Session 2
Much better classroom. We are in a horseshoe formation facing Irene and the whiteboard. Quite a change in personnel for this session; three or four faces have disappeared from the first session to be replaced by three or four more. I think we are down to three men amongst about fifteen women. The subject of War Studies comes up again: Irene had wanted to study it herself – it’s more 'exciting'. I guess that is where all the guys have gone. We've seen how different disciplines approach the same topic: Conflict Resolution (that’s us) vs Anthropology; Peace Studies (that’s also us) vs War Studies / Strategic Studies. In this session we discover that the Human Rights guys are not us either.
Human needs: three theoretical contributions
1. Social-psychological theory (Kelman)
2. Protracted social conflict (Azar)
3. Human needs theory (Burton)
We kick off with Ronald J Fisher’s definition of conflict (as close as I could get)
“A social situation that contains perceived incompatibilities in goals or values between two or more parties each attempting to control the other; accompanied by antagonistic feelings.”
Irene expands: Objective and subjective components. Conflict driven by collective needs and fears not rational calculation. Kelman telling us to focus on ‘collective motivation’ in both societal conflict and conflict between states. Conflict is dynamic: circumstances, interests and feelings all change over time. Collective human needs acted out in conflict between states. Nothing controversial, perhaps. We seem to be in sociology land.
What are ‘human needs’: bodily needs (food, shelter etc) but also (according to this theory) identity, security, self-esteem, sense of justice (add your own…) I’m wondering where you draw the line between needs and desires. They say you can’t be too rich or too thin. Perhaps you can’t be too secure either. As you will see later in this post, we have a Chinese person concerned about being invaded.
Abraham Maslow conceptualised a ‘hierarchy of human needs’, but his work is much disputed. Check it out.
Identity conflicts are especially potent. Think of Israel/Palestine. Recognition of the other group undermines existence of own group. Existential conflict. I understand in theory, but don’t wholly relate to this. I guess I have never had the identity of my ‘group’ threatened or felt my country was vulnerable to attack (except, maybe, during some of the cold war missile crises); never felt likely to be subject to invasion, anyhow.
This 'human needs' theory leads to the conclusion that we should help parties in a conflict understand that both they and their opponents are each trying to satisfy basic human needs. Their enemy's actions are just the execution of a strategy to satisfy these needs. They shouldn’t expect their enemy's HUMAN NEEDS to be negotiable; they never are. How these needs are to be met may be.
Azar says it is a mistake, then, to take the state as the appropriate level of analysis for conflict: we need to look within the state at a societal level. He points out out deeply animosity can run. The ‘Enemy Image’ is very hard to eliminate: even if you meet a likeable member of the enemy group, this doesn’t change your image of the group as a whole.
So we reach John Burton. He the man. Human needs are universal. Healthy people => healthy society. The Burtonian school believes in the workshop approach to conflict resolution: panel of academics; no traditional bargaining; non-judgemental; focus on the needs of the parties; each party understanding the needs of the other; no judgement on right or wrong as to how the conflict should be resolved.
Human needs theory is bang in opposition to Power Theory where the ‘will-to-power’ is considered a fundamental human trait. Interesting there is also a conflict, do you see, with the Human Rights approach. In ‘Human Needs’ nobody is judged – they have just being trying to fulfil their needs in a misguided way. But in Human Rights one side may be adjudged to have broken International Law and deserve punishment. Judged? Absolutely, and punished too, if possible. (Irene gave example of where a Conflict Resolution team somewhere was prepared to talk to one party to the conflict even though they had been mutilating their opponents; they want to find a resolution to the conflict. They were much criticized by the Human Rights guys, who said they were dealing with criminals who should be punished, not rewarded. Get it?
So we have an interesting exercise at the end of the class. In my group there is a German, a Somali, and an Ethiopian (all women). We discuss the civil war in Somalia. Our Somali friend has a lot of difficulty (not surprisingly) getting her head around what legitimate human needs the two largest clans have. They incessantly struggle to dominate each other and abuse all the smaller clans meanwhile. Everyone else wants peace, they don’t, she says. They want to rule. Irene say this is just a ‘strategy’. Our friend ain’t buying it. Who can blame her. Theory meets practice. 'Human Needs Theory' meets 'Power Theory'. More on this later, I’m sure.
