The Art of Peace

Photo: Geoff Oliver Bugbee, www.geoffbugbee.com

This session is on the art of peace. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University biologist and MacArthur Genius Award winner, and John Stempel, U.S. diplomat and former director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy, University of Kentucky, are slated to speak.

Kris Kimel, who started the ideaFestival wants to know what organizing principles there are behind peace. What are the physics of peace? 

John Stempel, former U.S. diplomat, begins with a greeting in Farsi.

The post cold war period is being measured by intra-state wars, not inter-state warfare. 9/11 changed many equations. "Ideology has overcome common sense." (Ideology, as it turns outs, is a big difference between humans and other primates, as Robert Sapolsky will later emphasize). 

There is no sharp division between war and peace. Both exist on a continuum. Stempel suggests that "diplomacy is the art of getting the other fellow have your way." Or, "diplomacy is saying 'nice doggy' while looking around for a bigger rock."

Peace is also dealing with human imperfection (another theme Sapolsky will later touch on), not ignoring it. "We behave our way to peace."

Among other reading, Stempel recommends Harold Saunder's Politics is about Relationship. The goal is to elevate relationship above structure. The process, thus, matters very much.

He asks: how does peace fit into social science? How does religious faith fit in the picture? He points out that the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington is currently working to alter the single-mindedness (my interpretation) of Madrases schools in the Pakistan frontier territories. I'd love to hear more about that.

Interesting: he also suggests that the old modernist notion of control is breaking down, an idea I express in "age of immaterialism." I completely agree.

Next up, Robert Sapolsky, who believes that understanding biology can help understanding, period.

He offers examples of how biology is adaptable. For example, after a couple of weeks two female hamsters will begin to ovulate at the same time. A male introduced into the group will over a very short period break up this synchronized ovulation. In humans, the "Wellesley affect" has been observed: two college women living together in dorms will begin to synchronize their periods; the dominant woman's cycle will prevail.

He also notes how stress can be incurred by thought. The biology of accomplished chess players in an intense match is at an extreme merely in the raising and lowering of hands to move pieces about the board. I had no idea.

Oh, and thirty year mortgages can do the same thing.

Now for the differences. Non-reproductive sex is an alien idea in non-human animals. Another thing we do just like animals, but apply it in different ways, is aggression.

Primates do something that looks like war. Baboons troops will attack another troop to wipe them out. The difference is that we're more creative about agression, which might range from passive-aggression to the remote aggression of drones piloted in Iraq from bases in the United States.

Another key difference. Humans have also developed a "theory of mind." One can't sympathize unless one understands that others feel badly too.

Chimps can't understand theory of mind. And "secondary theory of mind" can be used exploitative and/or cooperatively. He ties this into game theory; he eventually winds his way to a version of the golden rule.

Are we an empathic species? Chimps are empathetic. But humans do a novel empathy - we can feel for others not nearby.

Do non-human primates exhibit culture? He gave an example, again, of the adaptability of biology. In studying wild baboons where a disease had eliminated the most aggressive males, the whole troop culture changed. Very quickly non- or low-level aggression prevails and is passed on.

However, and this is a key point, human culture is the only one built around ideas. 

He concludes with the example of Sister Prejean, who ministered to death row inmates. She believed that the more unlovable a prisoner was, the more she was required to love. There is no comparable thing in the animal kingdom. The ability to conceive of justice, of compassion beyond our immediate group seems to give him hope.  

Questions:

• What lessons can be learned from Amish in their reaction to the shooting of several girls? Stempel: "there are lessons. Of course there are, but not everyone will learn them."
• Do animals hope? Supolsky, "no." They function in the present. Animals probably have no sense of death.
• Restorative justice in South Africa? Can it be repeated elsewhere? Stempel believes that it may be unique.
• Are there industries of peace? Stempel: Institute of peace studying the issue, but that superstructure barely exists. Supolsky: animals do not exhibit any organizing principles that would make such a system go.
• Supolsky: diversity is a check on some home of the worst cooperative acts. Our culture of mobility and individuality mitigates against some cooperative efforts. We make choices. In a sense, abundance (my interpretation) works against good outcomes.
• Supolsky's concluding idea: humans are aggressive in the wrong context. There is almost no difference is between someone who has orgasmed and the thrill of aggression. 

This has been my favorite session of today. Too much to adequately convey here.

Wayne

Comments

[Ted Bartenstein]

John Stempel made the remark about China being so much invested in the United States that if it called the notes the US would collapse. That seems to simply beg the question that no one asked, which is, whether or not economic co-dependency isn't the secret to world peace? China would not want to see its market destroyed, nor would America want to see any of its sources for cheap goods destroyed. There will still be wars in the underdevloped countries, and plenty of room for exploitation of third world people, but the chances of a world war of the sort that occurred in the 20th Century seem remote. Don't know where this really goes, but thought I would just add it to the comments others might make.

[Wayne]

Thanks Ted. In hindsight, I interepret Robert Sulposky's comment about diversity mitigating the worst cooperative behavior as touching on your point. In that sense, economic dependency might well act as a break on world wide conflict.

Thanks much