Peace Quest: Overview
I have written this booklet to reach specific groups of readers, including parents, teachers, peace and justice activists, students, and others who want to explore the question of how we can cultivate peace in our culture. The introduction defines peace, refers to currently non-peaceful conditions around the world, presents grounds for my conviction that human nature is primarily peaceful, discusses how character and culture are interconnected and how some cultures are more peaceful than others, surveys evidence for characterizing American culture as highly violent, discusses inherent limitations to writing about peace, and argues that the capacity for living peacefully depends on how the emotional centers of the limbic portions of our brains have been affected by interpersonal relationships with significant others.
Chapter 1 develops my central thesis that peace depends ultimately on how participants in a culture raise their children. Here I propose the main features of peaceful parenting, advocate a model of peaceful communication, show the relevance to peace of feelings of self-worth, and call for education, play, and entertainment that are conducive to peace.
Chapter 2 discusses adult development and how therapy, activism, and meditation can play key roles in furthering the cause of peace. I also discuss how people become altruistic peace builders and portray a few who have followed different life paths to their peace-cultivating commitments.
Chapter 3 is about the broader contexts of peace: just social and economic structures, human solidarity that transcends xenophobia and racism, compassionate relations with other species, and ecological sanity.
Chapter 4 addresses some major obstacles to peace: leaders who are narcissistic or psychopathic, predatory business and political opportunism, bystander apathy, tragic limits to nonviolence, and religious fundamentalism with its harsh child rearing practices. In the conclusion, I reflect on the public health perspective about peace I have developed in this text and affirm that a much more peaceful world is possible.
The reference section provides full bibliographical information for all the works I have cited. Throughout this work, I provide much specific information on many issues, and, in parts of the text, I weave in stories from personal experience, my own or other people’s. Admittedly, I cover a lot of ground in few pages, with the intention of sharing my views with readers in an accessible way that does not take a long time to read. I hope this booklet will stimulate further thinking and nonviolent action for peace.