It’s Time To Change

Is it not time for our species—inheritors and caretakers of this wondrous planet—to renounce the waste of resources and lives taken from us by war?

Increasing evidence indicates that humans in the deep past, our ancient forbearers, excelled at cooperation. [for insights on the origins of human cooperation, see book review of Mothers and Others: on the Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by anthropologist Sarah Hrdy.] This capability allowed us to invade and conquer every habitable landscape on the planet. We shared in caring for each other: for our group, for our young, and for others in times of illness or need.

Growing evidence also suggests that with regard to using deadly violence, we preferred to get along. That whenever our numbers seriously outpaced our resources, we split up and sought out new territory rather than fight to the death.

Migration/Dispersal

Homo sapiens’ Option Number 1 for dealing with major conflicts over resources—dispersal, fueled by an aversion to war—can be thought of as a key pressure responsible for driving us to occupy the entire globe.

Anatomically modern humans have been around for roughly 200,000 years. It was at the Agricultural Revolution, only about 10,000 years ago, that we settled down big time. In the filmed lecture, “No More War: the Human Potential for Peace,” evolutionary biologist Judith Hand uses the work of  anthropologist Douglas Fry to make the case that war was invented late in our evolutionary story. That war is a sad, unintended consequence—along with social hierarchies, subordination of women, and slavery—of settling down. By ceasing our nomadic way of life we created a profoundly new environment for ourselves, and our responses to living in that new, settled environment were not all good ones.

Space Shuttle Launch

Other responses we made led to other results. Among these, we now control staggering and dangerous powers. We are sculpting the planet itself—changing the land physically, altering the numbers and kinds of other life forms, even shifting the weather.

Most awesomely, beyond the wildest imaginations of all generations before us, we have taken our first steps off-planet. We begin to reach for the stars. Destiny calls. What kind of destiny shall we create?

War is not a genetically built-in trait, inescapable and inevitable. It is a recent cultural invention/habit/meme. We can tolerate it, or dump it, along with other things that have become obsolete, into the dustbin of history. For suggestions how to accomplish that goal see “To Abolish War“ and “Shaping the Future.

Dismantling the War Machine

To accomplish the eradication of war, a critical mass of global citizens must come to share the following beliefs.

• Believe that war is a cultural invention, not part of our inescapable biology.
• Believe that when humans set their collective mind to it, we have the power to achieve pretty much whatever we choose: we can climb the highest mountains on the planet. explore the deepest reaches of the Earth’s seas, fly in the sky, put colonies on the Moon and Mars, end human sacrifice and slavery. We can maintain cultures of war—or create new cultures of peace.
• Believe that great achievements, certainly one as massive as ending war, require that our efforts be organized, focused, and well led.

Unless these beliefs become the guiding reality for a sufficient number of global citizens, we cannot end war. When, however, these beliefs do become real for enough of us, success is only a matter of will and time.

So the next question becomes, how do we dismantle the war machine?

Something history and logic make evident is that we cannot use violence. We cannot kill our way to liberation from war. Consider World War I. If this war taught us nothing else, World War I—the “War to End All Wars”—brought that truth home with brutal clarity.

What options, then, do we have for undoing the mentality and operational machinery of the beast?

Here we are indebted to nonviolent social transformers of our recent past who used the strategy and tactics of nonviolence to mobilize critical masses of people to dismantle specific evils. Inspiring visionaries like:

• Mohandas Gandhi, who catalyzed the dismantlement of British rule of India,
• Suffragist women, who dismantled systems of political enfranchisement for men alone,
• Martin Luther King, Jr., who was the face and voice of a great movement to dismantled one country’s system that segregated humans based on skin color alone.

Their efforts teach us many things, among them that we will need to use both Constructive and Obstructive approaches. Also, that the strategy used to do the actual dismantling relies on the principle of Lever and Fulcrum.

Constructive and Obstructive Programs

Two synergistic approaches are required. Neither alone will achieve this grand vision.

Mohandas Gandhi

The first approach Gandhi called“Constructive Program.” Through good works of peace education, peace making, peace keeping, and peace building we lay the ground for living in a warless future. We shift our cultures from a war mentality to a peace mentality and give people the tools to live in peace.

The second, equally important and synergistic approach is called “Obstructive Program.” Here is how, using the strategy and tactics of nonviolent direct action, we take the war industry apart piece-by-piece.

The essay, “To Abolish War,” compares Constructive and Obstructive approaches, explaining the necessary contributions of each. The essay also:

• Considers critical gender differences in using physical aggression and concludes that partnership of men and women will be a necessary condition to end war, and
• Introduces the concepts of levers and fulcrums: the idea that by selecting weak spots of the war machine as places to apply sufficient people pressure, we can remove war’s supporting infrastructure and ultimately war itself.

But so far, the world does not have many Obstructive Programs, let alone a united, mobilized campaign aimed at the war industry.

We’ve taken only initial steps to end war (e.g., founding the United Nations, establishment of the International Court of Justice, actions directed at eliminating nuclear weapons, and treaties against the use of landmines and cluster munitions). But AFWW believes the time is right for the global community to unite in a way that will create an unstoppable movement to overcome all forces—financial and political—supporting the continuation of war. See “Shaping the Future.”

Levers and Fulcrums

Archimedes – Lever on a Fulcrum

The great pioneers of nonviolent social transformation succeeded by skillful—even masterful—use of the principle of lever and fulcrum. Each analyzed the nature of the beast to be defeated, they found its weak points (the fulcrums), and they mobilized people power (their lever) to apply pressure to the weak point.

The war machine, which functions primarily as a massive money-maker for the few and a job creator for multitudes, is not simply going to fall apart because a great many people want it to. Too much money and power is invested in it. Prayers alone will not do it. Peacebuilding, peace-education, and peacemaking alone or in combination will not do it.

We can tackle this enormous dismantling task by using directed action against fulcrums. Such action not only weakens the war machine, it recruits ever more champions to the cause of ending war. The essay “Shaping the Future” provides examples of possible fulcrums and how to unite a critical mass of people power to apply sufficient leverage.

A Real-World Example

When a critical mass of citizens decide that a war must end and they are determined to make it happen no matter what the cost to themselves, then that war will end.

Liberian Women on the Move

For example, after a brutal eight-year war that included mayhem and rape, the women of Liberia had had enough. Christian and Muslim women, who previously had not had much to do with each other, united in common cause—to force the warring factions to make peace. The article “Liberian Women Demand and Get Peace!” describes how these women used nonviolence and persistence to achieve their goal. An award-winning film, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” documents details of their efforts.

