Is Peace Pacifism?

primates arent all that peaceful, and we can find evidence of violence all the way back to pre-historic fossils, so i would have to say that non-violence is likely the exception among humans

here is a list of some exceptional people, from the "Encyclopedia of Peaceful Societies"

from: https://cas.uab.edu/peacefulsocieties/

"DISCLAIMER: While scholars have clearly identified a small number of societies in which people rarely act aggressively, it must be emphasized that no stamp of approval is intended for the societies included in this website. None of them are utopias. They share many problems with the rest of humanity. That said, however, most of the time they interact in a highly pro-social manner and they successfully avoid both violence within their own societies and warfare with other peoples."

Amish
Batek
Birhor
Buid
Chewong
Fipa
G/wi
Hutterites
Ifaluk
Inuit of Utkuhikhalik and Qipisa Communities
Kadar
Ju/’hoansi
Ladakhi
Lepchas
Malapandaram
Mbuti
Nubians
Paliyans
Piaroa
Rural Thai
Semai
Tahitians
Tristan Islanders
Yanadi
Zapotec of La Paz Village

To steal some quotes from Jupiter Ascending, "Life is an act of consumption..." and "To live...is to consume.". Perhaps a measure of selfishness is how much of our environment we view as a resource and then ascribe some value to it on those terms only. Zero value + zero threat = zero care... think insects perhaps? How often do you step around ants instead of on them!? I know as a kid I used to burn their tunnels in for fun... but now I will avoid even stepping on one if practical. Is complacency, or vacuity of concern, excuse enough is another thing to consider as well.

Empathy for example is a pathway to give back some attributes to the environment that are less or unrelated to our 'self'. The effort of recognizing the inherent capacity for worth in something is often enough to cease the complacency.

But I don't think you have to chose to be violent to be violent.

There is even a practise in Buddhism which has the practitioner view all other life forms as having at one time been your mother - to develop some new platform of perspective to view others as distinctly relevant entities - to increase the extent of compassion exerted. Different people might benefit from different exercises. I think its just about breaking out of selfish habits so we can better explore and find the right balance probably.

steamboat28 wrote:

Snowy Aftermath wrote: This is the same as the discussion we had about atheism. Remember that atheism is a religion as much as bald is a hair color. Nonviolence is the same way. I'm just... not doing violence. There's no activity in that. It's a removal of an activity. And I've always found removing unnecessary elements of my world to be rather liberating.

That may be true, but that removal is an active pursuit. Humans, as animals, are inherently invested in the cycle of violence by our very nature. Predator or prey, necessary or not, violence is an undeniable fact of everyday life. To actively pursue a path of nonviolence is as much a choice as actively pursuing a path of violence, and a harder choice at that.

I don't know how to communicate that for me violence isn't an 'undeniable fact of everyday life' so that you will believe it... and does it even really matter if I did? Nope. I'm not denying that there are different views on it... I don't claim to be the expert on even my own little corner of existing.

It might be the migraine making me confused again, but I think words just don't cover it.