Pace e guerra nella testa

There are two dominant world views on the peace-war relationship, which I call that of conservation and that of conversation. In his splendid and very clear book Why War? (Why the war?), Prof. Keith L. Nelson devotes the entire first chapter to the paradigm of conservative ideology and theory on the causes of war.

These are interpretations - unfortunately wrong - that I have found dominant almost everywhere in the world, from American universities to Chinese ones, from the parliament of Colombia to that of Thailand, from South Africa to Brussels. In a nutshell of 35 pages of that chapter, Nelson demonstrates that conservation, that is the obscenely widespread desire to keep everything as it was or as it is (or as some think it is), from values ​​to customs, from the status quo of economic inequality to that of gender, from consumption to religious rituals and beliefs, it inevitably creates deep divisions with everything else; that is, with everything that changes, that evolves. The division between the known order and the new that is (badly interpreted as disorder) forces us to separate - and sooner or later to shoot - against those who represent any novelty.

The paradigm contrary to the conservation of differences is that of conversation: it is the vision that stopped the war and built peace on a national and international level. Think for example of Tyrol, Ireland, Catalonia, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, Timor Leste, all cases where the conflict has not disappeared, but hatred and violence have been minimized. Warning: conversation is much more than dialogue, which can also be done remotely. Conversation is a life-long dialogue, which is done by living together.
In this vision it is recognized that conflict is the main engine of creativity and innovation applied to peace. It is thus experienced that people do not learn (= enter parity) peace by looking at the differences in front of a mirror, people learn peace by meeting the difference amicably.

In fact, if the adversaries of a conflict find themselves living in the same land, or in two neighboring lands where borders are lowered for historical or cultural reasons (strong economic exchanges, same language, binational families ...), they are in fact already protagonists of some form of conversation. The Latin etymology of the word conversation reminds us that it comes precisely from the fact of living together: to converse - to turn together from the other direction - is a behavior and a form of life and collaborative attendance, made necessary by being close, by living together, characterized by becoming familiar with diversity, by making diversity an appreciated habit. The vision and experience of conversing includes putting together two or more divergent lines and continuously seeing the other verse as well and being willing to take a frequent turnaround.
Its etymological opposite is the act of opposing, the opposition between two verses, opposing two ways of seeing a fact or a dispute.

All those local and national communities that have accepted a bit of integration between different ideologies of the West and the East are happier. There is scientific proof of this. Those communities that are more rooted and focused exclusively on their past and their traditions are those that have the most problems internally, such as denatality, suicide, depression, hatred, violence that often project themselves outside.
Other communities of nations have somewhat wild divisions right in their heads, they are unable or trying to get rid of them. Europe, for example, at the beginning of the twentieth century had begun to lower its borders by completely abolishing passports. More than 120 years later, the majority of Europeans think that the passport says a lot or all about a person, especially if it is a non-European person, so much so that a different passport is proof of a difference so great that it prevents the entry of a person in a nation and therefore justifies a complete and irreparable separation.

These flashes of my observations of different visions of the origin of the war-peace relationship are indicators of the desirability of an urgent paradigm shift: transferring peace research from its traditional and exclusive realm of international relations, international politics and international law. humanitarian to that of neuroscience.
Today, as soon as we see images of war, clear evidence of the inhumanity of war, we immediately perceive its intrinsic hatred, the denial of love and we take to heart those situations that make us suffer too. In practice, we care about peace, but we don't have war in mind. That is, we have not deconstructed hatred in our heads.

Mankind has grown up carelessly letting its inevitable differences grow without realizing that they are all necessary, that we are all part of a hive of eight billion people who are co-necessary for their existence. This neglect of diversity is not just a question of the heart, it is not a question of spirit, it is above all a question of the mind. And minds must be studied, they should be known much better, especially in their widespread deviations, which must be recognized and treated with transparency, as is done with diabetes or cholesterol.

I am in favor of the right to self-knowledge, which does not yet exist in the declaration of human rights, that is, that every person has the right to know what is the matter with her mind. For example, if I were a little asperger or a little autistic or a little "toxic" Alpha male, if I had a wrong view on women, I should know, I should have the right YOU LEARN self-knowledge and therefore also the right to modify, that is, to improve the health of my mind, as I do with the health of other organs in my body. Obviously this also involves overcoming all prejudices and taboos on personal and collective mental health, greatly increasing their transparency.

From this reflection a suggestion could arise to NP so that to add to all the beautiful things we write (there are already articles on these topics, see for example the Ecofelicità column) special attention to suggesting readers to look inside their own mind, help change the minds of our children, deconstructing the instinct of hatred within it. Schools for adolescents and schools for leaders could thus be helped to make minds more willing to make differences a welcome custom, by creating leaders with minds unable to hate, instead of leaders who have minds mummified by hatred against all diversity. . This paradigm shift in the education of young people and leaders could take 20-30 years, but until we bring neuroscience, the sciences of the mind, to the center of all decisions on public goods (environment, pandemics, governability, systems of political and economic sovereignty, democratic electoral systems at national and international level, social systems, etc.) we will never be able to govern diversity and therefore to make peace sustainable in relations within and between peoples.

I do not mean that humanitarian intervention in conflicts - which is dictated by the heart - is of no use. Indeed, I have chosen the paradigm of becoming a neighbor for more than half of my life and I encourage you to continue to commit yourselves as good Samaritans. But investing time and goodwill to open in the minds of the transformations that reduce violence on travelers seen as enemies on the streets of Italy would also reduce the immense need for good Samaritans.
If NP also became a new project that helps to experiment in this field, we would do something truly innovative that very few in the world do. Because there are thousands of peace research institutes, war analyzes are tens of thousands of pages every day. But do they effectively contribute to changing minds infected with hatred?

Sandro Calvani
Focus - Peace is learned
NP August / September 2022