Tag: peace
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The Slow Revolutions of Love
Nonviolent revolutions aren’t clear and simple and swift; they’re typically exactly the opposite. Slow and halting and frustrating. Violent revolutions have a clarity. A, typically abusive, power structure is forcibly displaced through the expending of material and life energy. This can have a certain effectiveness and speed, and so inspires hope. And there are places […]
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Thinking the Right Thought
It wasn’t very long ago that when I found myself feeling down I would think that I just needed to think the right thought. That whatever else was true, finding this one single specific thought would solve my problem. By containing clarity and beauty and simplicity, it would make whatever ache or pain or concern […]
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The Depths of Our Ignorance
When you stop to think about it, it’s shocking how little we actually understand about anything. We know only the edges of things, and use them to guide our reasoning about them. Neuroscientists and psychologist are increasingly aware how few of our decisions and thoughts are a result of careful consideration. We constantly make inferences […]
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Prosperity, Then Peace
Tracy O (ASA) I recently wrote about how globalization could make the world a much safer place. The logic is essentially this: countries that have significant business interactions are much less likely to go to war. A China that relies on exports to the West probably won’t start a war with anyone, and a West […]
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A Good Week For International Change
Irotzabal If there are four big pieces of international news this week, it would be hard to make them anything but these. And if there were for big pieces of good international news this week, it would be hard to make them anything but these: The Kofi Annan-led mediation team seems to be getting close […]
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Dispatches: The YZ Prize for Peace
Our roving reporter, Steve Finch, has an interesting story today that he asked us to file under “that’s something that would really benefit humanity.” SANTA MONICA, CA — The YZ Prize Foundation–of no relation to the X Prize Foundation–announced a new reward today which they’ve called simply the Peace YZ Prize. Like all such prizes, […]
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Kenya and International Impotence
DEMOSH The world recently celebrated a rather unceremonious “monthiversary.” Kenya–which up until a month ago was often described as the brightest spot in East Africa, if not the whole continent–is still in chaos. See some of the haunting reports and photographs of The Vigilante Journalist if you doubt that fact. A month ago Kenya’s president, […]
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The Triviality of Difference
Everywhere you look, especially as a teenager, the world is full of others. Of people “not like me.” And though teenagers feel this most intensely, few do not feel it regularly. Just look at the latent antipathy that exists in this country toward Iranians. Or Arabs. Or Mexicans. Or even the French. Surely these people […]
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OPW: Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata”
There’s a large soft spot in my heart for broad and sweeping pieces of advice about how to live you life. Even if I don’t agree with everything such poems, columns, commencement speeches, or songs say, I still like them. And even if they seem to be off on a few points, they say things […]