by Hart Feuer“Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.”- Thucydides“Since 1000 BC there have been more than 8,000 peace treaties, and each one lasted on averagefor no more than 9 years.” – The TM Bulletin
Absolute peace in the world—it sounds real nice theoretically, but it is actually the lastthing anyone would want if they understood the reality of it. Yes, some relief from war in theworld would be refreshing; some peace of mind would help; but absolute peace it somethingstronger, and could only truly be sustained by forgoing many freedoms and pleasures that we, as
people, dearly covet. To make absolute peace possible, for example, people would not beallowed to choose whether they like their neighbors or not; they would not allowed to make art
or to hate their rival teams (hear me: Lafayette/Lehigh—gone for disturbing the peace);
everyone’s middle finger would be cut off as a preventive measure and people would be obliged
to howl only polite words when they stub their toe. Although we do dearly want “peace,” let us
agree to settle on an inferior form of peace—one that is, shall we say, not so… absolute.
Only through peace in body and mind by each and every participating individualorganism and force in the world community, might the ideal of absolute peace be manifested.
From a less theoretical perspective, absolute peace is the utterly perfect and harmonious
interactions of everyone in the world. Even a simple act like harboring a negative thought or
inadvertently causing someone to take offense would shatter this ideal. Absolute peace, for all it
is worth, is too fragile to be of much use to a world that is so prone to randomness and mistake.
Our world, inherently, cannot achieve or sustain absolute peace. Furthermore, it may not evenwant to reach a very high level of peace. Such a condition would almost certainly be disliked—
perhaps almost as much as the extreme opposite: a situation where almost no peace exists.
With a model and a set of assumptions, I will try to show just why this may be the case. I
will also attempt to determine what factors cause people to gravitate away from these two
extremes (complete freedom and less peace and a whole lot of peace and very little freedom).
These factors are, naturally, dependent on the people or organisms involved and on theindividual decision of the radical individuals (the leaders or the rebels) within a community.
Our goal, for the sake of simplicity, will be to maximize happiness of the individual as a functionof the relative degree of peace present in the world. Happiness is itself dependent on othercorollary functions, such as prosperity, stability, and welfare—which will lightly be taken into
consideration. Moreover, we will limit our participation in this analysis to non-geneticallyengineered humans so as to afford the most relevance possible. (Huxley, intro.) Peace will bedefined as the lack of crime, war, and other threats to mind, body, or associations. The
condition for obtaining more peace is this: freedoms that jeopardize the level of peace we aretrying to achieve must be sacrificed or restricted. Basically, we would like to find out how muchpeace in the world would serve to make humans the happiest, constrained by the fact that
freedoms do not want to relinquished in the process.

Freedom for the People
In a situation in which we have complete freedom, we could potentially act on any
impulse we choose to, remembering that we are ultimately responsible for our personal wellbeing. We would be at liberty to say what we want, do what we want, and work when and where
we want to. We could also choose to be hostile or choose not to be. The possibility exists at thisstage to either coexist harmoniously or to behave in ways that decrease the peace.
If every member of the community independently decided not to be hostile, it would befeasible that harmonious coexistence could persist. But there is, unfortunately, a weakness
inherent to this situation. There exists the temptation for the individual to undermine the peaceby committing a selfish and personally advantageous act against another individual (i.e. stealing,murder). Given the option to work honestly for one month or steal for one single day without
definite consequences, and reap the same benefits, there will be a strong compulsion to steal.
Similarly, if faced with a desperate situation (i.e. hunger, lack of shelter), there exists acompelling motivation to commit a grievous and remedying act. For example: if given the option
to freeze to death during the winter or to simply kill a neighbor, take his or her shelter, and suffer
no official consequences, the choice of action to almost clear.
An additional weakness against harmonious coexistence with complete freedom is thatvery few hostile individuals are required to break down the system. The influence of thesechoice individuals is compounded when others (i.e. imitators or victims) respond in the sameway due to any number of emotions, including anger, desperation, and selfishness. The farmer
whose wheat was stolen in the night has a choice to ignore it, retaliate, or simply steal wheatfrom another farmer to replace her stolen wheat. If an idealistic minority of the humans chooses
to resist the temptation to steal, they will, in all probability, simply be stolen from at some point.
Since survival depends on retaining one’s possessions (i.e. food, shelter, clothing), these victims
cannot allow such theft to continue. This minority may then either be provoked into the sameunlawful behavior as the majority.
