Today, I am pleased to share this fascinating article on What Can We Learn From the World’s Most Peaceful Societies?
Despite all the violence currently erupting, here are many societies in the world today where people live together in harmony. That's because they have learned how to do it. They have developed methods and strategies for creating and maintaining nonviolence and peace.
Peace and harmony don't just happen. People choose to behave in particular ways that bring about peace.
The study looked at nonviolent societies as well as peaceful ones [I'm wondering whether there is a difference].
According to this article, most researchers, including the UN, tend to study how to keep war and conflict at bay, rather than at how to sustain peace and nonviolence.
The study looked at peace and nonviolence at the individual level, the "meso" level of family and community, and the "macro" level of peace and harmony within societies and between and among different societies.
This study observed many different factors, including, for example, on the "meso" level,
- The degree to which parenting styles stress warmth, caring and nurturing;
- The ratio of high positivity-to-negativity in parenting; and
- The degree to which subordinate identity groups unify across differences.
These are just a few of the many factors that were observed. I strongly encourage you to have a look at this article.
It says:
Peace is not just an absence of violence and war, but
also people and groups getting along prosocially with each other: the
cooperation, sharing, and kindness that we see in everyday society.
When we can bring about peace within ourselves and within our homes and our communities, we are much more likely to bring about peace on a wider scale.
What have you observed about the thinking and behaviours that can lead to peace within our homes and within society? Please comment below.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2024.