Saturday school tomorrow. Need a good night. But here is your homework. What are we to say to this fellow who wants China to build 20 aircraft carriers to protect China from the US? Any suggestions? Would starting to build 20 carriers bring the results he wants? Here is his posting.
Friday, 27 April 2007
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
What’s in a word?
My friend jono left a comment against an earlier post that demands attention. It relates to a question that puzzles me too. From my point of view the question is ‘Does the work of ‘intellectuals’ has any relevance in the real world?’ For example, does the outcome of a debate over the meaning of a word, in the end, have any impact on matters of war, peace and human suffering. He seems to say that the suffering is real, the theorising is not; and therefore, and therefore…
Anyhoo this is what jono said...
Ok, point taken. But where does it leave us?
Let me quote Edward Said who, when asked “What has emboldened the imperialists today?” replied, inter alia, “I think it is also a failure of the intellectual class, with few exceptions here and there. There’s so much factionalism, so much sectarianism, so much petty squabbling over definitions and identities that people have lost sight of the important goal, as Aime Cesaire described it, the Rendezvous of Victory, where all peoples in search of freedom and emancipation and enlightenment gather.” (Culture and Resistance, 2003, p190)
I like this, I REALLY like this. He isn’t saying academia doesn’t matter, he’s saying it is BETRAYING THE ENLIGHTENMENT and all that that founding movement represented. For good or bad, intellectuals are influential. Every political doctrine has intellectual godfathers and pet theorists, doesn’t it? Nazism & Nietzsche. Marxism & Hegel. Neo-conservatism & Leo Strauss (who he? Ed). Don’t bad ideas feed bad policies and breed bad outcomes, if not challenged and fought against?
On the other point WORDS DO MATTER. The US Supreme Court is an arena for fighting over the meaning of words. The Geneva Conventions (which now look like the high water mark of civilization rather than its base line) was avoided for a long time because of an interpretation of the word ‘international’ perpetuated by Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, until it reached the Supreme Court. Now don’t say that doesn’t matter.
See here for discussion of the implications of the Hamdan / Geneva Convention case at Scotusblog.
See here for discussion about David Addington at Opinio Juris.
Class again tomorrow.
Anyhoo this is what jono said...
“Someone ought to comment...or perhaps there's some sort of analytical take on the pressure of blogs to react comments out of people being a form of violence itself - well if the re-defining of words can be seen as violence then the path is already greased up as hazardous.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the people who seem to discuss exactly what violence is etc seem to be the people most separated, at least in a physical sense, from it. Whilst the are huge personal psychological connections that are 'acted out' through the medium of academia its still very distant from actual violence.
The point of this is perhaps made best by example, take Rwanda. The quantity of print (and audio and celluloid) taken up on the matter (most of it remarkably misinformed or at best uninformed about the complex politics of the region) does seem incredibly distant from the actual acts of violence at a local level. For instance someone wounded or killed someone else - it happened at a point in time at a particular location and had personal consequences on the person (victim and perpetrator) their friends and relatives. Yet the vast bulk of the analysis is to do with international political analysis and policy not with real lives.
Thus you get these amusing but nevertheless pointless discussions about what violence actually is etc. Slap them on the face good and hard that should bring them round to their senses!”
Ok, point taken. But where does it leave us?