Leymah Gbowee

In 2011, one of the most prominent women energizing the effort, Leymah Gebowee, won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the woman who subsequently became Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, andTawakul Karman, an activist from Yemen.

Ending a war can be done. Ending war itself can also be done…when a critical mass of global citizens decide that enough is enough.

AFWW sees the nucleus for a global ending-war movement in the activities of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. In late October 2010 they led a delegation to Palestine and Israel, seeking to support women in both communities who want to end the seemingly endless conflict there.

In January of 2013 they sent a delegation to Liberia to meet with grassroots women leaders who are playing an important role in the challenging work of maintaining and maturing their hard-won peace. You can read about the Nobel Women’s delegation to Liberia here, and check out their activities on Facebook.

While their current major focus is on ending violence against women in conflict situations, I foresee a time when the Nobel Women’s Initiative partners with a great many organizations around the globe in beginning the campaign to free us from all war, freeing women, children and all of us from behavior that has absolutely become obsolete.

Enough is enough! It’s time to change.

The war machine—a massive money-maker for the few and a job creator for the masses—is not just going to fall apart because a great many people decide they would like it to. We must take it apart, piece-by- piece.

How do we do that? Simply put, we will need a way to unite great numbers of us so that we can focus enormous persuasive power on vulnerable aspects of war’s infrastructure. We tackle this enormous dismantling project by directing focused action against “fulcrums” – vulnerable components of the vast death machine.

Archimedes and Lever

“Give me a long enough lever and a fulcrum to place it on,” Archimedes of ancient Syracuse—the mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer—is quoted as having said, “and I can move the world.” In a campaign to end war,

• the lever is people power, which is exerted using the strategy and tactics of nonviolent struggle (a.k.a. nonviolent civil-disobedience, nonviolent protest, satyagraha),
• the fulcrums are many, and are weak points of the war machine, and
• the heavy weight we propose to lift is the ethos and practice of war. We intend to shift the ethos of our time from one that tolerates war to one that rejects war and by doing so, put an end to a behavior that has become dangerously obsolete and lay the foundation for a world that lives in peace.

The following is excerpted and modified from the essay “To Abolish War” (Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research, October, 2010).

What are Fulcrums?

In the context of a campaign to end war, the best fulcrums are particularly weak points within the war-making machinery. They are weak because the murderous behavior or activity is patently immoral and deeply repugnant to basic human sensibility. As a consequence in the case of war, when a global movement directs the attention of the world to efforts to eliminate that particular cog in the machine, millions of people are immediately sympathetic to the movement’s overarching cause. And every time the cause achieves a victory, the movement gains energy, stature, credibility, and more people join the campaign. Many millions begin to see that this cause CAN be won. The idea is to pick fulcrums that enable the ending-war cause to most effectively confront the war system while gaining converts.

Some Examples of Contemporary Fulcrums

One rule about picking targets for civil disobedience is that they should be chosen to be perceived as immoral or unjust by the greatest number of people possible, and the more people who are adversely afflicted by the unjust or immoral practice the better.

Jody Williams

I’ll mention three examples of contemporary well-chosen fulcrums in a campaign to end war, works already under way. First, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams and the groups she worked with secured, in 1999, the Treaty Against Landmines. Many people are aware of this great effort because England’s Diana, Princess of Wales, was a notable supporter. As of December 2012, there were 161 signatory nations, including all of the European Union. Regrettably the United States was not yet one of them. There are few people, if informed of the nature of landmines, who believe land mines are not immoral, especially because they kill or permanently maim so many noncombatants and make the landscape uninhabitable and fields untillable long after a war is over.

Cluster Bomblets

Williams moved on to a second weak point, another well-chosen fulcrum. She partners with the Cluster Munition Coalition  working to eliminate cluster bomblets. These devices are killers that are rained down onto the ground where they are picked up by innocents, especially children who think they are toys—and who then lose arms, legs, or their lives. Again, there are few humans who do not know in their hearts that the use of cluster bombs is cruel and immoral.

Nuclear Mushroom

A  movement to eliminate nuclear weapons is a recently reenergized campaign. Even the United States President Barack Obama embraced this cause. Nuclear bombs are blatantly immoral. Their use in Japan was a tragic mistake, caused in no small part because of ignorance at the time of their devastating nature. And like land mines and cluster bombs, atomic devastation renders the land uninhabitable and for even longer periods of time.

Many groups are laboring on this nuclear weapons weak point, for example Ploughshares Fund, WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions), Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a group of more than 100 world notables who have set up an alliance called Global Zero (Queen Noor of Jordan is a founder, and other members include Mikhail Gorbachev, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Mary Robinson, Sandy Berger, General Anthony Zinni, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.)

Killer Drone

For AFWW, a fulcrum we have decided to place in the center of our focus is the use of killer drones. The reason is quite simple. It’s not because they kill or maim more people—they clearly do not. It’s not even that by their very unrisky nature to wielders, even very moral individuals can be seduced to use them and use them often. It is because they are a new weapon of killing. If we propose to move from a culture of war to a culture of peace, we should not be developing and deploying yet new ways to kill each other. We don’t need them. We should with one global voice say we will not tolerate their use. The cry of the global community must become, at the very minimum, NO NEW WEAPONS OF WAR!

All of these fulcrums—land mines, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons and killer drones—are ripe for the picking and progress is being made. When an ending-war campaign grows stronger, other fulcrums can be chosen as targets, keeping in mind that in all cases the challengers must occupy the moral high ground, and that tackling that particular fulcrum will recruit more people to the campaign.

Criteria for Selecting Fulcrums

Mohandas Gandhi

The weak points Gandhi focused on in his campaign to bring independence to India were sometimes devised by him with a brilliant understanding of the use of symbolism. A notable example is the Salt March (read more details here Manas; Webchron). Gandhi thought long and hard to find a British practice that was clearly immoral, that afflicted huge numbers of Indians, and would gain the media coverage he knew was essential to the cause.