It follows that, if people are stealing instead of working, the competition for the resourcesof the honest workers will intensify—as will the violence. At this point, individuals may realizethat they have the option to band together in order to more effectively compete for resources andsafeguard what they have. By banding together, they are obliged to give up a few of theircoveted freedoms so that they may meet the collective demands of the group (no stealing fromother members, forced to work nights, etc). We come to see that, individually, each of us prefersa state where our freedom is maximized, but, if forced to become a member of a group for
survival purposes, necessary sacrifices of freedom can be made to that end. Arguably, in thedevelopment of our own history, we have shown that, as humans, we are incapable of coexisting
peacefully without some structure (government or otherwise) in our lives. Although often
overlooked, the most basic unit of group survival is the blood-related family, upon which various
limitations of freedom are generally imposed on its members. With the advent of these groups
and the development of government, we are no longer in the “complete freedom and less peace”
condition.
A Whole Lot of Peace for the People
Conflict has ceased to exist. We are living in a very polite world with almost no threat toour security in any way. In arriving to this state, we have been obliged to develop a society inwhich we are extremely productive and can collectively provide for each individual so that he or
she is at least satisfied with his or her lot in life. Unsatisfied individuals in the society would be
potential threats since, like the situation described above, their desperation may result in crime.
Realizing that prosperity is only a part of overall satisfaction, a very strict governmental bodyhas been imposed to prevent potential deviants from exhibiting behavior that might jeopardize
the integrity of the society. Offensive behavior, divorce, and competitive sports, creative
expression, as well as open displays of aggression and sexual desire have been outlawed, among
other things, because each of these items has the potential to cause a human to harbor negative
feelings (i.e. anger, jealousy, offense) toward another or to cause a human to experience negative
emotions internally (i.e. sadness, disappointment, anxiety). (Demolition Man) The danger ofthese feelings is that they could contribute to an outburst of deviant behavior or a loss in
productivity. If this occurred too often, the function and purpose of the society would beundermined.
Due to the tight control on behavior, this way of life persists for an arbitrary period oftime. Abruptly, the society collapses. Why? It began with one deviant, who we will name
Edgar. He was no different from any other deviant that the government had subdued.
Furthermore, he had no special talent for leadership, and was, in fact, a very average humanbeing. The only difference that separates Edgar from others of his ilk is that his period ofdelinquency coincided with a period in time when the fundamental desires of his fellow humans
began to affect their judgments. Inspired by the emergence of Edgar and his radical behavior,
the humans suddenly could not contain the need to act upon the basic human needs they had
suppressed for so long in their restrictive society. Neighbors begin to lash out at one another,
unsatisfactory wives and husbands are suddenly unwanted by their spouses, a football is once
again put to use, and people quit their monotonous occupations. The government of the land
attempts to maintain its traditional values, but soon it is swept up itself by the revolution. In fact,
elected government officials are some of the first to defect because they quickly recognize theinevitable shift in mentality and probably experienced and wanted it themselves.
For years, the humans in this society were fighting the urges of the basic chemicals of
their nervous and reproductive system (especially the neurotransmitter serotonin and the sex
hormones, testosterone and estrogen). (Feuer, 5-6) The implementation of a restrictive
government could help the people control their potentially destructive thoughts and behaviors,
but could not have inhibited the production of these chemicals, which were continually andquietly influencing the humans.
Supported by strong conscious, communal, and authoritarian pressures, it is conceivablethat individuals could master such hormone-induced urges. But the existence of the possibility of
future deviant behavior as a result of these biological influences is an undeniable and perhaps
uncontrollable (the exception being genetic engineering, which is not considered in this scenario)
threat. (Huxley, introduction) The weakness, like the other extreme, is that very few effective
deviants are required to cause a breakdown. The Seville Statement, issued and accepted by
UNESCO in 1986 by many renowned academics, rejects the idea that humans are biologically
predisposed to violence. Nevertheless, it states that humans have a “neural apparatus” forviolence, which can be invoked if the body does not hinder it. Living in a manner that restricts
all aggressive impulses (even those that may not be labeled “violent”) may only be a temporary
condition for some individuals, who will “succumb” to their bodily pressures at some arbitrary
point in time. While people living in such a society may not have to fight others, they willcontinually be fighting their own bodies and may eventually sacrifice some of their enjoyedsecurity and tranquility for some biologically necessary freedoms. When this occurs, the “whole
lot of peace and very little freedom” situation has come to an end.
Diminishing Marginal Return on Peace – A Simple Model
On a hot summer day, a taste of ice cream can be one of the most welcome experiences
available. Increase the amount of ice cream consumed to a single scoop, and the happinessderived from that dessert would continue to increase. Although each bite will become less andless desirable, the same positive gain on enjoyment of the ice cream would continue in to thesecond and possibly the third scoop. After the third scoop (depending on the individual), eachextra bite of ice cream would become painful to swallow. If the individual continued to eat ice
cream, he or she would eventually become sluggish and soon would be unable to continue
eating. As economists would say, the marginal return on ice cream decreases with each bite until
it actually became negative. (Mankiw, 48) Although seemingly unrelated, peace follows thesame formula as ice cream.
Some slight increase in security (e.g. a few policemen) for people in a world filled with
war and crime would be far more rewarding than that same increase for people who already feelsafe (e.g. already have sufficient policemen). This theory, when applied to the situations
described above, can help further describe how people may continue to react to changes undervarious conditions.
