Everyone longs for peace, a feeling of harmony with themselves, their family, and the society around them. However, everyone's vision of peace is slightly different from those around them. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of peace is "a state of tranquility or quiet, or a state of security or order within a community provided by law or custom." To build peace in a society is relatively hard. Even though building peace is possible, I believe that in a world where people have different thoughts, achieving absolute peace is impossible. Peace comes from different levels of analysis. There can be individual peace, society peace, nationwide peace, and finally, international peace. To answer the first question, what kinds of actions are necessary to build peace, many questions need to be taken into consideration.
First of all, at what level of analysis are we trying to build peace? Secondly, how do we define peace, since each and every individual holds a different image for peace. Thirdly, to what extent of peace are we trying to build? After a solid answer is formulated for each sub-questions, can the final question be fully answered. However, in my opinion, communication plays an immensely huge role in building peace. At the individual level of analysis, conflicts often sprout from miscommunication and differences in opinion. Since conflicts rise from miscommunication, to eliminate and decrease the possibility of conflicts happening means communicating with others. Communication can also help achieve compromises. When there are differences in opinion, a compromise will never be reached if people don't communicate. When people communicate, they can understand what others are trying to say and what they have in mind, and in return, form a conclusion based on the two arguments. This is why I believe that communication plays a big role in building peace. Other important factors in building peace is to eliminate poverty.
Poverty plays a key role in peace. In places where poverty is a key problem, the crime rates are relatively higher. For example, when a child lives in poverty with barely enough food to live past a day, they will grow into a habit of stealing and doing whatever is necessary to stay alive. This will lead to crime and when crime is committed, peace is not achieved. So to take a step closer to achieving peace is to decrease poverty levels in nations, which is fairly hard to achieve as well. Peace study ideas can also contribute to peace building. For example, the idea of solving conflicts with a mediator and arbitrator. Another method to build peace is to promote positive peace. Positive peace approaches things less violently. For example, positive peace supports conflict resolution and peace movements against wars.
Democracy does not help eliminate forms of direct, structural, and cultural violence. It only decreases the levels of such violence. Direct, structural, and cultural violence will never be achieved in this generation since once an idea of direct, structural, and cultural violence is embedded into someone's brain, it is there. Other people can change their beliefs but people do not know what others are thinking inside. In other words, there are no specific tracker that identify each and every individual who perform direct, structural, and cultural violence. Plus, people can feel one way mentally and react a different way physically. This is why direct, structural, and cultural violence will never be eliminated. However, democracy does help decrease the possibility of direct, structural, and cultural violence from happening. Based on the global democracy index, the nations that are full democracies compared to nations that are authoritarian regimes are relatively more peaceful based on the global peace index. This correlation between peace and democratic nations show that democracy does decrease the forms of direct, structural, and cultural violence since these forms of violence creates conflict.
First of all, at what level of analysis are we trying to build peace? Secondly, how do we define peace, since each and every individual holds a different image for peace. Thirdly, to what extent of peace are we trying to build? After a solid answer is formulated for each sub-questions, can the final question be fully answered. However, in my opinion, communication plays an immensely huge role in building peace. At the individual level of analysis, conflicts often sprout from miscommunication and differences in opinion. Since conflicts rise from miscommunication, to eliminate and decrease the possibility of conflicts happening means communicating with others. Communication can also help achieve compromises. When there are differences in opinion, a compromise will never be reached if people don't communicate. When people communicate, they can understand what others are trying to say and what they have in mind, and in return, form a conclusion based on the two arguments. This is why I believe that communication plays a big role in building peace. Other important factors in building peace is to eliminate poverty.
Poverty plays a key role in peace. In places where poverty is a key problem, the crime rates are relatively higher. For example, when a child lives in poverty with barely enough food to live past a day, they will grow into a habit of stealing and doing whatever is necessary to stay alive. This will lead to crime and when crime is committed, peace is not achieved. So to take a step closer to achieving peace is to decrease poverty levels in nations, which is fairly hard to achieve as well. Peace study ideas can also contribute to peace building. For example, the idea of solving conflicts with a mediator and arbitrator. Another method to build peace is to promote positive peace. Positive peace approaches things less violently. For example, positive peace supports conflict resolution and peace movements against wars.
Democracy does not help eliminate forms of direct, structural, and cultural violence. It only decreases the levels of such violence. Direct, structural, and cultural violence will never be achieved in this generation since once an idea of direct, structural, and cultural violence is embedded into someone's brain, it is there. Other people can change their beliefs but people do not know what others are thinking inside. In other words, there are no specific tracker that identify each and every individual who perform direct, structural, and cultural violence. Plus, people can feel one way mentally and react a different way physically. This is why direct, structural, and cultural violence will never be eliminated. However, democracy does help decrease the possibility of direct, structural, and cultural violence from happening. Based on the global democracy index, the nations that are full democracies compared to nations that are authoritarian regimes are relatively more peaceful based on the global peace index. This correlation between peace and democratic nations show that democracy does decrease the forms of direct, structural, and cultural violence since these forms of violence creates conflict.