can permanent peace be acheived?

l-1j-cho

i hope this thread is not redundant

anyway, do you guys think that permenent peace practically can exist in this world? or balancing tension between the powers is the most feasible way?

turbo

Tough one. There are always powerful (sometimes global, sometimes regional) players that want to use conflicts to create advantages for themselves and their families/friends/corporate sponsors. I don't see any permanent tranquility arising anytime as long as humans have motivations to subvert that for their own gain.

BTW, it is very common to cite "humanitarian" reasons to go to war, and still pretty easy to get your nation's sheeples to follow in line when you wave the flag and lie about non-existent security threats. As long as citizens remain ignorant in world affairs and can be lied to at a very low level of veracity, you'd be better off investing in a company that manufactures magnetic "ribbons" to sport on their cars than betting against them.

l-1j-cho

[QUOTE=turbo-1;3231646 I don't see any permanent tranquility arising anytime as long as humans have motivations to subvert that for their own gain.[/QUOTE]

I have always been wondering why human beings are greedy.

lisab

I think it's much more likely that a population will remain peaceful if there is opportunity for economic advancement, and an equitable justice system. Just off the top of my head, those seem pretty important.

l-1j-cho

it might decrease the conflict due to desire in some degree, but would it remove the fundamental root? human being's desire is endless...

lisab

Is it, though?

If you give the average person a choice to either
1) be fat and happy, or
2) go fight and maybe die for the King/President/whatever,

I'm betting they'll choose fat and happy.

They weren't really given the choice in the past.

AlephZero

That might work, until some of them notice that the people in the next street / town / country are fatter and happier than they are.

Then, back the "normal human behaviour", I expect.

rootX

Due to limited resources, tensions and wars are inevitable. I strongly believe that worldwide literacy, push for economic reforms and economic dependency between all different nations can make this place more peaceful.

However, www.alternet.org/world/62848/ contradicts my belief about solving world conflicts through economic dependency.

alt

Permanent peace is an oxymoron (or perhaps the opposite of oxymoron, whatever that is).

If you had a state of overall, permanent peace, you would not know it. You would eventually have NO 'non-peace' / war, by which to evaluate it.

In any case, sad as it might sound, it seems to me that a state of conflict and conquest is mankinds lot.

Only the dead have seen an end to war (Plato)

alt

That sums it up well.

drankin

Only temporarily at best. Violence is typical when humans feel they are threatened in some way. Not just physically threatened but when their ideals are threatened. And there are too many differences in our ideals. It really doesn't matter how educated people are, their ideals can be (and will always be IMO) different. There will always be fundamental differences.

Mr_Firelock

Si Vis Pacem Parabellum

There's quite a lot of truth in this quote. I think the ultimate way to peace is to make everyone so goddamn powerful, that they'd be stupid to try and use that power, for fear of being destroyed themselves.

It stopped the USA and USSR from going to fullscale war with each other. I think it would work again too if it could happen. BUT the problem is that getting to that point will take some time and lots of destruction too.

So if man continues his quest for knowledge and power as we do and he continue to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction, eventually he will soon realise that he will ultimately destroy himself if he continues to destroy.

I_am_learning

There can be permanent peace EVERYBODY really thinks about global welfare and not just only oneself.
This can occur if we begin teaching such attitude from childhood.

Alfi

Peace . Sure it can be done.

When every single person thinks. I WILL NOT KILL FOR YOU!
NO MORE MILITARY. anywhere!

Military .. is just another word for a gang. Put on the bandanna, or uniform or whatever...

Kill for some one else... NO ! ... Tell them to do it themselves .. then it's murder.

russ_watters

I don't accept that people's greed is that closely tied to relative wealth. If someone is actually starving or actually living on a dirt-floor shack with rainwater dripping on his head, there is a strong and real physical motivator to change. Absent that physical motivator, the best that can be done is to manipulate people with propaganda into thinking:

1. People who have more money than me must have stolen it from me.
2. The only way I can do better is to make people who have more than me do worse.
3. Even though I have satellite TV, a microwave and air conditioning, my life is uncomfortable.

Such class conflict exists today in the US, but only at the prodding of people who use it for political gain. In any case, most of the time when I see this, the argument is that it only holds between members of the public, inside the borders of a nation. So it wouldn't cause wars.

The people who start wars are almost never poor.

russ_watters

I think the parameters of the question need to be defined better because it could be taken to be asking about a condition between any two nations. In that, case, there is a lot of "permanent peace" out there. Many western major powers like the US, France and the UK have been at peace with each other for almost two hundred years and no major power has been at war with another in 60 years, which is a condition unique in the history of the world. Prior to that, there tended to be breaks in wars only long enough to build-up to the next major war. Today, most western powers have all-but dismantled their militaries.

If the OP is talking about global peace between all nations, that won't happen as long as there are countries without functioning governments or governments run by criminal dictators.

DaleSpam

I agree with russ watters. Modern western democracies are quite peaceful with each other. I think that permanent peace can be achieved in direct proportion as tyrrany is replaced by freedom.