Topic

Peace

The paradoxes of peace arrive early. Aristotle's we-make-war-that-we-may-live-in-peace is the foundational irony: peace is the goal whose pursuit requires its own destruction. Shaw on knocking patriotism out of the human race is the radical position: peace requires not the management of nationalism but its elimination. King's directive — those who love peace must organize as effectively as those who love war — is the strategic instruction, refusing the idea that peace is the natural state requiring only protection. Bierce's definition — peace is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting — is the diplomatic cynic's position, more accurate than comfortable. Rousseau's preference for liberty with danger over peace with slavery makes peace a secondary good, valuable only when it accompanies freedom. Allen White on peace-without-justice-as-tyranny closes the definition: peace without content is just the enforced quiet of people who have given up. What the collection argues is that peace is not a resting state but an achievement — and the most durable, because it requires the simultaneous cooperation of people whose interests are in competition.