Let me quote Edward Said who, when asked “What has emboldened the imperialists today?” replied, inter alia, “I think it is also a failure of the intellectual class, with few exceptions here and there. There’s so much factionalism, so much sectarianism, so much petty squabbling over definitions and identities that people have lost sight of the important goal, as Aime Cesaire described it, the Rendezvous of Victory, where all peoples in search of freedom and emancipation and enlightenment gather.” (Culture and Resistance, 2003, p190)
I like this, I REALLY like this. He isn’t saying academia doesn’t matter, he’s saying it is BETRAYING THE ENLIGHTENMENT and all that that founding movement represented. For good or bad, intellectuals are influential. Every political doctrine has intellectual godfathers and pet theorists, doesn’t it? Nazism & Nietzsche. Marxism & Hegel. Neo-conservatism & Leo Strauss (who he? Ed). Don’t bad ideas feed bad policies and breed bad outcomes, if not challenged and fought against?
On the other point WORDS DO MATTER. The US Supreme Court is an arena for fighting over the meaning of words. The Geneva Conventions (which now look like the high water mark of civilization rather than its base line) was avoided for a long time because of an interpretation of the word ‘international’ perpetuated by Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, until it reached the Supreme Court. Now don’t say that doesn’t matter.
See here for discussion of the implications of the Hamdan / Geneva Convention case at Scotusblog.
See here for discussion about David Addington at Opinio Juris.
Class again tomorrow.
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Michael Bank’s Four Conceptions of Peace
Before getting into Michael Banks and his ideas (he’s from the London School of Economics), Irene gives us a taste of feminist peace ideas. Brigit Brock-Utne is the name. War: organised violence. Husband beats wife: personal violence. One million husbands keep their wives from becoming educated: structural violence. One million husbands beat their wives: disorganised violence tantamount to war. Given the number of women in the class, I think I may be in for quite a bit of input from the feminine perspective. They say I’m not good at that sort of thing. We'll see.
Michael Banks. Sounds like a reliable chap. I’ve ordered the collection of essays in which his seminal contribution first appeared: “Four Conceptions of Peace”. I like lists, I like analyses and four sounds to be about the right number. Now, all this is based on Irene’s presentation. I have yet to read Banks for myself. But this seems to be the gist:
1. Peace as harmony. Rejected as utopian self-absorption.
2. Peace as order. Rejected as too narrow.
3. Peace as justice. Rejected for lack of possible agreement on the terms of justice.
4. Peace as conflict management. The way to go.
This is good stuff, but I’m not buying. So “love=relationship management (or hate management)” I retort. “Where is the inspiration, the power to move people?” Irene likes it, for some reason, and writes it on the board. My point echoes one in Waltz, I think, who says that the ‘realist’ approach to international relations ultimately fails because it fails to engage the higher aspirations of mankind. This was Marxism’s power: the vision of a better world, a much better world. I don’t give the class the full works, but what I want to explain is that I am not commenting on the accuracy of Bank’s analysis or on the undoubted value of practical work that may have been done based on it. Only that ‘if you aim low, you will miss altogether.’ Come on guys: life = death management, health = disease management etc. The class are lucky I don’t unload this on them too.
I had other issues. For a start I have read Thomas More’s Utopia and its not like there is no war there anyway. (Read it, its very short.) It is just that war is very organised, financed by foreign money and normally fought on foreign soil. Iraq War I was Utopian. Actually I didn’t like the sound of the More's Utopian lifestyle at all. Noone's sure if he did either.
And for another thing why does Banks reject the idea of common form Justice that all human beings can accept? The Golden Rule (‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’) is about as culturally universal as it gets. Bible, Islam, Confucius, Judaism, Greeks: its everywhere. It’s a moot point anyway: every nation in the world is signed up to the UN. It's not that humanity can’t agree on justice. It’s just that the powerful don’t want to grant it.
The session ends on a very interesting and promising note. Irene seems to have first hand experience of ‘managing conflict’. In the twilight she moves down towards the middle of the class and starts talking about something; something in a different tone, a different mood from the rest of the session. Perplexity is visible on some faces. “Peace, she says, has to start with the individual. I know people involved in conflict management who can resolve other people’s problems but can’t resolve their own. To help other people you must understand yourself, know why you are doing it…” She seems quite emotional, upset almost, and her words dry in a desert of incomprehension.
End of session.
