Peace and War

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

As for TN2024-- Look no further than the collapse of the Soviet Union for the possibility of catastrophic political change in the absence of war. And yes, the difference in treaty systems after the two world wars (Versailles & Reparations vs. U.N. and IBRD) tremendously helped to affect the economic and social conditions that followed those wars.

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

*chuckle* I was just being sarcastic.

But the sarcastic remark was actually the superior position. How ironic.

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

Is peace the absence of war, or is war the absence of peace?

Deep stuff.

Well I just realized how stupid my example was. A better example would have been 'life and death'. But yes... peace is the absence of war (and of activity in general), not vice-versa. Which, by the way, is why achieving peace in the Middle East is so hard.

Edit:

This is largely a matter of how our culture first chooses a concept (war, life, activity, effectual, humor) and then creates an anti-concept (peace, death, inactivity, ineffectual, humorless). For example, on Dictionary.com, the first entry for peace is
"The absence of war or other hostilities": peace is defined in relation to war. War, on the other hand, is "a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties": war is not defined in relation to peace, which is not mentioned in any of the definitions for war. Often, the concept represents a deviation from the (subconscious) norm, while the anti-concept represents the deviation from the deviation. Thus, in our culture, peace, death, inactivity, ineffectual, and humorless (passive concepts) are "the norm" (though subconsciously).

This has serious (and sometimes tragic) consequences for politics, when that which is desired is a passive and not an active result. For example, in the Middle East, a destructivist approach is taken: The Palestinians must renounce terror. Israel must halt settlement expansion. The problem with a destructivist approach is that, by defining the goal as a universal negative (the anti-concept), anyone, even a single person, can destroy the goal by 'constructing the concept' (engaging in terrorism; building a settlement). Even if 99% of people are pro-destructivists, a 1% pro-constructivist minority can frustrate them, by nature of the way in which the problem is defined. The pro-destructivists are completely powerless.

While it is easy for me to sit here behind my computer in the U.S. and pontificate about destructivism when it is someone else's daughter or someone else's home being destroyed, I firmly believe that one of the biggest mistakes of politicians during the Middle East processes were that not enough attention was given to a constructivist approach to peace. The solution is to abandon destructivism as the sole paradigm, that of peace as the "anti-concept", and find peace also as the "concept": what is peace, not just what peace is not. What specific actions and existent things, for example, can create peace? One, obviously, is total submission/domination. However, this is not feasible or desirable in all cases. The true challenge of the constructivist approach then is to finding 'peace' between sovereign groups. How this is to be achieved, I do not know, but I firmly believe that a strong constructivist approach in conjunction of course with destructivist standards is superior to the 'destructivist' approach by itself.

[Beet]

Good point, factor, which is why I said Yin & Yang.  Peace and War both exist, especially in terms of a global environment.  Since the US has her fingers in every nation for one reason or another, we experience peace and war at the same time.  After all, (for example) we're not at war with Japan like we are in Iraq, so we experience peace and war together.  And even then, we experience both peace and war in Iraq as well (peace with the new government, war with the terrorists).

Right, though our fruitful relationship with Japan is composed more than merely the absence of violence, which is the crucial point to consider. The Japanese
1) Accept total American domination (i.e., the neoliberal international order)
2) have a powerful symbiotic economic relationship with the U.S.
This is not to say Japan has lost its distinctiveness or identity, however, their identity exists within a larger framework, i.e. that of Pax Americana. Both sides, except for some extreme Japanese right-wing nationalists, are largely content with this setup, which is reinforced by culture, institutions, and individual psychologies. This is not just peace in the sense of an anti-concept (lack of conflict), but coexistence, a positive 'thing' around which an identity can be built and material gains made (as opposed to merely harms prevented).