Peace activism or Passive resistance
A teenager during the Vietnam War, I will be forever marked by notions of peace and peace activism.
For a long time I floundered in my articulation of peace. Part of my problem was my confusion between peace activism and passivism.
I don't think peace means something bland or not angry, not passionate, not engaged, not sexy. I take peace as walking a tightrope the way Phillipe Petit explained it: a question of balance.
Petit has said that balance is a creative, active resistance to opposing forces. Balance is a meta-utilization of competing forces by spirit engaged in the pursuit of a goal. In Petit's case the goal is tight ropewalking. In my case the goal is peace activism. Actively creating peaceful actions.
For Petit the competing forces are the winds and gravity, his inner musculature and nerve-mechanisms. For me, as a person interested in participating in the social construction of a peaceful world, the forces I must balance are, first of all, inside myself and, secondarily, in my relations with others. I constantly draw and redraw Lewinian force field maps attempting to discern the range of forces arrayed. I am only ever able to appreciate a few of the many I know are operating.
Because I can not annihilate need, anger, lust, despair or, really, any of those "dangerous" emotions that we are taught are not "peaceful," I doubted myself: Perhaps my desire to participate in the creation of peace might merely be a generationally inspired hypocrisy.
Ah, what a relief to realize that balancing conflicting forces is not AT ALL the same as the annihilation of those forces. Petit cannot annihilate gravity, the wind or himself. But a more subtle point here, neither can he "control" them. Nor can I "control" my "negative"feelings. Balancing is not the same as controlling. This the founders of democracy in the United States knew only too well.
Control mechanisms are always exploited.
Control mechanisms always lead to exacerbations, abuse and resistance in the form of sabotage.
Balancing powers is a very complicated, ecologically sound principle that relies on an understanding of the value of diversity in systems.
I am personally committed to the continuous exploration of balance.