Spartacus, the Roman gladiator, appears to be the first known revolutionary who revolted against his owners and the Roman Republic. His and his peers’ struggle for freedom is called “war” (Third Servile War)
The first time humans fought for an invisible ideal like freedom was because of chains. Today we have (theoretically) evolved past that point. We agree that freedom is more complex, and “freedoms” are many, depending on how we look at it.
Is it important to define our invisible ideals correctly, adapt them to changed circumstances? Why?
Do you ever wonder why it’s important to understand invisible ideals like health, justice or equality and what purpose it has to define them as accurately as possible?
It seems like humans have understood that health is both a process and a goal to aim at and that this ideal is not limited to a human life form, but it extends to societies, habitats, animals.
In social change, in the quest for justice for all and the defeat of oppression, women have embraced equality to demand the right to cast their vote. They didn’t demand the right to wear pants and ties, boots and guns. The GLBT community has always known what was wrong about the law and first defeated the ludicrous allegations that homosexuality is a disease. Later, demanded the right of protection, under the law, for their relationships.
Defining equality correctly means seeing the obvious facts that “same” applies to rights and privileges, not simply to appearances.
So why is it that humanity is so cognitively stuck, so ignorant, so stubborn about peace? What is it that makes societies keep looking at their most cherished among the invisible ideals, their most imagined of dreams, the ability to live and prosper in harmony, and not see a problem?
What kind of empowerment is left to be drawn from over 50 years of endless campaigns and initiatives with huge numbers of individuals petitioning their governments and world organizations for alternatives to armed conflicts and for the dismantling of nuclear weapons and atomic energy?
Nothing!
There is no power to be drawn when the ones who demand have no control over the outcome. There is no use nor logic in keeping making kind pleas to an ever expanding empire or its insane allies, 2 minutes before midnight!
Logic was never among the virtues of pacifism, obviously. For almost a century antiwar advocates and nuclear disarmament organizations have ever so tightly screwed “war” with peace together. This dogma is so strong, that only the Ying and Yang analogy seems to be able to match it.
At this very late juncture in the journey of humanity on planet earth, our biggest question is this:
Can humanity’s collective consciouness understand that the equation:
peace=absence of wars
precludes any control, any empowerment for any and all antiwar pacifists or any anti nuclear weapon?
And worse... has anyone ever thought that the more apt definition
“Peace is the absence of fear” would actually empower every cause and every so called activist on the planet?
What was again “the Shift” that every revolutionary author called for?
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