People living in the “less peace and complete freedom” situation would, by this theory,
readily adopt government and structure and not begrudge the loss of a few freedoms, because therewarded safety would outweigh the displeasure caused by the loss of freedoms. As the amountof safety (and governmental control) increases and more freedoms are lost, people will becomeless and less likely to continue. As long as the perceived benefit of their safety increases morethan the perceived harm incurred by losing their freedoms, people will continue to choose infavor of government. The logical result of this arrangement is that people will arrive at somecombination of government and freedom that satisfies the people involved.
People living under the “whole lot of peace and very little freedom” situation would,
under these same conditions and assumptions, be willing to, with the advent of Edgar, give up
certain governmental safety measures in order to gain some freedoms back. This would persist
until the same socially accepted equilibrium of safety and freedom is reached. Although thisequilibrium describes a situation where happiness derived from peace and freedom ismaximized, there may yet exist a few reasons why people may not be quite satisfied.
Complicating Variables
There unfortunately exist numerous external effects that can upset the endurance of theequilibrium described above. Since maximizing communal happiness is the central goal of our
exercise, we have to attempt to find a way to reconcile how these external variables caninfluence happiness and the level of safety/freedom chosen by the people.
The most inscrutable variable is that the qualifications of an individual for his or her own
equilibrium can be—and often are—different. This would mean that the peace/freedom
equilibrium reached before describes only the average preferences of the individuals and isforced to leave some people unsatisfied. Wherever unsatisfied individuals exist, there exists a
threat to stability and happiness. People’s preferences can also include more nebulous things,

such as the need for political power or the intellectual desire to defend one’s ideals. If thesequalifications for satisfaction, as diverse as they are among the world, are not met,
dissatisfaction-induced violence can persist.
There are also a number of externalities that can cause sudden and tremendous
fluctuations in happiness on both an individual and societal basis. For many, the unrequitedneeds for adequate food, water, and shelter (as a result of crop failure, draught, and earthquake,for instance) can reduce the immediate level of happiness in a community enough to trigger
tremendous social upheaval. There are many similar externalities that can cause the same
instability, but I believe it is sufficient to say that people and nature can do enough unexpectedthings to keep the world unstable.
An Unhealthy Proposition"Nothing is worse than war? Dishonor is worse than war. Slavery is worse than war."– Winston Churchill
Within that artificial model, I have attempted to show that, as humans, we tend to
gravitate away from the extreme societal states (anarchy and utopia, roughly speaking) and findourselves somewhere in between. Although I described this using a model above, I believe
intuitively that the results are generally true. Happiness is, in one way or another, the proverbial“holy grail” of our existence, we do cherish and protect our freedoms dearly, and we are, due tominority and external influences, continually vulnerable to change. Safety from violence can be
met by governmental influence, but will require an unfavorable loss of personal freedom, and theother qualification for peace—satisfaction—is too diverse to be met universally.
Does that mean that, as humans, we have to settle for hostile conflict resolution? We cansurely attempt to wage war “humanely”—through economic or other means, but the fact is thatthe loss of life remains the most effective incentive for ending—and for starting—conflict. How
do we reconcile the fact that war may be, due to the dissatisfaction, almost inevitable?
A Healthy Proposition
In order to resolve this dilemma, I believe we have to allow the natural equilibrium of
government control and freedom to be established, but then move quickly to the next
alternatives. The logical alternative, from my point of view, is the creation of widespreadsatisfaction in order to lessen our dependency on government regulation of violent behavior.
Having to force ourselves into peace or war through our own governing bodies displays afrightening weakness in the moral and spiritual well-being of humans. With satisfaction, people’s
needs are more or less met and they have little or no need to resort to anything such as war.
Saying that widespread satisfaction would eliminate violence is incorrect, but it is a promising
step. But, being that it is difficult or impossible to satisfy the current wants and needs ofeveryone in the world (from a welfare and ideological standpoint), I believe people mustsacrifice the extraneous qualifications for satisfaction in favor of a global conscience. This does
not entail sacrificing quality of life if a basic shift in ones requirements for satisfaction occurs
simultaneously. If we can simplify and reorganize what it means to be content, the world canstructure itself to more efficiently to satisfy each of us. Spiritual revolutions aimed at this type ofgoal are already underway and have been gaining followers every day (the Maharishi, to nameone). Only time will tell whether people are capable of the compromise necessary to achieve abasic level of peace in the world. Until then, war will persist as the unavoidable solution todissatisfaction in the world.
Bibliography
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Mankiw, N. Gregory. Macroeconomics, fifth edition. Worth: New York, NY, 2002.
Seville Statement On Violence. 16 November 1989. United Nations Education, Scientific, andCultural Organization (UNESCO). 26 May 2003
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