Start Date
9-8-2010 10:30 AM
End Date
9-8-2010 12:00 PM
Description
The need for peace in today’s world has become an existential issue for humanity. Without a sense of shared earth and its resources and a shared humanity governed by universal and local values, the human race seems to be more threatened with a crippling propensity for self-destruction than ever before. Some theories, systems of thought even religious currents like Marxism, fascism, jihadi Islam, crusading Christianity, expansionist Zionism think that conflict is fundamental to History inasmuch as it allows for justification of the self through the use of power. For Marxism, struggle as conflict between classes is the engine that drives history and historical becoming of societies. Fascism resorted to violence as means of anesthetizing (i.e. cleansing) societies to make them more in tune with the fantasy of pure beginnings. Some religious currents legitimize violence to pave the ground for founding pious societies. Suzanne Kappeler speaks of violence against women as springing form a will to harm that culturally exists in our patriarchal societies. On the other hand, new conflicts related to environmental changes, closing of borders, migration, identity politics and nationalism, ethnic, territorial and civil unrest, state-sponsored terrorisms and wars on drugs, terrorism and trafficking are also making of violence an inextricable element in today’s politics. I propose to analyze the ramifications of the legitimization of violence and how groups and societies are coming to terms with it. Understanding the anatomy if violence is a prerequisite for charting new ways and new thinking as to how to deal with this new reality in the 21rst century.
The Anatomy of Conflict
The need for peace in today’s world has become an existential issue for humanity. Without a sense of shared earth and its resources and a shared humanity governed by universal and local values, the human race seems to be more threatened with a crippling propensity for self-destruction than ever before. Some theories, systems of thought even religious currents like Marxism, fascism, jihadi Islam, crusading Christianity, expansionist Zionism think that conflict is fundamental to History inasmuch as it allows for justification of the self through the use of power. For Marxism, struggle as conflict between classes is the engine that drives history and historical becoming of societies. Fascism resorted to violence as means of anesthetizing (i.e. cleansing) societies to make them more in tune with the fantasy of pure beginnings. Some religious currents legitimize violence to pave the ground for founding pious societies. Suzanne Kappeler speaks of violence against women as springing form a will to harm that culturally exists in our patriarchal societies. On the other hand, new conflicts related to environmental changes, closing of borders, migration, identity politics and nationalism, ethnic, territorial and civil unrest, state-sponsored terrorisms and wars on drugs, terrorism and trafficking are also making of violence an inextricable element in today’s politics. I propose to analyze the ramifications of the legitimization of violence and how groups and societies are coming to terms with it. Understanding the anatomy if violence is a prerequisite for charting new ways and new thinking as to how to deal with this new reality in the 21rst century.