For many years, Elise developed and led workshops on envisioning a world without nuclear weapons. It was a powerful experience working with other workshop participants to create a peaceful future, and then imaging steps leading from where we are to such a future world. In Cultures of Peace, Elise gives a history of utopian dreams of peaceful communities, and the role utopian concepts and experiments play in critiquing the current ways of doing things and trying out new ideas and relationships. Diversity helps build a peaceful culture. Peaceable societies have to solve problems and resolve conflicts creatively.
Different cultures have wisdom, experience and fresh perspectives to contribute.
To solve the difficult problems facing the world, we need the creativity coming from such diversity. Just as many different kinds of plants and animals living together makes for a stronger ecosystem in nature, so different cultures bring knowledge and skills that make for a better and more peaceful world. What happens in the Two-thirds World is important. Americans tend to think of the developed world as the most important, with the developing world as less important. It is hard to get news of Africa, Latin America, or Asia, unless it deals with a disaster or conflict.