He eventually concluded that the British Salt Tax was such an evil. Essentially, the tax made it illegal to make or sell salt, thus giving the British a monopoly. Since salt was a necessary component of everyone’s diet, virtually everyone in India was affected, and the prices set by the British were sufficiently high that the poor could not afford to pay them. Gandhi began to organize his followers, training those who would come with him on the march in the techniques of nonviolent civil disobedience. He made strategic decisions, like just how long the march should be to attract the most followers and media attention. He decided the 240-mile distance from his Ashram to the coast at Dandi was about right. It took 23 days and he stopped to speak at the villages through which he passed. Once at Dandi, he stooped to the shore and picked up a tiny lump of salt, hence breaking the law. Moreover, in advance of the March he made the British aware of his intentions, which included the hope that the British would arrest him.

Here is what he wrote to the British Viceroy:

If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.

Salt March to Dandi

The Salt March began a series of protests over the years that awakened Indians to this movement for independence and recruited not only Indian followers but forces of world opinion. Gandhi was not arrested at Dandi, but within a month he and a number of his followers were. During his struggle in India he was jailed several times. At some demonstrations the British over-reacted and people were not only beaten, they were killed. Because their cause was considered just, the effect of British over-reaction was to recruit more followers.

A Force More Powerful

A remarkable DVD called “A Force More Powerful” provides some of the best explorations of how successful nonviolent civil disobedience is planned and executed. It uses B & W historical footage to show how Gandhi set up and brought off this famous Salt March protest. It also explores in detail five other successful nonviolent actions, including the lunch counter segregation protest in the American south, and protests of apartheid in South Africa.

Most of the fulcrums Gandhi pursued, however, were chosen opportunistically. Someone would come to him with a tale of British injustice. Gandhi would explore the situation, then decide if it was the kind of fulcrum that would best apply pressure to the British, and also gain more followers for the movement. Then, and only then, would he call for an action.

An ending-war campaign will also have to be opportunistic, looking for appropriate causes. Some targets would be immoral practices, for example, an actual war somewhere that needs to come to an end. An especially impressive fulcrum for the global abolition movement would be ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It’s impossible to predict which opportunistic subjects might present themselves in the near future as fulcrums but here are some suggestions:

• Use global grass roots and high-profile resources to pressure the United Nations to set up an ending-war think tank along the lines envisioned in the essays “To Abolish War” and “Shaping the Future” …a place within the UN where all elements of Constructive Program and Obstructive Program are coordinated for maximum effect.
• Demand until it is achieved, the dismantling of all nuclear arsenals.
• Block any attempt to put offensive weapons in space.
• Encourage the spread of unilateral demilitarization (a la Costa Rica, Panama, and as of 2013, 19 other nations) and support countries wanting to demilitarize by giving them UN guarantees of peacekeeping protection.
• Push for a treaty that forbids the selling of weapons of war across borders.
• Pressure the UN to declare that war for any reason is illegal, and that leaders and heads of governments or factions responsible for launching a war will be punished by the international community. It may take years from the time a serious use of Obstructive program is begun in an ending-war campaign to give the movement the strength to accomplish this goal, but the time MUST come. Law is our guidepost and social regulator. We make illegal what we want to prevent. So long as war is legal under any circumstances, we signal that we are not resolved to end it.
• Put an end to use of robots as offensive, killing weapons as they frequently kill innocents while presenting no risk whatsoever to those using them, thus tempting authorities to use them often and to sell them as “humane.”

At this time, any of these efforts already being pursued—eliminating nuclear weapons for example—tend to be stymied because there isn’t sufficient people-power mobilized behind them. When this movement is fully global and composed of hundreds of millions of people and they are given focus, not even the war machine can stand for long against that power.

Rosa Parks

Another example of how fulcrums are selected by strategic planners comes from the anti-segregation campaign movement in the United States. Public transportation and public eating places in the south were the chosen starting place for good reason. In the south the behavior of excluding Negroes was extraordinarily obvious and an egregious disrespect of their humanity. The organizers that began the movement used an approach that was carefully thought out: where is this problem extremely evident, and where do we have the resources we need to proceed, etc.? Rosa Parks was a strategic choice as the woman who would be the focus of the cause, not some other women who had also been arrested but were not particularly well-regarded in the community. You can read an informative accounting of why they chose Rosa online.

The struggle to end war has already begun. The challenge, as seen by AFWW, is

• bringing diverse groups into synchrony by showing them that all of their diverse efforts are part of a larger goal to end war itself, and
• enabling them to support each other with that larger goal in mind through a mechanism successfully used by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a mechanism Nobel Laureate Jody Williams calls “massively distributed collaboration.” For an introduction to how this would work, see the sections on FACE (For All Children Everywhere) in the essay “Shaping the Future”.

It’s Time To Change

Beginning with even just a small group united behind a shared vision of how to end war by dismantling the war machine it will be possible to rally the global community to the vision of a future in which war is no longer something we accept. I believe the world is actually yearning for such a movement to begin. I also believe that when it does, we will move amazingly swiftly to achieve a worldview shift of epic, stunning, historical magnitude.

Why?

Humans want “to know.” Curiosity starts with us at a young age, when as children we start pestering our parents asking, “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” As adults, we especially want to know why other adults do what they do and feel the way they feel?

For my project, A Future Without War.org, I want to know why we make war and how, or if, we could end it.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak’s delightful new book The Moral Molecule answers many of our most vexing, intriguing, and important questions.

The Moral Molecule – Dr. Paul Zak

How do we, for example, account for:

• The powerful attachment of mothers (and fathers) to their children.
• The warm emotional glow we feel from a big hug of genuine friendship.
• Some husbands being more faithful than others.
• Women, in general, being more generous than men.
• Men being much bigger risk takers about everything, from finance to sports.
• Women, in general, having higher scores on tests of empathy.
• The feeling of joy or pleasure we have when we arrive “back home.”
• Our willingness to help strangers in need.
• Our propensity to repay the trust people have in us by extending trust to them in return.
• The fact that, in some form, the Golden Rule—do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you—exists in virtually all cultures.
The Moral Molecule also has fascinating relevance to war.

Human Nervous System

Decades of research, behavioral and neurobiological, has exploded our understanding of how nervous systems and brains produce behavior, from the jellyfish to the octopus, from dogs to humans. We now have a good grasp on the neuroarchitecture of brains, including our own. We continue to advance our understanding of emotions and how they interact to produce behavior.

Human Brain

We’re to the point of actually looking into the brain chemistry of behavior, the molecular basis of what motivates us. Paul Zak’s work, engagingly presented in The Moral Molecule, is cutting edge, and he has discovered that a remarkable chemical—the hormone oxytocin—profoundly shapes human behavior.

