Positive Peace

Question from the Internet:

“Do you think there is a possibility for positive peace to prevail in the world in the future?”

You are completely right in posing this question. Indeed so far we never had “positive peace”, all our peace accords, peace treaties, ceasefires are negative, based on fear, based on crashing, humiliating, punishing the losers.

Even “unions” like the EU were partly based on the fear of continuous wars — that ravaged Europe until the end of WW2, rather than something positive.

We do not know how to build positive peace, as our inherently “warmongering”, self-serving, self-justifying, exploitative, individualistic, and nationalistic nature constantly drive us towards surviving, succeeding at each other’s expanse. We can’t stop this behavior, the only thing that can stop us temporarily is fear when we cannot be certain that we would come out victorious from a conflict.

“Positive fear” is possible only when we all learn, feel and understand that existing together, that building positive, sustainable, and constructive mutually responsible and mutually complementing cooperation — above and against everything that separates us — is in our best interest.

Only when we understand that in nature’s fully integrated and interdependent system positive peace and cooperation will not only safeguard our collective human survival, but it will also elevate us to a qualitatively much higher, unprecedented level of collectible existence we can all benefit from.