Michael Banks. Sounds like a reliable chap. I’ve ordered the collection of essays in which his seminal contribution first appeared: “Four Conceptions of Peace”. I like lists, I like analyses and four sounds to be about the right number. Now, all this is based on Irene’s presentation. I have yet to read Banks for myself. But this seems to be the gist:
1. Peace as harmony. Rejected as utopian self-absorption.
2. Peace as order. Rejected as too narrow.
3. Peace as justice. Rejected for lack of possible agreement on the terms of justice.
4. Peace as conflict management. The way to go.
This is good stuff, but I’m not buying. So “love=relationship management (or hate management)” I retort. “Where is the inspiration, the power to move people?” Irene likes it, for some reason, and writes it on the board. My point echoes one in Waltz, I think, who says that the ‘realist’ approach to international relations ultimately fails because it fails to engage the higher aspirations of mankind. This was Marxism’s power: the vision of a better world, a much better world. I don’t give the class the full works, but what I want to explain is that I am not commenting on the accuracy of Bank’s analysis or on the undoubted value of practical work that may have been done based on it. Only that ‘if you aim low, you will miss altogether.’ Come on guys: life = death management, health = disease management etc. The class are lucky I don’t unload this on them too.
I had other issues. For a start I have read Thomas More’s Utopia and its not like there is no war there anyway. (Read it, its very short.) It is just that war is very organised, financed by foreign money and normally fought on foreign soil. Iraq War I was Utopian. Actually I didn’t like the sound of the More's Utopian lifestyle at all. Noone's sure if he did either.
And for another thing why does Banks reject the idea of common form Justice that all human beings can accept? The Golden Rule (‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’) is about as culturally universal as it gets. Bible, Islam, Confucius, Judaism, Greeks: its everywhere. It’s a moot point anyway: every nation in the world is signed up to the UN. It's not that humanity can’t agree on justice. It’s just that the powerful don’t want to grant it.
The session ends on a very interesting and promising note. Irene seems to have first hand experience of ‘managing conflict’. In the twilight she moves down towards the middle of the class and starts talking about something; something in a different tone, a different mood from the rest of the session. Perplexity is visible on some faces. “Peace, she says, has to start with the individual. I know people involved in conflict management who can resolve other people’s problems but can’t resolve their own. To help other people you must understand yourself, know why you are doing it…” She seems quite emotional, upset almost, and her words dry in a desert of incomprehension.
End of session.
Galtung’s analysis
Irene goes on to expound Johan Galtung’s analysis; his distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ peace. It’s interesting. The pivotal term for Galtung seems to be ‘violence’ and therefore how we think about this concept. His ‘negative peace’ is the mere absence of violence, his ‘positive peace’ is the elimination of ‘structural violence’. Nothing to do with inner peace. To do with ‘social justice’, if you like. On what basis? Presumably in the belief that if ‘social justice’ was achieved that would bring a true peace without the seeds of future conflict. (Are you buying this?) He is not alone in this analysis. When Kenneth Waltz and Rienhold Niebuhr look for the origins of war they also see them in dissatisfied societal groups. I think it was something about living and writing whilst the outcome of the Soviet experiment was still unknown.
“Violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realisations are below their potential realisations.” Irene writes this quote from Johan Galtung up on the board. A shriek goes up in the middle of the class. A Quaker has become agitated and upset. (During roll call two classmates had declared themselves to be Quakers). She believes that Galtung is doing violence to the English language. She hates it when people redefine words for their own purpose. In this case, I think that she is concerned that the meaning of violence is being debased. “We haven’t got anywhere stopping REAL violence yet, so please let’s not muddy the issue by equating lack of fulfilment with VIOLENCE.” Something like that. A second pacifist breaks loose: “and the UN refused to call Rwanda GENOCIDE!” Irene points out that this was because the US didn’t want to have to act under its treaty obligations; legal definition of words; wasn’t the UN’s fault. (The Vietnam War was ‘a police action’ after all.) I’m cool. So, for the purposes of his argument, Johan wants to call preventing people from achieving fulfilment ‘structural violence’; OK, I can live with that. But my point is to question his analysis. Whilst ‘social injustice’ can be seen as an engine for violence, even if it was achievable, would it bring PEACE; a peace you could actually wallow in. Or are we redefining ‘peace’ as ‘a satisfactory state of social affairs’? What the hell was John Lennon so up about, anyway?
