Submitted by LostYonder in AskRaddle
I am seeking some references on the idea of peace as developed in anarchist thought. Peace, as a conceptual idea, is more often than not studied through the framework of liberalism, tying it directly to how states enter into and avoid conflict.
While potential ideas of anarchist peace are situated as resistance to the state, global inequalities, etc., I am particularly interested in how an anarchist society is built around the idea of living in peace, be it communist, communitarian, primitivism, or any other way of imagining anarchy.
What does it mean to be living in peace? what are the values and social practices that foster peaceful living? what mechanisms (social, cultural, religious) might support peaceful living?
Any thoughts, opinions, and/or references would be greatly appreciated.
An_Old_Big_Tree wrote
I think that defining 'peace' ahead of time and propping it up as something desirable is not really compatible with anarchy.
We can take guesses at what peace would look like but as soon as we're building our future on an 'image' of what peace is then we're letting ourselves be defined by abstractions
This is roughly what I understand many anarchists who consider themselves anti-ideological or anti-utopian to be assuming.
That doesn't mean we can't experiment with different ideas of peace. What is your interest in peace specifically?
One more thing. I'm reminded of an amusing bit of the book bolo'bolo, where p.m. sets out a blueprint for an anarchist utopia. In it, he doesn't assume that there will be peace. He even imagines entire comminities/towns/'bolos' that are dedicated to banditry. So I don't think we need to be imagining societies without battles, but really the sense of scale that the fighting you imagine in his society has is nothing like that of state-capitalism. It feels kinda human.