‘PCS 211’ Category

Adding to the Curriculum

After today’s discussion, I’ve been thinking more about nonviolence and its strengths and weaknesses. I think that one of its main weaknesses is that its not as commonly practiced compared to more violent actions such as war. Nonviolent movements are a relatively new solution to social issues which means its not as familiar or casual for people […]

Celebrating Bin Laden’s Death

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/03/my-take-why-post-bin-laden-partying-made-me-cringe/ The different celebrations that happened the evening the US found out Bin Laden was dead was far and wide. Within this blog post, it is clear that there were many different emotions expressed from students across college campus’s. After seeing the images and the partying that was happening at these large schools, do you […]

When stubbornness meets structural violence

At a time when Aljazeera’s homepage constantly details Syria’s violent crackdown on protestors, the BBC proclaims the same and then some in Libya and Afghanistan, the New York Times discusses the latest in murder and mayhem, and the Peace Studies course address the militant tendencies of the United States, it is easy to overlook some […]

An Imaginary Dichotomy

With the recent controversies over the company known as Wikileaks releasing governmental cables and reports from embassies and agencies, questions of war media versus peace media has grown. But do categories such as these even really exist? So often, we as humans, try to dichotomize the world into artificial categories that would not exist without […]

Eliminate bullying and Create Peace

Can Education Bring Peace? The question almost sounds leading. If education cannot bring peace then what can? As a child I was bullied in elementary and middle school. The experience of being bullied was traumatic to my childhood. I was constantly made fun of because of my size, height, and skin completion. I spent elementary […]

Who is more peaceful?

Are women more peaceful than men? After thinking of many different ways to respond to this question, it still, like many other questions in this field, seems empirically unanswerable. It can be proved one way, critiqued, proved over, critiqued again, and the cycle continues. Great for debate, but highly unlikely to ever be agreed upon […]

Both sides have a point.

Ideally I would love to say that pacifism is the answer to all the worlds problems. I would love to say, that conflicts could be resolved without violence. But in some situations, pacifism may not be the answer. I believe the human race is still has a lot to learn and someday pacifistic ideals will be practiced by all. But for now I […]

Is it possible to define a just war?

Just War: A military action that is justified as being permissible for legal or moral reasons; also called just war theory, just war tradition. (Dictionary.com) The Just War theory definition provides me with some very interesting thought. Within this theory, it states that there needs to be a moral reason, or a person must have […]

What is “Justice” Anyway?

Everybody wishes there was more justice in the world. Nobody wants to go to bed hungry or afraid or uncertain of his or her circumstances in the morning. Nobody likes to see widespread suffering plastered over the evening news or face the overwhelming helplessness that will probably flood in. But if we don’t like seeing […]

Given Human Nature, is Violence Inevitable?

Violence is only inevitable when there is reason for it to be. Violence, warfare, and aggression have become so engrained within our society that it has become an inevitable.  If we were to be able to revert to a clean slate, we could possibly avoid warfare all together by establishing necessary institutions for conflict resolutions.  […]