Oxytocin

It does so by reinforcing actions that in our evolutionary past provided survival and reproductive advantages.

Yes, a molecule accounts for all of the phenomena listed above and many many more such phenomena as well.

Oxytocin’s first appearance in the study of behavior was in association with reproduction. When a woman is in labor she releases a large amount of oxytocin, which facilitates birth.

It is released upon stimulation of nipples, which facilitates the release of milk during breastfeeding. It importantly accounts for a mother’s pleasure in nursing her babe. All of these results of oxytocin release clearly facilitate successful reproduction.

But Zak’s research is revealing how this nifty, multi-purpose chemical reinforcer also facilitates other physical and behavioral responses, such as pair bonding and empathy. It turns out that this built-in drug of pleasure has been a prime tool of natural selection in steering us into actions that enable us to lead successful lives as extremely social beings.

Drawing Blood

To figure out just how oxytocin performs its magic, Zak has spent a number of years blood-extracting. He opens the story of his pursuit of oxytocin’s secrets by recounting his participation in a wedding at an English country manor.

The bride was aware of his research on oxytocin as being a mediator of moral behavior because she was a writer for the magazine “New Scientist.” She invited Zak to take samples of her oxytocin blood levels before her wedding and immediately after, to see if the emotional uplift of the wedding would alter her oxytocin level.

A Wedding Party

In fact, she wanted him to take samples from the groom and all the other guests who were willing as well. The logistics of blood-drawing and analysis at the wedding and in many other of his research venues makes fascinating and often amusing reading.

The results at the wedding were pretty much as expected: the bride’s levels shot up 28 percent and for each of the other people tested, the increase in oxytocin was in direct proportion to the likely intensity of their emotional engagement in the ceremony. He notes a significant seeming anomaly, that the uptick for the groom’s father was 19% but for the groom, only 13%. Why? Because testosterone interferes with the release of oxytocin, and immediately after the ceremony there had been a 100% spike in the groom’s testosterone level!

Zak also stipulates early in the book that the vast majority of people are essentially primed to follow the Golden Rule (i.e., put another way, that we are essentially “good”), and that “to elicit that naturally occurring, benign behavior all we have to do is to create the circumstances in which oxytocin can exercise its influence, which means, in part, keeping other hormonal influences out of the way.” Later he will mention testosterone in particular as a key hormone that can interfere with oxytocin’s positive effects.

Here is how he summarizes the essence of this work:
“Am I actually saying that a single molecule—and, by the way, a chemical substance that scientists like me can manipulate in the lab—accounts for why some people give freely of themselves and others are coldhearted bastards, why some people cheat and steal and others you can trust with your life, why some husbands are more faithful than others, and, by the way, why women tend to be more generous—and nicer—than men? In a word, yes.”

Fallujah – The Immorality of War

Arguably one of humanity’s most immoral behaviors is war. While The Moral Molecule does not address war directly, Zak’s work on the effects of oxytocin, and its opposite testosterone, clearly are relevant in four notable ways:

• levels of oxytocin and testosterone are not the same in men and women; women have higher levels of oxytocin and, as a sex, show greater levels of empathy;
• there is a relationship between testosterone levels and dominance preoccupation;
• essential human goodness, as facilitated by oxytocin, is the basis for the successful use of nonviolent social transformation;
• human evolutionary success has depended on balance between male and female tendencies, on expression of both male and female dispositions.

How do each of these relate to ending war? First, a key hypothesis of my work is that war is far more disadvantageous for women than it is for men. Consequently, women, much more than men, are more predisposed to avoid going to war or allowing their men to begin wars. Women instead prefer social stability. This sexual asymmetry exists because men can produce great quantities of sperm while women are limited in the numbers of ova and even more restricted in the number of offspring they can bear and raise to be old enough to reproduce the next generation.

To test my proposed “female preference for social stability hypothesis” I suggest, in a just-completed book, that cross-cultural studies on behavioral responses of men and women in a variety of conflict and other situations should not be the same. If I’m right, the results should bear me out. We should find statistically significant differences. And the differences should be such that women’s preferred behavioral choice is something that, in the short- or long-term, will facilitate social stability…the exact opposite of war.

Female Empathy

One such difference should be that women, in general, are more empathetic, more sensitive to the feelings of others, more eager to soothe their feelings. With respect to oxytocin and empathy Zak writes, “…mother ‘love,’ if you will—created the more granular, sensory perceptions that eventually linked oxytocin with empathy. (It also helps explain why females have freer access to both than males. In every experiment I’ve designed for humans, women release more oxytocin than men.”

If someone proposes to launch a war, having empathy for people in the group that might be attacked would be expected to put a brake on the decision to strike a first blow, and presumably woman (as a group) would be expected to feel greater empathy, perhaps especially for the women and children in that other group.

Another difference predicted by the women-prefer-social-stability hypothesis is that in conflict situations women, compared to men, should more often opt for win-win methods of resolution (compromise, negotiation, mediation) as opposed to win-lose methods (fighting to determine a winner and looser).

Win-Win Outcomes Produce More Stable Resolutions

Research and practical experience makes evident that win-win resolutions result in more socially stable outcomes. It would be interesting to see if this sexual difference—which studies have found does exist in western culture—exists cross-culturally, which would indicate that it is an evolved trait that distinguishes women, as a group, from men. And if it does, how is voting in favor of further negotiation instead of a preemptive strike related to an individual’s levels of oxytocin and testosterone at the time of the vote?

The second key point Zak’s work relates to, and that is key to my work, is that war is not an innate, hard-wired “instinct,” but that we do have several hard-wired behaviors that make us vulnerable to it. These built-in traits, in some environmental and cultural contexts, allow a warmonger to build an army. They enable him to convince his people of the need to attack some other group. One of these hard-wired proclivities concerns dominance behavior and the tendency to form dominance hierarchies and to defer to authorities.

Male Preoccupation With Dominance

In a chapter entitled “Bad Boys,” Zak explores bad (and good) behavior associated with testosterone. With testosterone, it is men who exhibit the behaviors he discusses more strongly, as a sex, than do women. For example, men are found cross-culturally to be greater risk takers, and Zak cites research that ties greater risk-taking (in men or women) to higher levels of testosterone.

