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Practicing Preemptive Peace
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Peace struggles against the myth that war is an inevitable part of life. It is as if we are to believe that just like breathing and eating, war is unavoidable. This destructive and violent myth allows for peace only as an interlude. Peace becomes, in this myth, merely the time we spend in preparation for the next war.
Why does this myth persist?
Thoughtful reflection reveals this myth as a useful fraud. Those who benefit from this myth perpetuate the fraud. Those who benefit from fear-based control of a population perpetuate the fraud. Many fundamental and traditional governments and religions benefit from fear-based control of their populations.
Some find fear-based control useful.
Those who benefit from monopolistic control of basic resources perpetuate the fraud. These monopolies acquired and maintain their control of basic resources with war and the threat of war. Basic resource monopolies perpetuate the fraud.
Those who desire economic empire benefit from this fraudulent myth. Economic empires benefit from coercion. Who sacrifices economic sovereignty without coercion? Those who desire economic empire perpetuate the fraud.
Who resorts to fear-based control?
All of these examples show a lack of imagination among those who benefit from the myth. All of these examples betray the fear of scarcity by those who perpetuate the fraud. They themselves grew up believing in the myth. They themselves are victims of the fraud.
Fear-based control stifles imagination. Fear-based control creates scarcity. This self-generating cycle birthed the myth. Those believing the myth resort to perpetuating the fraud out of fear. This cycle strengthens the myth.
Preemptive peace weakens this cycle.
Those who defeat fear possess imagination. Those who possess imagination overcome scarcity. Those who overcome scarcity defeat fear. This is practicing preemptive peace. Practicing preemptive peace is a cycle that runs counter to the cycle of fear-based control.
Both cycles depend upon the mind and physical circumstances. The physical circumstances change when the mind changes. The mind changes when physical circumstances change. This is yet another cycle.
But this cycle is the key.
This key cycle develops a child into an adult. In the past it required uniquely extraordinary adults to change child-raising practices. Slowly, over time, changed child-raising practices produced more extraordinary adults. The history of changing child-rearing practices is the history of human advance.
As obvious as this seems, it has taken uncounted generations thousands of years to arrive at this conclusion. Changing child-rearing practices is controversial. And this conclusion is still controversial for many people. But those who accept and practice this now raise children that predictably become extraordinary adults.
We need more extraordinary adults.
Now that we know what to do we can consciously implement it. Its conscious implementation reveals the myth that war is an inevitable part of life. Its conscious implementation exposes the fraud. Its conscious implementation interrupts the cycle of fear-based control.
We can see that existing educational institutions are failing. But those who benefit from the myth do not allow meaningful changes to these institutions. Those who perpetuate the fraud have too much fear to allow meaningful change. Its conscious implementation requires alternatives to existing educational institutions.
We can build alternatives now.
The generation of Thomas Jefferson produced people who could manage a farm, deliver a baby, play a violin, invent new technologies and still think profound thoughts just for a beginning. These people were few but the fact they existed is beyond doubt. Where are those of our generation with an equal capacity?
I would like to see a residential school nurture people with the capacity demonstrated by Thomas Jefferson. I would like to see a residential school teach computer programming, the arts, organic gardening and animal husbandry. I would like to see this school graduate compassionate peaceful people ready to take on contemporary challenges and prosper.
This is my goal.
Tags: Appropriate Technology, Environment, Peace
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