Free Peace by Antony Adolf Page B

how we have survived ourselves thus far, to say nothing of what we have overcome. The devastation and desperation wars leave in their wakes preclude calling most post-war periods peaceful until long after peace has been proclaimed. Yet, such proclamations, the preparations that come before and the implementations that in the best of cases follow are as imperative to peace as any other factor in its actualization. Even taken alone, the full story of these happenings would require a book several times the length of this one. Add to them forms of peace and peacemaking not directly tied to war, but still inextricably tied to the twists and turns of history, and you would get an encyclopedia. A static definition of peace and peacemaking at the outset would be counterproductive to the comprehensive, concise and practical account of the world history of peace I have striven for because definitions without contexts are half-empty glasses. Seen through the lenses of individual, social and collective peace, which require contexts for accurate perception, humanity’s glass appears half full – and fillable.
    Individual, Social and Collective Peace
    Individual peace is in one way the most tangible, widespread experience of the three because nearly everyone has, in one form or another, a degree of familiarity with it. In another, its experience is the most difficult to discuss because it is so close to being completely internalized, as it is commonly called “inner peace.” Prayer in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and meditation in Hinduism and Buddhism as vehicles of inner peace are, for example, subjects of thousands of treaties and used by billions of believers to reach inner peace as well as with their deities. Stoic, Confucian and Utilitarian philosophies of peace are similar, though secular, in these regards. While their respective prescriptions are discussed here within the cultural contexts in which they were put forward, practiced and spread, knowing this brings us only slightly closer to knowingwhy exactly, centuries later, they continue to work for some and not for others. Testimonials can give glimpses of inner peace, associated rituals outward glances; explaining the principles and growth of such experiences for individuals and as historical forces does them only limited justice. What distinguishes these works from today’s bestselling self-help books that guarantee inner peace in thirty days or your money back are the test of time they have been proven by, the extended critical traditions they have been developed through, and the material effects they have had on the people and world around in addition to the individuals devoted to them. Patterns of behavior are the apparent entries into the mechanics and manifestations of individual peace, but in all the cases mentioned above (religious and/or secular) they usually involve interactions with others and the world reaching beyond the tipping point of sociality.
    Social peace is slightly easier to identify and discuss in theoretical writings as well as in historical periods. The difficulty here lies in breaking molds cast by another prevalent split in peace studies and practices throughout history. As sociologist Brian Fogarty summarizes the unfinished debate, notions and applications of social peace generally belong to either of two antithetical traditions. 5 One is guided by the principle that humanity is essentially bellicose or, in Fogarty’s words, that “the civilizing veneer of society is all that saves us from chaos and self-destruction,” a view crystallized in the seventeenth century in British political theorist Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan . A world history of peace along these lines would begin at the first moment when a group agreed to disagree with enough force to sustain stalemate. Since chaos, another concept peace tends to be defined in the negative against, is the substance of humanity from