Introduction. PEACE, or Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology, is much larger than: the resolving of mano a mano conflicts or even the avoiding Wars among Nations. It’s more than banning nuclear arms.
And in giving it an environmental slant, it is more than getting rid of plastic or cars. It’s more than recycling or organic agriculture or conservation easements.
Fundamentally it is dealing in an effectively just, humane, and ecologically-sane manner with what we humans are doing negatively in so very many ways to the genetic, cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity in populations of humans … and to the habitats and diversity of other species. It is the appropriately coming-to-grips with our very successful (but destructive) efforts, in this Anthropocene Epoch, of artificializing and homogenizing the Earth. (Of course, conventional warfare is a one part of this destruction.)
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I sort of believe there are some small Hopes for more of: … H.T. Odum’s “Prosperous Way Down”, … Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic”, … E.O. Wilson’s “Half-Earth to Nature”, … and Bill McKibben’s development of resilience in humankind toward surviving on Eaarth (or a hunkering down and weathering “trouble on an unprecedented scale”) (McKibben differentiates Earth in the Anthropocene with an extra “a”.). However, in order to realize these Hopes, we desperately need to work toward a common goal of healthy life for all on Earth, an “all” which includes ample quality habitat for other species. Moreover, we need to profoundly, comprehensively, holistically practice what many preach: … an Ethic of Reciprocity, or the Golden Rule, … an abiding by the Precautionary Principle, … and the lowering of our individual & collective ecological footprints and daily per capita kilocalories of energy transformed.
[ http://www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/energy/B.Odum.pdf
https://www.aldoleopold.org/about/the-land-ethic/
https://eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-our-planet-s-fight-for-life/
https://thinkprogress.org/review-of-bill-mckibbens-must-read-book-eaarth-17174e8ba5a6/ ]
Anyway, here’s my readings (which are short excerpts):
From the Western Front of the European Theatre, WW II, 1944-45. Letters from Uncle Oscar Bain to his parents Oscar & Eva Martin, Stockdale, TX (Uncle Bain was a peaceful young man … a good athlete & avid horseman … who did not support War & who tried to avoid being drafted into the Army including by rushing into marriage.):
Dec. 5 “I do wish that every man, woman & child in the world could see some of what goes on over here. If they did it would be a long time before we had another war. I hope and pray there will never be another. It is sure a shame that so much destruction must go on because people are not civilized enough to settle things peacefully.”
Jan 11 “I wonder if anyone ever thought of the damage that is done to the hearts of the parents of those boys? That is one damage that will never be repaired.”
Feb 18 “If the peace is planned as well as the war is, we should never have this to go through again.”
Mar 14 (This is from the Floresville newspaper.) “Word from the War Department by Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Martin of Stockdale that their son Oscar was killed in action Feb 25 in Germany.” [Uncle Bain was killed exactly one week after his letter in which he emphasized: “If the peace is planned as well as the war is, we should never have this to go through again.”]
From the address by Mrs. Gladys Talbott Edwards on “Peace and Patriotism” to the Kansas Farmers Union Convention, The Kansas Union Farmer, Salina, Kansas, Christmas Eve, 1936.*
“We are linking peace and patriotism with conscious intent. Too many of us have an idea of patriotism that it is to die for your country. The right kind of patriotism is living for your country. Patriotism of peace […] means you have to get down and study the causes of war. It teaches you [that …] you have a man-sized job before you of perfecting some kind of peace plans, or we will have war, as they have across the seas.”
“We have to understand and make our young people understand that human rights are over property rights. We cannot continue to have war to protect property. A lot of people will tell you we have always had war and always will. … People used to die by the thousands of scurvy. What happened? Somebody got busy and did some thinking and learned why they died.”
“The same is true also about getting at the cause of war. Find the reason for it, get the remedy … and then you will solve the trouble. We have to develop [critical] thinkers[**] if we are going to keep our freedom. We must have [critical] thinkers instead of cannon fodder. I remember a poem, ‘The Boys in Armor’. … One line says: ‘Because you did not think, we had to die. We died, yet there you stand, no step advanced.'”
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*Graciously provided to me by Tom Giessel, Farmers Union historian.
**I added “critical”. … And we cannot be true critical thinkers unless we understand ecological principles and processes, and develop a PEACE ethos.
From Wendell Berry, The Art of Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, 2003.
“To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.”
Thank you!
paul