With respect to making war, a male predisposition to engage in dominance behavior, including construction of dominance hierarchies, allows individuals to build an army. While women also construct dominance hierarchies, theirs are less rigid, and women are much less likely than are men to use physical aggression to build such hierarchies or dominate others.

In warrior cultures, dominance-seeking is encouraged. In egalitarian and nonwarring cultures, building dominance hierarchies and use of aggression in general is suppressed by a variety of means. By revealing chemical differences between men and women in their levels of oxytocin and testosterone, The Moral Molecule gives us a physiological explanation for male/female differences in dominance seeking behavior. War—arguably the ultimate dominance-seeking behavior—is overwhelmingly a male endeavor.

Mohandas Gandhi

A third point I stress, which Zak’s work also addresses indirectly, is that to end the violence that is war, we can’t use violent means. To fight wars thinking that defeating the opposition using force is the means to end war is a proven historical failure. Instead, a movement to end war would require that we use the strategy and tactics of nonviolent social transformation.

This approach to social change has variously been called nonviolent civil disobedience, nonviolent struggle, and nonviolent protest. One of its most skillful modern users, Mohandas Gandhi, gave it the name satyagraha. The method is based on several fundamentals. First, that the objective is not to defeat the opponent, but to win them over, to convince them that what they are doing is harmful (i.e., wrong/immoral).

Standing on the Moral High Ground

This in turn is based on another fundamental to the strategy, which is making sure that the cause being championed is a “just” cause; in the case of war, that the ending-war activists are standing on the higher moral ground.

And a third fundamental upon which the entire method of nonviolent social transformation depends is the belief that all humans are basically good. That if your cause is just, your refusal to use violence will allow you to appeal to your opponents essential human nature, to that “goodness within,” and thereby ultimately to win your opponent to your side. This works because your opponent will “know in their hearts” that they are on the wrong moral side of the issue.

So what is human nature? Is it in fact essentially good? Does it understand, seek, and reward fairness? Or is it, as some religions, philosophies, and economists argue, essentially bad or overwhelmingly selfish?

Zak’s work leads him to the position that we are primed by nature to be pro-social: to be cooperative, to be trusting, to be moral. Deviation from that state, which is the state that results from the flow of the moral molecule oxytocin, is just that….deviation. Our most basic propensity, according to Zak’s work and based on the action of oxytocin, is to follow the Golden Rule. This surely would include the idea that one ought not kill another person who has done you no wrong.

Nonviolent Protest

Nonviolent social struggle, based on working to win over your opponent to your just cause, has been shown to be a powerful transformative agent. The nonviolent  meets its most determined foe only in a dictator or tyrant willing to kill men, women, and children if necessary to retain power, only in individuals who are no longer in touch with their internal moral compass.

Male/Female Balance – the Key to Success

Finally, ending war and making sure we don’t backslide into future rounds of violence will only be possible when men and women are full partners in our governing bodies, and there are many points where Zak points out the need for male/female balance. Not only that it exists in nature, but that it is when our societies are fully expressing this balance of oxytocin and testosterone that we get our best (most adaptive) result.

Testosterone

In the “Bad Boys” chapter he points out how testosterone suits men for their roles in our survival. For example, that testosterone specifically interferes with the uptake of oxytocin, which produces a damping effect on being caring and feeling, seems like a negative. But, says Zak, “it makes young males—hunters and warriors—not only faster and stronger but … less squeamish about crushing skulls in order to feed and protect the family.”

With respect to war, history makes very clear that men alone are unable to free us from this profoundly bad habit/invention/meme. The strong effects of testosterone on male behavior suggest why. It isn’t that men wouldn’t prefer to end this behavior. They are also geared to the Golden Rule.

UN Logo

League of Nations Logo

Throughout history there have been attempts by men to rid us of war. For example, the  League of Nations and the United Nations. The hitch is that over time, male biology works against them. Good efforts and intentions get usurped or morph back into acceptance of the domination of others using violence. If women were sharing in decision-making, as they do in most nonwarring cultures, their oxytocin-fueled proclivities for social stability could help restore our social world to an adaptive balance.

I also point out in an essay entitled “To Abolish War” that it will take men and women in full partnership to end this barbaric behavior. While men alone can’t end war (abundantly evident from the historical record), women alone also can’t end war. The male willingness to embrace revolution, doubtless a willingness fueled by testosterone, will be an essential ingredient in any such campaign.

From the beginning of the book, Zak does make very clear that men and women secrete both oxytocin and testosterone, and that these behavioral traits are found in both sexes. A reader may need to remind himself or herself of this caveat, since individual men and women they personally know may not fit a particular generalization. But significant sexual differences are real, they have enormous influence on our social lives, and they need to be stated clearly, as Zak has done.

For any person interested in the human condition, including what it will take to deliver us from the scourge of war, Paul Zak’s work, entertainingly presented in The Moral Molecule, is a significant, must-read leap forward in answering some of our most fundamental questions about why we do what we do and why we feel the way we feel. And insight into why full partnership of men and women, so that we utilize the best characteristics of both sexes, is a key to creating a better, less violent path for humanity as we move into the future.

[This blog is excerpted from a full book review of The Moral Molecule, which can be found at http://www.afww.org/TheMoralMolecule.html.

I begin with a clarification: this reflection is not about creating and using robotic aerial drones for arguably useful purposes, like mapping hard to reach parts of the planet, or watching the activities of endangered reclusive animal species like tigers, or searching a rugged terrain for lost hikers or a downed airplane. Or even tasks related to security or law and order, like border surveillance to identify drug runners, or identifying human traffickers. This reflection is about the manufacture, sale, and use of aerial robotic drones to kill human beings at a distance.

Consolation

One of our most distinctive and powerful human traits is the ability to imagine. Another is the ability to empathize, to understand and sympathize with the plight of others. So imagine if you will that some country wants to kill “enemies” that are living somewhere in your own country. And to do that, they launch unmanned aerial spies that fly over your head, looking for those enemies. Day and night these aerial, unmanned spies circle above you. Sometimes you can see and hear the buzz of their engines. Most often you can’t know if they are way up there or not….but they might be.

And when “authorities” in the far away country who control these flying spies decide that they have found the enemy or enemies they are looking for, they rain death from the sky. And if you—or your child, or husband, or your mother, or anyone else—has the misfortune to be mistaken for the enemy…they die. Just like that. No judge, no jury, no going back. No fixing mistakes.

