Pace e Bene

Tools for Building a World Where Everyone Matters

We stand at a crossroads. 

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “The choice humanity faces is no longer nonviolence or violence – it is nonviolence or nonexistence.” 

Dr. King’s words have never been more apt.  At a time of permanent war, growing poverty, threats to civil liberties, and ecological devastation, humanity faces the challenge and opportunity to choose powerful and creative nonviolent alternatives. 

To choose a nonviolent future means reframing our vision; transforming our lives; and changing our societies

We can continue to opt for the devastating spiral of war and injustice, or we can build civil societies where the dignity of all is respected and the needs of all are met.  True peace and long-term human survival depend on this.

Violence — any behavior, attitude, policy, or condition that dominates, diminishes, dehumanizes or destroys — does not simply “happen.”  It is typically a symptom of a system of violence, an overarching culture or framework of beliefs and attitudes that justifies and perpetuates it, often from generation to generation.   As individuals and societies we are formed and deformed by this systemic violence. 

This pervasive culture of violence structures much of the world and its vision, direction, conditions, and policies.  At the same time, it infiltrates the human heart, mind and spirit.

The culture of violence shapes how we see the world, and it recruits us to sustain it.  It depends on the support, cooperation, and power that we give it.  Consciously or not, we build and reinforce this culture of violence by believing in it, benefiting from it, and envisioning no alternative to it. 

To choose a nonviolent future, then, means engaging in three interrelated tasks: reframing our vision; transforming our lives; and changing our societies. In short, “mainstreaming nonviolence.” 

Mainstreaming nonviolence is not about creating a utopia where all violence and conflict cease.  Instead, it is the process of creating a culture where, in the face of our tendencies as people and as societies to unleash violence in all of its destruction and cruelty, people everywhere:

• Have the tools to transform violence and conflict — and to take steps for more justice, peace and dignity in their lives and in the larger world
• Are trained in the power and potential of nonviolent alternatives through stories, teaching, media, and their own experience; and
•  Collaborate both in nourishing relationships and in creating policies, institutions, movements, and social structures that will nurture the nonviolent life in a more nonviolent world.

This is a long-term vision, but each of us can play our own part in designing and building a culture where nonviolent alternatives are the default.

Ken Butigan’s blog highlights ideas, books, videos, websites, projects, campaigns, organizations and individuals offering new directions for mainstreaming the power of nonviolent change.  

Photo of “The Bean” in Millennium Park, Chicago: Ken Butigan