Clearly I have some reading to do. Have I grasped Galtung's point or not? The library has emailed to say I can pick up one of his books. Yippee!
“Violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realisations are below their potential realisations.” Irene writes this quote from Johan Galtung up on the board. A shriek goes up in the middle of the class. A Quaker has become agitated and upset. (During roll call two classmates had declared themselves to be Quakers). She believes that Galtung is doing violence to the English language. She hates it when people redefine words for their own purpose. In this case, I think that she is concerned that the meaning of violence is being debased. “We haven’t got anywhere stopping REAL violence yet, so please let’s not muddy the issue by equating lack of fulfilment with VIOLENCE.” Something like that. A second pacifist breaks loose: “and the UN refused to call Rwanda GENOCIDE!” Irene points out that this was because the US didn’t want to have to act under its treaty obligations; legal definition of words; wasn’t the UN’s fault. (The Vietnam War was ‘a police action’ after all.) I’m cool. So, for the purposes of his argument, Johan wants to call preventing people from achieving fulfilment ‘structural violence’; OK, I can live with that. But my point is to question his analysis. Whilst ‘social injustice’ can be seen as an engine for violence, even if it was achievable, would it bring PEACE; a peace you could actually wallow in. Or are we redefining ‘peace’ as ‘a satisfactory state of social affairs’? What the hell was John Lennon so up about, anyway?
Clearly I have some reading to do. Have I grasped Galtung's point or not? The library has emailed to say I can pick up one of his books. Yippee!
Concepts of peace
Irene introduced us to the thought of Johan Galtung – the father of peace studies. Peace having positive and negative definitions. The positive definitions originate in Eastern Thought; the negative in Western Thought. In Eastern thought the equivalent word for peace frequently encompasses the concepts of harmony and well-being. (salam, shalom, shanti, irene). The Pax Romana, on the other hand, represented military security, law and order, but also, necessarily, domination. (The word pax being related to the English word ‘pact’.) Peace as the absence of war. So, peace as a ‘state of mind, and a state of affairs’ to quote I know not whom.
So we have a word in English, ‘peace’, that is applied in two domains: the political and the personal. Few doubt the desirability of ‘total peace’, both peaces together. I have questions about their relationship:
Can you have ‘political peace’ without ‘personal peace’?
Can you have ‘personal peace’ without ‘political peace’?
Does ‘political peace’ create ‘personal peace’?
Does ‘personal peace’ create ‘political peace’?
What is ‘personal peace’, anyway?
This relationship is much discussed. There are those who say to change man we must change his world: political peace will bring personal peace. And those who say that the lack of political peace reflects a lack of inner peace. Find that and both problems are solved and even if political peace isn't achieved, inner peace is the only tangible peace anyway.
Dog wants to go for a walk.
So we have a word in English, ‘peace’, that is applied in two domains: the political and the personal. Few doubt the desirability of ‘total peace’, both peaces together. I have questions about their relationship:
Can you have ‘political peace’ without ‘personal peace’?
Can you have ‘personal peace’ without ‘political peace’?
Does ‘political peace’ create ‘personal peace’?
Does ‘personal peace’ create ‘political peace’?
What is ‘personal peace’, anyway?
This relationship is much discussed. There are those who say to change man we must change his world: political peace will bring personal peace. And those who say that the lack of political peace reflects a lack of inner peace. Find that and both problems are solved and even if political peace isn't achieved, inner peace is the only tangible peace anyway.
Dog wants to go for a walk.
Random
Tidying my desktop in readiness to write some more about my Peace Studies and found a file named 'Random'. I don't remember writing it myself. I guess I must have. Can I call it a poem?
