Abstract
Peace scholars have generally categorized societies in terms of whether they hold either positive or negative versions of peace. Negative peace is, as the phrase implies, the absence or avoidance of war—secured by deterrence—while positive peace can be described as a society that adheres to notions of equality between peoples and social harmony based on shared notions of justice. Loosely speaking, the positive expressions of peace have been more prominently illustrated by the major religious movements found in the Asiatic societies (Hinduism, Buddhism) and the negative version expressed most clearly by the Western tradition that begins with the ancient Greeks. The negative view of peace relates more to the role of states in relation to their neighbors, and the positive one is grounded in personal values that relate to the formation of individuals’ duty to maintain harmonious communities. One way to view the United Nations (UN) is to see it as the product of these two traditions. The aspirational positive peace language of the UN Preamble that refers to “We the peoples of the United Nations to practice tolerance and live together in peace as good neighbors” coexists uneasily with the first paragraph of Article 1 of the charter that references the need to “maintain international peace and security” by taking “effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.”1
It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.
—Aristotle
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Notes
K. Armstrong, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (New York: Knopf, 2014), p. 12.
J. Bederman, International Law in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 166.
G. Zampaglione, The Idea of Peace in Antiquity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973).
Alonso summarizes the steady direction toward more enlightened views. “If war is indeed frequently inevitable,” the Greek city-states believed that it was wise to “limit it in space, delay its outbreak for as long as possible, leave a wide margin for diplomacy, and, once it begins, establish generally accepted formal procedures (such as truces, capitulations, and the protection of heralds) that will allow us to maintain relations between belligerent parties.” Victor Alonso, “War, Peace, and International Law in Ancient Greece,” in War and Peace in the Ancient World , ed. K. A. Raaflaub, p. 219 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/podzim2008/RLB248/um/6315681/War_and_Peace_in_Ancient_World.pdf.
M. Dillion, and M. Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2006), p. 24.
See G. Zampaglione, The Idea of Peace in Antiquity (Ardent Media, 2003), p. 135.
W. Mulligan, The Great War for Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 270–271.
D. Bosco, Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 31.
As Oliver Richmond points out, “Hindi notions of shanti and ahimsa, which represent first an inner peace and then a wider peace. Islam and Sufi offer an understanding of peace as an internal quest within everyone, which when achieved may lead to an ‘outer peace.’ Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all make such claims in various different ways. Judaism associates peace with a sectarian identity within a universal peace,” in O. Richmond, Peace: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 27.
See Richmond, Oliver, Peace a Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 16.
See K. Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (New York: Knopf, 2010), pp. 5–6.
See K. Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006), p. xii.
See Mark J. Allman and Tobias L. Winright, After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post War Justice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), pp. 32–33.
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© 2015 Laurence Peters
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Peters, L. (2015). Collective Security: The Classical Legacy. In: The United Nations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-52866-7_2
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