Personal Transformations: Moving from Violence to Peace
USIP, Apr 07: Personal Transformations: Moving from Violence to Peace
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This report is neither exhaustive nor definitive. Rather, I seek to take a closer look at the phenomenon of transformation through several individual cases. How it is that in societies at war, surrounded by ideologies of violence and experiences of threat, some people nevertheless become seekers of peace, advocates and practitioners of nonviolent conflict resolution?
Summary
• Just as people become religious extremists, some of them abandon extremism and embrace peace. For some this change is a spiritual transformation, similar to religious conversion.
• Under certain circumstances stress, crisis, and trauma appear to play an important role in the process of change.
• Geographic relocation may be important for some. Migration involves novelty, insecurity, and instability, conditions that enhance vulnerability and, perhaps, openness to change.
• The transformation experienced by religious extremists involves a reorientation in outlook and direction but does not necessarily imply an alteration in basic personality structure.
• A key factor in the transition is personal relationships. Change often hinges on a relationship with a mentor or friend who supports and affirms peaceful behavior.
Time to stir the waters a bit...
Hi Folks,
Well, you know I really can't let unanimity go unchallenged.:D
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Originally Posted by
120mm
The train appears to leave the tracks about the time that application departs from one individual doing this to themselves for personal reasons and decides to apply it to others.
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
Absolutely!
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Originally Posted by
goesh
Amen ( no pun/sarcasm intended)
I would have to say that the decision to apply ones beliefs to others is not only very common but, in the absence of other suitable "technologies" for attaining "wisdom", probably mandatory.
All of our legal codes are based on certain metaphysical, primarily "religious", beliefs and attitudes. Consider, by way of example, the Western, Christian based concept of "marriage" with all of its limitations such as having a single spouse and, even more limiting, of the opposite sex? This is an inherently "religious" behavioural attitude that has been forced on some people (e.g. the original Mormon Church, Cambodian refugees in North America, Muslims in North America, etc.).
How about the Anglo-Complex cultural trait of respect for individual choice and it's corollary of both "agreement to disagree", democracy and the rule of law? These derive from the weird blending of several religious traditions including, most recently, Puritan concepts (Cromwell had a bit to say about that :D).
Note that I am not saying that it should be this way, merely that it is.
Marc