Random
Who, why, where, when and whether or not. Surprising truths, surprising lies, awful fates and fates worse than death. Over again and again. Who is the following story, in the only left footed world story development included in the only whale story included over and over again until the end of time and if the sole story was if we could deceive the stale stationary stationery and if not then why not? I ask and I ask again there is no end to the ending or start to beginning. Who, I ask you, who could have done such a thing? Was it you, was it he, was it them? Why don't the participles rectify their inclusive delusion. Why? Why? Why? We will never know. How can it be so? So? If not? Why not? Go. GO. GO. Come back again. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. About what. About John's. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Lah di dah di dah I wonder if, I wonder why, I wonder where the story goes. If you need a story told I will always be there for you. Only when the only way to go is blocked I will tell you all you need to know.
Random
Who, why, where, when and whether or not. Surprising truths, surprising lies, awful fates and fates worse than death. Over again and again. Who is the following story, in the only left footed world story development included in the only whale story included over and over again until the end of time and if the sole story was if we could deceive the stale stationary stationery and if not then why not? I ask and I ask again there is no end to the ending or start to beginning. Who, I ask you, who could have done such a thing? Was it you, was it he, was it them? Why don't the participles rectify their inclusive delusion. Why? Why? Why? We will never know. How can it be so? So? If not? Why not? Go. GO. GO. Come back again. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. About what. About John's. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Lah di dah di dah I wonder if, I wonder why, I wonder where the story goes. If you need a story told I will always be there for you. Only when the only way to go is blocked I will tell you all you need to know.
Monday, 23 April 2007
What is 'conflict'
I guess it is traditional to start a course of studies by defining the key terms that are going to be used. Or at least discussing possible definitions. Conflict, peace, violence. Some people find this process strangely disturbing - as I discovered. But that didn’t happen until later. Things started out fine: What is Conflict? We discuss. Conflict can exist at all ‘levels’: inside you, between you and other people, between your group and other groups, between your country and other countries. To begin with the class all tend to see conflict as a negative thing. It leads to trouble. But then Irene tells a story about Mahatma Ghandi shaking hands with a British negotiator and saying in a congratulatory way: ‘We have a conflict’ (echoing his dictum ‘Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.’)
War is good
Ok, it is better that conflicts are openly expressed than concealed in a place where they are not accessible to resolution. Does that mean that conflict itself is good and well as being inevitable? Something to think about. One the one hand there are the ‘Social Darwinians’ and their ilk who propose that the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ has relevance beyond evolutionary biology. ‘Human kind’ as a whole becomes stronger by eliminating its weaker specimens through competition for resources and ultimately war. Again, in moderation, this makes sense. Play tennis with your neighbor and yes, you will both get fit. Two businesses competing drive prices down and find ways of improving their products and services. Good things. But war? Many lamented that it was the ‘bravest and the best’ who died in the First World War: those who avoided military service that got to perpetuate their genes. Is there anybody out there who still believes conflict leading to war is a good thing per se? I don’t know. But there are plenty who think it is expedient.
And then there’s Hegel
The class were spared my ill-informed thoughts on the matter. But it was right there. The argument was developing that ‘conflict’ was not, per se, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but that it was both inevitable and, in a sense, necessary. Hegel and his disciples are credited with theorising this best: Dialectics. An antithesis conflicts with the original thesis and forms a new synthesis. Is this how development takes place? Is this a profound insight into the nature of things, or a trivial mental construction? Anyway, gladly, I kept my mouth shut and let this one roll over me.
War is good
Ok, it is better that conflicts are openly expressed than concealed in a place where they are not accessible to resolution. Does that mean that conflict itself is good and well as being inevitable? Something to think about. One the one hand there are the ‘Social Darwinians’ and their ilk who propose that the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ has relevance beyond evolutionary biology. ‘Human kind’ as a whole becomes stronger by eliminating its weaker specimens through competition for resources and ultimately war. Again, in moderation, this makes sense. Play tennis with your neighbor and yes, you will both get fit. Two businesses competing drive prices down and find ways of improving their products and services. Good things. But war? Many lamented that it was the ‘bravest and the best’ who died in the First World War: those who avoided military service that got to perpetuate their genes. Is there anybody out there who still believes conflict leading to war is a good thing per se? I don’t know. But there are plenty who think it is expedient.
