and thinking about peace often turn quickly instead to ‘proxies’. Different things ‘like peace’ or ‘related to peace’ but easier to see, feel or compare.
Examples are ‘quietness’ and ‘calmness’. The peace of different places can be compared by their ‘quietness’. The peace of different people could be compared by their ‘calmness’.
Proxies for peace are valuable because they make it possible to study peace indirectly even though direct observation and measurement are impossible.
A Peace Meter offered by Amazon, plainly 'for fun'. Where would peace really measure at 110%?
The Origin of Peace
Like peace itself its origin has not been pinpointed either in location or in time.
Peace as an idea is likely to have emerged during unrecorded pre-history in human societies seeking safety and harmonious coexistence.
In more recent times ‘proxies’ have expanded the exploration and discussion of peace. Academic studies, teaching and research have uncovered practical methods for building peace in a wide range of contexts.
Cover image from 'Peacebuilding Starts at Home' by Charles Hauss.
Until nowadays then, ideas of peace and its fundamental origin have evolved as expressions of the widespread human desire for wellbeing and for the containment of conflict.
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Modern Trailblazers
Newer insights on peace have been revealed by trailblazers in many fields of work including the arts, natural and social sciences, politics, religion and youth leadership. Here are just a few.
Over the last century their contributions have expanded our understanding from peace as a desirable state of being to peace as a steady transformative process.
Seen as a production line the peace process can embrace the worst circumstances of warfare, support opposing parties to 'step back' into a tolerable temporary agreement, and help them further to keep and build from a tolerable negative peace towards a sustainable positive peace.
Trailblazers' more detailed suggestions include: refrain from force and violence; educate for real understanding; be persistent, vigilant and patient; work together and help each other; think and talk a lot about peace.
Other Posts here will tell and explain more.
The Origin of Peace
Meanwhile speculation on the Origin of Peace is a productive way of thinking about peace.
The following example sets out a simple foundation for peace-generating Learning and Action.
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It sketches the emergence of the peace of a newborn child.
As an addition of peace to the world alongside 8.2 billion others it is tiny[1].
There are other limitations in that much practical knowledge is set aside.
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Nevertheless, with references from modern neuroscience and neo-natal childcare it identifies important essential factors in the earliest stage of the growth of peace.
An observable physical origin of peace
This origin of peace has been witnessed by half or more of the human population. It is the emergence of one of its proxies, contentment, in a newly born human being.
Being born entails rapid and a few extreme transitions: from darkness to light; from 37ºC to 25ºC; connection to disconnection; into a large space from one not much bigger than a beach-ball; and from total reliance to total independence in access to oxygen, water, nutrition and excretion.
Newborn has been well-equipped by evolution with their range of sensory organs and systems of controlled response and defence.
Newborn's mother has been similarly well equipped by nature, albeit with variations resulting from her environment and nurture during pregnancy.
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Trust and contentment seen in a child's early months
The mother’s care performs several functions:
- the feeding and direct physical care of the newborn
- mediation of newborn’s physical experiences
- protection of newborn from sudden unexpected experiences, and
- mediation that softens and welcomes at least some of the unexpected
What does that feel like for the newborn?
It's instructive to try seeing that from newborn's blurred visual perspective.
So try the mind-experiment about Being Born on the Learning for Peace pages.
The emergence of contentment with whatever newborn perceives in its tiny universe is the birth of their Peace.
It can also be seen as the addition of a new quantum of peace in the world.
As a scenario for the origin of peace, the next stages of the scenario model how that peace can grow.
Just as the origin of the newborn’s peace is visible as contentment induced by the mother within the protection of a limited zone of awareness.
That zone grows naturally as newborn grows.
Newborn's peace can be seen as growing into that larger zone as long as there is comforting care and mediation by their mother or other by-now trusted adults.
As an addition of peace to the world shared with some 8.2 billion human individuals it is tiny.
A further description of the subsequent growth of their peace will be the subject of a later Post.
[1] In comparison with the recent Artemis journey to the Moon and back newborn’s self is just 10 centimetres or one hand width; and their first quantum of ‘peace’ is tiny compared to the human average.
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