Grieving After Drone Attack

You send someone you love out in the morning, and before nightfall they are dead. Day, after day, after day you live with the anxiety of not knowing when, or if, someone you love may be blasted to bits….or even that it might be you, attending a wedding party some miles from your home where people who might be the targets of those far away authorities also happen to be a guest. How, exactly, does that thought make you feel?

With just a bit more imagining, can you get in touch with how you will feel when some other country—perhaps China, Russia, Iran, Israel, or the USA—someday begins to fly such drones over your skies. Because if we continue on our present path, that day will come.

Something deep inside all of us knows that using drones on others is immoral. I can explain remarkably simply why this is deeply immoral. In his book, Living Beyond War, artist and teacher Winslow Myers provides a list of a truth held sacred by many great leaders, thinkers and cultures:

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

Hinduism: Do naught unto others what would cause you pain if done unto you.

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man.

Christianity: To unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desire for himself.

Sikhism: I am a stranger to no one; and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all.

Taoism: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.

These are almost universally considered to be the essence of morality.

Drone Warfare – Medea Benjamin

In the book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control by Code Pink founder and peace activist Medea Benjamin, the essayist Barbara Ehrenreich begins her foreword by saying that drones present the same moral issues as any other action-at-a-distance weapon: they allow warriors to kill at a minimal risk to themselves. And she recounts how, in the Iliad, the Greeks taunted the Trojan Prince Paris for his reliance on bows and arrows. The Trojan unwillingness to engage in the hand-to-hand, face-to-face combat of a hero was cowardly, the Greeks said.

Drone Pilot

We have progressed through history in the invention of ever more deadly, and relatively risk-free, weapons. Sling, bow-and-arrow, catapults, guns, bombs, Tomahawk missiles, and now drones. Drones are the perfect kill-at-a-distance weapon; they can be launched from a safe bunker half a world away.

The project I work on, A Future Without War, is dedicated to the knowledge that we could move beyond war if we so choose. And to do that, we will have to dig deep, get in touch with our innate morality. We will have to eventually make the decision to abandon any legitimacy to the idea that it is ever okay to impose our will on other people by killing the people they love; any people they love, male or female, young or old. We need to give up our addiction to killing. And adopting drones as our newest killing-at-a-distance weapon is an enormous step backward.

As appealing as it has always been to warriors to be able to kill the “enemy” very efficiently and from a distance that removes some of the risk, that choice is not a moral one. It’s certainly not a heroic one. It is a coldly practical and essentially cowardly one. It is generally true, and certainly understood, that where there is no risk there can be no honor.

Predator Drone

In Living Beyond War, Meyers explains why war has become obsolete, meaning that it is maladaptive and dangerous for us in the technological world we have created. And he also makes clear the case that if we want to get beyond war, we have to start making hard moral choices and following through with them. Having seen the incomprehensible devastation visited on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear bombs, we’ve had the wisdom to avoid their use, and to establish treaties against their use, and we are even working to eliminate them. We have not yet mustered the moral courage to succeed in eliminating nuclear weapons, but we are at least moving in that direction.

But what about drones? Are we going to eliminate one immoral weapon only to hug to our bosom another?

The people of the world who love peace should demand NOW that their leaders establish treaties against the use of killing robots in the skies. And the growing numbers of global citizens who have grasped the vision of permanently moving us beyond war should take the lead in speaking with a loud and unified voice urging that we treat others as we would like to be treated.

Benjamin, Medea. 2012. Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. New York: OR Books.
Myers, Winslow. 2009. Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. p. 81.

In an early scene the hero, Keanu Reeves, meets in a restaurant with an elderly Chinese man. At least he appears to be Chinese. But in fact he is an alien agent, living on earth for many years and tasked to study humans. To find out what makes us tick. And most specifically, to find out if there is any hope that the destruction our species is inflicting on planet earth will be stopped by us….if in fact, whether our destructive ways CAN be stopped.

The Chinese man reports to Reeves, who has been sent as the final arbiter of our fate. Reeves will decide whether to let us persist or eliminate us so that earth itself can survive with its species and ecology intact. The Chinese man reports that he has grown fond of us. But that sadly, we are incorrigible. He tells Reeves, “The tragedy is that they know they are doomed. They sense it. But they can’t do anything about it.”

Later in the film, when the heroine discovers that Reeves will set in motion the means of our obliteration, she begs him to wait, to stop, pleading that “We can change.”

Ah. But can we? The first film by this name was about our inability to stop making war. Since we’ve (incorrectly) pretty much conceded that we can’t, the 2008 filmmakers decided they would have to take on some other of our wicked ways. They settled on our alteration of the climate and rape of the earth’s animal and plant resources.

In our real world, with respect to both issues—war and potentially fatal environmental destruction—the verdict is still out. Maybe we can’t change. Maybe we are a kind of planet-wide cancer that needs to be excised for the planet’s well-being?

A Future Without War—this website’s entire work—is premised on the knowledge that humans are in fact capable of radical social/behavioral change. We could end the practice of war if we decide to do it. War is a matter of will….not biology.

If you’d like
• historical examples of how we have changed radically and rapidly and even purposefully before, and
• discussion of why we could end war and what it would take to do it,
here are two recent works of evolutionary biologist Dr. Judith Hand that can swiftly provide insight for you, your students, your friends and family, for all of us:

Essay: “To Abolish War.”

DVD: “No More War: The Human Potential for Peace.”

WARMONGER

Rick Santorum - Presidential Candidate

Former Pennsylvania Governor Rick Santorum is a warmonger. On 1 January 2012 on “Meet the Press” he said about Iranian nuclear facilities that if he were to become President, “We will degrade those facilities through airstrikes, and make it very public that we are doing that.”

In this country of free people he must be allowed to be a candidate for the highest leadership office in the land. He should also, however, REGULARLY be outed by all responsible media as a warmonger.  And all citizens in tune with their humanity should, on that single fact alone, reject his candidacy outright, strenuously, and vocally.

Presidential candidate Santorum is not the only self-identified warmonger running for the highest office in the land. Texas Governor Rick Perry has stated that were he to become President he would reinvade Iraq. But Governor Santorum so clearly illustrates how to define and spot a warmonger that he serves as role model.

If the citizens of the world want peace, they must learn to identify and quarantine warmongers. No warmonger should ever be allowed into a position of significant leadership affecting decisions of war and peace.

