Integrating Changes Towards Peace-in-Process
摘要
Emerging from the application of process theory to intertwining issues of peace, social and economic justice and environmental sustainability, is the possibility of a fractal-like transition in thinking, behaviour, cultures and structures. Drawing on the “four quadrants” of Ken Wilber’s integral theory, itself a form of process philosophy, this chapter lays out a process theory of peace that works simultaneously from the outside-in and the inside-out. It argues that interconnecting changes in each of the four quadrants—the individual interior (thoughts and experiences), individual exterior (biology and behaviours), collective interior (culture and worldviews) and collective exterior (political and economic systems)—benefit from an iterative nesting of static perspectives within encompassing process perspectives. In this chapter, such changes are directed towards a positive image of the future: a future that is peaceful, just and sustainable. This vision of positive peace aspires to the cessation of all forms of violence, not only direct, cultural and structural violence, but inner violence too. Thus, this chapter suggests that the inner dimensions of violence and peace, and changes from one to the other, unlock shifts in the other dimensions too. Addressing the global systemic crisis, as this book has proposed, requires an integrative transformation across all dimensions, guided by a shift from static thinking to encompassing process thinking.