Just as modernity has shaped the narratives of progress, population, and prosperity to its own benefit, there is a story of peace that we’ve been told which deserves some critical analysis and questioning. In a culture where “peace deals” are synonymous with a temporary pause on genocidal bloodshed carried out by an incredibly unbalanced power dynamic, our very notion of what “peace” actually is has become warped by our conditioning to witness and increasingly tolerate unspeakable violence. The question of peace must hold an aspect of social spatiality… peace where? And for whom? A pervasive “Protect your peace” type of neo-spirituality has arisen in modernity’s hyper-individualized society. It requires its followers to ignore the very violences that their so-called peace depends on, as well as the conflict that inevitably arises from the unaddressed violences. But there is no peace in existing amongst the comforts of modernity when those comforts are dependent on the extraction and exploitation of other life.
How does our ignorant pursuit of modernity’s “peace” exacerbate the many conflicts of the polycrisis? How has our growing inability to address the inevitable conflict that arises, on both macro and micro scales, contributed to even more disruptions of the peace we claim to want for the world? In the last session of this cycle, we will break down the peace narrative we’ve been told, and make space to build out a new one which acknowledges the inevitability of conflict and our response-ability to address it with maturity and inclusivity.