In the DVD “No More War: the Human Potential for Peace,” I defined a warmonger as a leader who so desires to dominate others in his (or her) world–be that a small tribal world or a world that spans continents–that they are willing to kill other human beings to do it. They kill or get others to kill for them.

Domination/control allows the aggressor access to valuable resources that belonged to the defeated people, or the ability to force upon the defeated a worldview that benefits, in the long term, the agenda of the aggressor. War is an act that serves to magnify the aggressor’s power.  

Warmongers do not raise an army in defense when attacked, action that while tragic is arguably necessary.  They stir up a war. They demonize some other humans, assure their tribal members or society that those other humans are a mortal threat that can only be dealt with by taking up weapons to kill. No other means, such as sanctions, community isolation, negotiation or compromise, will do, they argue. Whatever problems exist between the groups can only be solved by killing. By war.

The DVD also points out that in all societies, the percentage of men who are actually warmongers is extremely small. (Warmongers are overwhelmingly men. Viewed historically, the percentage of powerful women who launch wars is tiny – see Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace, Hand 2003). The vast majority of all humans, male or female, have no desire to band together to go kill other people. Making war is the desire of a tiny few, who by these acts seek power and domination.

Quoting from the DVD regarding the warmongers among us, “We need to recognize, leash, and muzzle them before they lead us into wars. They are a tail that has been wagging the dog for far too long.”

We don’t need to suffer the agonies and destruction of armed, killing conflicts. We can choose otherwise. And key to successfully creating a future without war is the ability to recognize and reject the alarmist, self-serving cries of warmongers.

In fact, it is a mutilation. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang were interviewed about how this fabulous heroic icon will be improved. She will no longer be the daughter of an Amazon Queen. She will be the daughter of Zeus, a god-king.

Wonder Woman - 2011

In a photo provided with the article, we see the new and improved Wonder Woman. Her fists are clenched. Her face is not calm and firm with resolve; it’s contorted with rage. She does not wear her golden lasso, a way to extract truth from the bad guys without torture. Instead she grasps a gratuitous bloodied sword, an eternal symbol of violence and gruesome death.

 It is not enough that she have her classic heroic strengths: “beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Hermes, and stronger than Hercules.”

Wonder Woman - Daughter of Diana, the Amazon Queen of Themiskyra

Through the years, readers knew her as a woman sent to bring peace from her Amazon home to the world of men. A woman whose Amazon training also gave her limited telepathy, profound scientific knowledge, the ability to speak every language known to man, super breath, ventriloquism, imperviousness to extremes of heat and cold, the ability to ride the air currents as if flying, microscopic vision, the ability to bestow wisdom to other beings, the ability to throw her tiara with such skill it could stop bullets, and much more. No, these powers put to the defense of the good are not sufficiently “understandable.” She must be the daughter of a male god and brandish a blood-covered sword.

I read this article at my small table in Starbuck’s, then sat transfixed with tears in my eyes for a long time. A tight knot of righteous rage at what they propose to do to this beloved heroine tightened around my heart.

This corporate takeover of the female icon who uses nonviolent means in the struggle for peace and justice by the warrior, bloody culture of violence is an abomination.

You are now aware of what DC Comics intends to do. You may want to protest in whatever way you are able. I hope that all women’s organizations, women’s studies departments, peace groups, and groups or individuals who understand the value of Wonder Woman as a female champion for justice and peace will rise up, and, if possible, put a halt to this attempt to kill her by mutilation.

The stories we imagine, the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell our children. They define who we are. They shape our worldview. They shape the future we create, for ourselves and most critically, for our children and the generations to follow us.  

We do not need Wonder Woman to be the avenging, sword-carrying daughter of a dominating god-king. To what kind of future does such a heroine lead us?

Film by J. Hand - No More War: the Human Potential for Peace

Today, the 21st of September, is the International Day of Peace. My contribution to the cause this year is to create a film of my 55 minute lecture “No More War: the Human Potential for Peace.” and launch it yesterday at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice in San Diego.

I invite you to check out the trailer on the AFWW website or on YouTube.

Sarah Hrdy

The filmpresents a compelling argument that if we chose to do it, we can achieve what no people before us could: a future without war. From the work of the anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, it explores cutting edge hypotheses on the origins of cooperation, altruism and empathy.

Frans de Waal

Using the work of the primatologist Frans de Waal it explores the origins of a sense of fairness and morality.

Douglas P. Fry

From the work of the anthropologist Douglas Fry on simple and complex hunter-gatherers it explores the possible origins of war.

Judith Hand

From her own work on the biology of war the film considers why men and women, in general, differ when it comes to using physical aggression to resolve conflicts, including the conflict that is war. A proposal is offered that the time is right for us to mount a global, social transformation movement to abolish war and reasons are given for why we can, at this time, embrace the goal of ending war with confidence. Why participation of women as full partners with men in decision-making positions is a necessary condition, not an option, is stressed.

Mohandas Gandhi

Two complementary elements of a nonviolence campaign to end war that are derived from the efforts of the famous nonviolent social transformer Mohandas Gandhi are introduced: Constructive Program and Obstructive Program. For Gandhi, Constructive Program was to teach Indian villagers how to be self reliant and independent and to work to eliminate the worst aspects of the caste system. His Obstructive Program involved the use of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Suggestions are offered for ways viewers can be involved in this great cause.  The website also offers the opportunity to purchase a digital download of the full film ($ 5.95 USD).

We can end war. The fist step, the crucial step, is to decide to do it.

Here are some things advanced cultures or nonviolent cultures have outlawed as being barbaric.

(actually, in nonviolent cultures, some of these behaviors are unthinkable…there is no word for them in their language):

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Murder

Slavery

Vivisection

Cannibalism

Rape

Gladiatorial death games

Headhunting

Infundibulation

Torture

Child labor

Use of children in pornography

Sex with a child

Human experimentation without consent

A Future Without War asks: When do we finally outlaw war?

If you are curious about the ways of living and conflict resolution in nonviolent cultures, check out this fascinating website.  PeacefulSocieities.org

Here you will find a map showing the centers of distribution of over 80 cultures identified by anthropologists as being nonviolent.

I live in the Western World, with access to all possible media. Since my view is that in order to change a culture, I need to know what I’m up against, I follow the news.  Most of us working for change do.  And it can be depressing in the extreme.

