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.