What Is Peace?

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Humans are obsessed with categorizing. We split the people and things of the world into millions of groups and give them names, characteristics, and stereotypes. Ethnicity, sexuality, religion, political view, genus and species: these all reflect the human’s constant need to note, name, and categorize. Still not convinced? Look at a dictionary. The fact that it was even created proves a tendency of the human mind to solidify things, their category, their characteristics, and their definition. Most brains do not do well with the abstract noun. Words like love, justice, fairness, and peace bounce about and cannot be tamed by a definition. This doesn’t stop humans though. Our constant need to classify and define still raises the incessant question: what is peace?

Dinka Corkalo, an associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Zagreb in Croatia, writes on peace education, its history, and its relevance to related fields of education such as psychology, sociology, and philosophy. In her book, Peace Education, she asserts that peace is broken down into teachable components and identifies these components in order to introduce peace as a subject of education. According to Corkalo, there exist two categories of peace: negative and positive. Negative peace exists in the absence of full-fledged violence, large-scale conflict, and war, while “[p]ositive peace involves the development of a society in which, except for the absence of direct violence, there is no structural violence or social injustice” (Corkalo). She believes that working proactively towards positive peace is the key to preventing conflict.

Corkalo claims the study of peace and its psychological, political, and sociological origins will provide a more efficacious, ...

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...tassen.” 1 Feb. 2010 . Background information on the author.

“Kent Kille.” 1 Feb. 2010 . Background information on the author.

Kille, Kent J. “In Pursuit of Peace.” Ethics & International Affairs 23.4 (2009): 409+. General One File. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. Kille addresses two authors’ assessments of effective peace strategy in order to provide two angles on the neglected area of study.

“Psychology in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.” 1 Feb. 2010 . Background information on the author.

Stassen, Glen. “Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas.” The Christian Century 126.25 (2009): 44+. General One File. Web. 1 Feb. 2010. Stassen argues in favor of Cortwright’s claims to peace strategy rather than military peace strategy, in order to convince the reader to practice “just peacemaking.”

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