Follow all the negative news about what humans are doing around the world and it’s tempting to find it all too daunting. To find our situation hopeless.  Big wars and petty wars mar the planet’s face: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia.  In a peaceful country, a fanatic takes a notion to keep his culture safe, decides to do what he can about it, and slaughters nearly forty people, most of them teenagers.  Try to convince enough people to have smaller families and learn to live sustainably so we can prevent a disastrous change in our global climate and the stupidity and stubborness of thought that blocks all progress practically makes one weep.

Consider the behavior in this photo….is this what life should be about?

I will confess to having the thought cross my mind now and then that what I’m doing, well, is it really worth it?  Maybe getting us to change is a hopeless cause? And I’ve had the even more insideous thought, are we worth saving?Maybe it wouldn’t be all that great a tragedy if the planet eliminates our cultures, given that we are causing extinctions of plants and animals at an amazing rate.  And maybe we are just too stupid to save, even if one wants to.  Be honest.  Hasn’t thoughts like these crossed your mind, at least once?

Earlier in the year I accepted the opportunity to present my speech, “No More War: the Human Potential for Peace” at an international conference of humanists in early August in Oslo, Norway. The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has a big conference every three years, and the theme of their 2011 meeting was peace: “Man. A Peaceful Animal?” A friend of many years was excited to accompany me.

Sami Reindeer

We both agreed that if we were going to pay the money to go that far from our homes in California, we needed to do more than just Oslo. So we added St. Petersberg, Russia, Helsinki Finland and the far northern land of the Sami, the nonviolent and nonwarring culture that specializes in herding reindeer.

Sami Father and Daughter

They are commonly called Laplanders by others, and I was eager to visit the area in person since an interest in nonviolent cultures relates directly to my work. We would then travel by ship down the Norwegian coast to Bergen, and then cross eastward to Oslo.  And after the conference, we’d do Edinburgh and it’s surrounds.  My friend plays golf.  She wanted to include a pilgrimage to the home of golf, St. Andrews.

Catherine's Palace - Russia

It took us a month. And there was so much that I saw and learned on this trip that I scarcely know where to begin.

Each country had at least two fabulous highlights. St. Petersberg displays the opulence and sophistication of the time of tsars….they wanted to outdo Versailles, and they did. I haven’t seen China yet, but so far, in all my travels I have never seen anything to equal the Opulence or tsarist Russia. Catherine’s Palace, The Winter Palace, the Hermitage. Great beauty on display, something we do well…create astonishingly beautiful things.

Swan Lake

The architecture, richly embellished with gold, was beautiful. We also went to the ballet.  In my mind, the perfect choice: Swan Lake. Also marvelously beautiful in sight and sound.

In Finland I started learning about the Scandinavian way of life. What I learned about the so-called “Swedish model” will help me structure my next book on war.  These are people doing their best to pursue an ethos of peace.

While in Russia, my Mac laptop computer had stopped working, and I was in a panic since my speech is a slide show and the computer was essential. Happily, in Helsinki I eventually found a computer repair shop that would diagnose and treat on the spot…all I needed was a new battery. The willingness of so many people who sympathized with my stress and went out of their way to get me to the help I needed to fix my problem was a reminder of how very helpful people are to each other.  It’s another of our very best traits.

Mural of Sami Village

Then in northern Finland we visited and learned about the reindeer herding Sami. They are one of the over 80 nonviolent and nonwarring cultures I refer to in my speech. Others are the Amish in the U.S. and the Hopi of the U.S. Southwest. Anthropologists consider the Norwegians have also embraced a nonviolent, nonwarring cutlure. Think of it.  They have shifted from living by a Viking ethos to living by a peace-seeking ethos.

Seeing the Sami museum and having a chance to ask some questions of a young Sami woman and her father was invaluable. And the experiencing “the midnight sun” was a unique thing to see. This planet has truly fabulous sights to delight.

One of the questions I put to the young women was “What is the social status of Sami women. Is your culture, in fact, egalitarian?”  She looked a bit puzzled, then said, “Of course women and men are the same. We all do the work.”  This was confirmation of what experts and experience indicate about so many nonviolent cultures, that they are socially egalitarian. It was also a reminder to me that we really do have within us the power to live in communities that if not purely egalitarian, at least approach that condition.  So working toward that end is NOT a fruitless effort to reach some impossible goal.

Oslo City Hall - Nobel Ceremony

Norway…well, I suppose the success of my talk in Oslo has to count as a highlight. But also having a reception in the very Oslo City Hall where the Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded was a total delight. We learned about the history of the design and construction of this magnificent facility. The architect, and those seeking to have a city hall, wanted to have a structure that would be “the people’s building.”  The Parliament has their building. The King and his family have theirs. This was to be a beautiful building for the people, and it should reflect the importance of the people.

The scandinavian model is staunchly democratic.  It is the people who decide what the government is to do. A very high percentages of Norwegians vote (on average, 80%) and they have many referenda.  Here was a reminder that if the people of a culture, even a culture that has had the vote for some time, feel that their voices count, they care and they vote.

Norwegian Confirmation Ceremony - by Arid Nybo

I also attended a humanist confirmation ceremony for teens, something traditionally Norwegian.  It used to be done by the Luthern Church, the country’s predominant faith, but humanists have also begun to provide secular ceremonies that celebrate the transition from childhood to adulthood. The young people take classes that include instruction in ethics, the Norwegian ethos, the responsibilities of adulthood, sex education, humanist philosophy, and so on.

A public building that had a formal feel was the site for the ceremony, and the young people wore fancy dress of their choosing.  Their proud parents were present. They could invite a given number of friends and family.

There was music, dance, poetry, and some spoken words. Very uplifting and hopeful. A lovely event. All children deserve such care and concern. We could use something like these classes and culminating ceremony for the many young people in the U.S. that have no such equivalent.  Because we do not meet this need of a great many of our young people for a passage to adulthood under the care of adults, we end up with a lot of them in our prisons or bearing children when they are way too young to give a child proper care.

And finally, medieval Edinburgh….and going to the fabulous Highland Scottish Tattoo (in the rain no less)…and seeing how very different Scotland is from England, and being in the place where Bonnie Prince Charlie was born, and going through Edinburgh castle and on and on. Like I say, the whole thing verged on mind-blowing.

So I came home exhausted, but also inspired, and reminded:  WE ARE WORTH SAVING!!!  The things of beauty that we have created should not perish because we blindly, lazily, or stubbornly let our capacity for stupidity and short-sightedness overwhelm our brilliance and goodness.