I have written about needs hierarchies and the need for purpose in our lives (e.g., PERSONAL SOVEREIGNTY 3 – Overcoming Life’s hurdles and Becoming Happy and Free yet still Connecting, Contributing and Creating Positively {}). The needs models (e.g., Maslow, Alderfer, Murray, Atkinson) all state that sense of purpose or self-actualization is the highest need, which are our highest forms of expression of our humanity. For a while now I have followed the ‘Peace Literacy’ movement. It is really a framework for understanding our humanity. Peace advocacy guru Paul Chappell uses workshops to help people develop the skills to ‘wage peace’ instead of conflict.
To understand peace is to heal our collective trauma’s that use aggression and violence as forms of negative expression. Chappell calls expressions called by pain and suffering as ‘tangles of trauma.’ Consequence of these tangles are rage, meaninglessness, mistrust, alienation (separation), shame, cynicism and ruthlessness that all interact to cause decreased empathy. While violence is currently our primary tool for attempting to cope with these tangles, it only tackles the symptoms and not the root causes of our trauma’s, most of which are generations old, some going back centuries and even millennia. These tangles of trauma are conditioned onto us by each successive generation and will continue to do so until we finally sit down and collectively recognize them as such and choose to find a different way to resolve them. This is the path that peace literacy works to bring humanity back to its senses.
Peace literacy works to give us purpose and bring meaning to our lives – to self-actualize us into conscious thinkers that respond to conditions and situations instead of unconsciously reacting to them. We all desire peaceful environments for our families and communities to give us a sense of fellowship in which we all thrive. It’s that connection I have talked about so much recently. One of the biggest problems we face daily, especially in the Covid climate we are in, is mistrust, which is being cultivated by our mainstream media and especially our social media platforms. I will go as far as to state that these media systems have been weaponized to create separation causing mistrust. It is much easier to control people who mistrust ‘others.’ The result of mistrust is extremism, domestic violence, racism, suicide, addictions of all kinds, disconnectedness, and closed tribalistic grouping.
“A democracy that lacks peace literacy will eventually destroy itself in one way or another, because peace literacy gives people the kind of education that inoculates them against manipulation and the seductive lies that spread hatred, dehumanization, and irrational fear. A democracy is only as wise as its citizens, and peace literacy is necessary to generate the wisdom that can protect our society from one of humanity’s most dangerous powers: the muscle of language” wagingpeace.org.
Think about what Joseph Gobbles was able to do with Nazi propaganda using just print and radio media. His techniques, and more advanced ones, are still in use today by unscrupulous leaders and media moguls to push what has been termed ‘Epic Purpose’ (mass movements to save something or stop something big at all costs). Of course, mass movements are not bad in themselves but whether the source is a healthy or unhealthy one is a crucial component. Propaganda and censorship always come into play to justify unhealthy movements, while open, honest discussion and critical analysis are indicators of healthy movements.
Consumerism is about trying to satisfy only the physical needs without moving to any of the higher needs that give us meaning in our lives. To simply move into a sustainable paradigm without resolving all the collective trauma will not resolve our spiritual crisis. I agree with Paul Chappell when he says we in spiritual poverty and ignore our higher needs of purpose and meaning, connection (belonging), expression, self-worth, and self-actualization – the intangible things that bring joy, happiness and contentment. One of our greatest problems is that we have lost our personal sense of trust and have replaced it not just with mistrust, but with irrational fears driven by unscrupulous leaders to whom we give our allegiance because they claim to be able to safeguard us. It’s human nature to trust those we see as authorities, but our worldviews are so framed by negativity we rely on confirmation bias instead of critical thinking.
“It lies in the interest of a government to emphasize citizens’ vulnerability to external and internal threats, because the state’s legitimacy and power, rests on the narrative that it protects its citizens against such threats” Phillip Bagus.
Like any other subject you learned, peace literacy is a study that allows us to learn how to heal our individual and collective trauma’s. We spent most of our childhoods learning how to develop all that is negative within us – our conditioning. We can teach peace just as easily as we can teach conflict. Our religions proport to give us a peaceful way to live but are little more than platitudes in the face of overwhelming narratives and information pushing fear and discord. We are naturally, born peaceful and loving, but our conditioning carefully teaches us adopt the traumas of our family, neighbors, communities, and nations.
Peace literacy can be learned at any age from ages 3-103 years old as Chappell states in his Peaceliteracy.org website. The skills and competencies to heal trauma and learn how to work with each other are as teachable as conflict resolution skills. It’s a box of tools. Many indigenous peoples naturally learn these tools as part of their conditioning. Not that they do not exhibit conflict with violence at times, but they deal with it in a totally different way to find balance when things are going awry than we do in our ‘civilized’ societies with trauma that promotes increasing violence. Peace literacy allows us to understand, cope, and respond confidently with ‘The Anatomy of Trauma’ rather than simply unconsciously reacting to it.
The tools, skills, and competencies gained through peace literacy will bring more much desired peace into their families, friendships, relationships, workplaces, and communities. Imagine healing aggression at its source to recognize the vast area of common ground we all share to gain universal respect of ‘others.’ Some of these tools include listening deeply and with intention, leading by positive example, and speaking to encourage people to reach their full potential. I have said often, nearly all of us have empathy and can learn to enhance it. It can be hard to be empathic at times, especially when the few sociopaths and psychopaths that are here are running our world, but teaching peace in a non-polarizing way without alienating anyone allows us to find common ground across political and religious affiliations.
From the Peaceliteracy.org website: “Peace literacy is informed by 3 main questions:
- What if people were as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war?
- What if people were trained to address the root causes of problems rather than the symptoms?
- What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach literacy in reading and writing?
Literacy in our shared humanity
Literacy in the art of living
Literacy in the art of waging peace
Literacy in the art of listening
Literacy in the nature of reality
Literacy in our responsibility to animals
Literacy in our responsibility to creation”
“People suffering from spiritual poverty are much more dangerous than people suffering from material poverty” Paul K Chappell
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