And then there’s Hegel
The class were spared my ill-informed thoughts on the matter. But it was right there. The argument was developing that ‘conflict’ was not, per se, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but that it was both inevitable and, in a sense, necessary. Hegel and his disciples are credited with theorising this best: Dialectics. An antithesis conflicts with the original thesis and forms a new synthesis. Is this how development takes place? Is this a profound insight into the nature of things, or a trivial mental construction? Anyway, gladly, I kept my mouth shut and let this one roll over me.
Friday, 20 April 2007
Welcome to Peace Studies 101
I’m not the teacher, I’m a fellow student. Call me Raphael. I’m taking a university module on the subject of ‘conflict and peace’. The teacher, I call her ‘Irene’.
What am I doing here?
This is not the module I signed up for. That was cancelled. I’ve been studying International Relations and have been interested in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Kenneth Waltz and Hedley Bull. Each in their own way exploring the origins of the impulse to war. I wanted to study Comparative Government, exploring how different political structures influence the propensity of a society to start wars. It is proposed that war has its origins in the 'minds of men'; in the nature of the state; in the nature of the international system of states. I kind of understand how individual greed and fear contribute, and also how a world of ‘states’ (which are by nature, I’d say, military formations) would tend to war. But I was interested in exploring the area of how competing forces within a state can also lead to an increased danger of war being started. Deepening of knowledge in that area will have to wait: I am to study Conflict and Peace head on.
Session one
We are a group of about twenty (more women than men, a range of nationalities) in an awkwardly shaped and echo-y classroom. City centre, spring, early evening. The lecturer Irene almost immediately crystallises my vague feeling of unease about taking this type of module. She tells how she gave a series of lectures at the neighbouring Strategic Studies college and had an experience of mutual incomprehensibility. You would think it was important for the students of war and the students of peace to at least develop a common language. Apparently they haven’t and, perhaps, don’t really care to. Academic specialisation is one thing, but fracturing human thought to the extent that the study of the problems of war become divorced from the study of the problems of peace can’t be good, surely? Isn’t that what we saw in Iraq? I have grown used to the discourse in the realm of strategy and global politics; I have some misgivings in learning the language of another discourse: a discourse that, apparently, is primarily directed at its own constituency and not understood outside it.
What am I doing here?
This is not the module I signed up for. That was cancelled. I’ve been studying International Relations and have been interested in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Kenneth Waltz and Hedley Bull. Each in their own way exploring the origins of the impulse to war. I wanted to study Comparative Government, exploring how different political structures influence the propensity of a society to start wars. It is proposed that war has its origins in the 'minds of men'; in the nature of the state; in the nature of the international system of states. I kind of understand how individual greed and fear contribute, and also how a world of ‘states’ (which are by nature, I’d say, military formations) would tend to war. But I was interested in exploring the area of how competing forces within a state can also lead to an increased danger of war being started. Deepening of knowledge in that area will have to wait: I am to study Conflict and Peace head on.
Session one
We are a group of about twenty (more women than men, a range of nationalities) in an awkwardly shaped and echo-y classroom. City centre, spring, early evening. The lecturer Irene almost immediately crystallises my vague feeling of unease about taking this type of module. She tells how she gave a series of lectures at the neighbouring Strategic Studies college and had an experience of mutual incomprehensibility. You would think it was important for the students of war and the students of peace to at least develop a common language. Apparently they haven’t and, perhaps, don’t really care to. Academic specialisation is one thing, but fracturing human thought to the extent that the study of the problems of war become divorced from the study of the problems of peace can’t be good, surely? Isn’t that what we saw in Iraq? I have grown used to the discourse in the realm of strategy and global politics; I have some misgivings in learning the language of another discourse: a discourse that, apparently, is primarily directed at its own constituency and not understood outside it.
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