Re-framing Peace pt. 1

People fascinate me, which is good because I got a degree that deals with people. One reason that I both enjoy and am frustrated with people is how we frame things. Let me explain this concept briefly: framing is essentially how we see the world and the people, places, and events within it. Generally no one has the same framing view as another person, your framing view is your own will continue to be shaped through your entire life, generally reaching it's climax view in your mid to late twenties, and only small tweaks of refinement after that. Our framing view starts at birth and is influenced by where we life, what we look like, our family's beliefs and values, and many different events that take place during your development (ie if you were born into slavery or elitism). The top 3 influences of our view are #1 family, #2 friends, and #3 religion, with 2 and 3 switching depending on what kind of family you were born into.

Part of the joys of watching people is that we share a lot in common with Transformers, that is that there is more that meets the eye. People generally know this but in a very broad sense. I came to understand this concept in a deeper way through my work on my Undergrad Degree. A few of my friends have talked about re-framing our view in order to understand others, and so a few years ago I began to do that, which has caused some controversy over my thoughts on what I found (read some of my previous thoughts and you'll understand why).

One of the subjects that has recently been on my mind is the whole war issue, which is a hot topic no matter where you are from, usually people are for war or against it, not in between. I do not believe that war is ever a solution to any problem and is especially not a means to an end as many people think. War/violence only leads to more war/violence, if we look back through history we can see this is true and history likes to repeat itself unless we change the way the game is played. I also do not agree with our war in Afghanistan or Iraq or where ever else we may be sending our troops. This does not mean that I do not support our troops, because I assure you that I do, but I can still not support a war that is being fought unjustly, because let's face it, there's no such thing as a just war! That is simply a way to frame war to make it positive instead of negative.

Now I'm sure that there will be some people who read this and say that if we do not strike first the terrorists will attack us and then we will be poor and destitute just like the people we are attacking, or more like the "casualties of war". However there is another option but our view of others has been framed by fear and by an ideology that we are "God's nation" and so we have to prevail over the "bad" in the world. I fully agree that we do need to do that, however there is a better way than war. I believe that we can come to that solution through true peace. We, however, do not know what true peace is because we have framed peace to mean "the way the world will be after we prevent future blood shed with present blood shed and when the whole world is 'Democratic'" which seems a little counter intuitive and is all the more reason to re-frame in a positive light.

Recently I was discussing with a friend the concept of war/violence with regard to peace and he asked me...