Pax Principia

A $1.2 Trillion Modest Proposal

2009-02-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

“The universe is change;

our life is what our thoughts make it.”

— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

I have a modest proposal — let’s apply a new evidence-based “social technology” built on a public health foundation and developed in Washington State to:

Significantly reduce the $1.2 trillion in annual costs to Americans for violence by reducing the costs of violent crime, child abuse, war, rape, genocide, “honor” killings of women, “ethnic cleansing,” family violence, terrorism, slavery, and other forms of violence in the world (statistical information available upon request). The savings can be redirected to healthcare, infrastructure, economic relief, environmental program development, and other critical areas. A detailing of the costs is illustrated below.
Substantially reduce America’s 2.2 million prison population, moving many of those incarcerated from depleting government funds to becoming tax-paying Americans contributing to the nation’s economic health.
Reduce health costs by reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with violence and its effects (e.g., the 3.2 million cases of child abuse reported in the United States annually).
Increase America’s international stature and relationships by applying the PAR Model in areas of conflict.
Increase confidence in government, trust in each other, and the overall quality of life of all Americans.
Improve the overall quality of life of Americans and others throughout the world by making violence less pervasive and feared.
Leave a lasting legacy for generations worldwide — a gift of freeing, sustainable, and lasting peace.

Cost to the United States for
Domestic and International Violence
Fiscal Year 2008

Source: US Office of Management and Budget,
US Dept. of Justice, World Health Organization

A New "Social Technology"

The new social technology is the "Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model" — a new, evidence-based, cognitive approach to violence response and prevention built upon a public health foundation. It's a significant departure from the traditional “punitive” model for dealing with violence. The PAR Model incorporates new thinking about and language for describing violence, provides a new framework for preventing and responding to violence, and presents an effective alternative to the commonly-used traditional punitive-based approaches for dealing with violence.

The PAR Model can be applied in a broad range of settings including prisons, international conflicts, criminal/justice systems, schools, healthcare systems, communities, families, social service agencies, public health programs, relief projects, and peacebuilding initiatives. And — in addition to relieving some of the sorrow and suffering that comes from violence — early experience with the model suggests it could save us a fortune.

Save Enough to Pay for Two Obama Health Care Plans

If, by applying the PAR Model, we could save just 10% of our annual bill for violence (a fraction of the results obtained in early applications of the model), we would have an extra $124 billion each year. That's enough for two of the $60 billion health plans proposed by President Obama. Or, one $60 billion health plan, one $15 billion auto industry bailout, and another $49 billion for infrastructure jobs. Or, whatever. The point is, it can help us stop flushing away money that we desperately need for other things.

Based on early applications of the model, for every $1 invested in PAR Model programs, the return is expected to be $18.54. This doesn't count the added national wealth when, for example, those held in prisons go from costing American citizens to becoming tax-paying citizens themselves. This is the kind of investment we dearly need.

You Can Help

The proposal for putting the PAR Model to work requires the support of a broad range of people. The new "PAR Peace Initiative" is a good start. The Cascadia Peace Development Fund is building an initiative which will include partnerships with other organizations.

This is a time for profound change — a time that demands new and creative thinking. This is one of those historical pivot points when we're called to roll up our sleeves and set things right. The PAR Peace Initiative provides a rare opportunity to join together to do good and to do it quickly. We need you in this effort. Click here to visit the PAR Peace Initiative page and to learn how you can be involved.

The Starting Point

2008-10-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

“There's only one corner of the universe
you can be certain of improving,
and that's your own self.”
— Aldous Huxley

Getting Them to Behave

You might wonder how you get violent people to be peaceful. The answer is: You don't.

Violence manifests from an experience of powerlessness. By making the decision to “fix” others, I put myself in the seat of power. I make the decisions — not those who are the object of my “good works.” If they are infected with the violence pathogen and powerlessness aggravates their condition, taking more power from them only makes things worse.

Getting others to behave is not the objective of the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model. Getting ourselves free of the pathogen, improving unhealthy conditions (what we refer to as “risk factors”), and giving others the opportunity to do the same is the objective.

The Thought-borne Pathogen

No one wants to be caught in the grip of the violence pathogen any more than anyone would want to have cancer. It's clear to me that people are doing the best they can to bring health to their lives. I suppose one could say they're starving for peace, for an end to violence. We don't need to go out on the street, drag them in to our violence-free buffet, force their faces in to the quiche, and shout 'eat!'” They're starving. They'll feed themselves.

But they won't find a life free of violence until they find value and meaning in their lives, until fear is brought under control, until the experience of consuming powerlessness leaves them.

Starting With One's Self

The one person upon whom you can have the most impact in countering the violence pathogen (or, as I sometimes call it, “brain bug”) and building a violence immune system is yourself. When you reduce your susceptibility to violence, you do two things:

You reduce the number of human beings with violence by one.
You directly impact the systemic environment under which the violence pathogen thrives. You become a healthy node on the network of human interaction.

Your immunity to violence is contagious. You can, in effect, infect your children, friends, peers, relatives, co-workers, and people you meet with healthy power if you experience healthy power yourself. You can be especially effective when you know how violence operates in you and others, then take action to call forth power for those you encounter each day.

How do you do that? There are many ways of leaving others with a sense of power. You call power out when you are authentically honest, compassionate, caring, supportive, encouraging, trustworthy, and thankful. It comes forth when you “make” someone's day, when you feel your own power and step up to be deeply in the presence of another.

When I realize that it starts with me, I realize that — ultimately — it ends with me. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s become something of a cliché, but only because it’s so true.

Value, Meaning, and the Fear of Death

2008-10-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

“Security is an attempt
to try to make the universe static
so that we feel safe.”
— Anne Wilson Schaef

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed that human beings need value and meaning in order to live. American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker determined that our greatest fear is death and that we develop life strategies to avoid our demise.

These two observations are central to our relationship with power. Power can provide us with a metaphorical immortality, perpetuating the sense of self as well as value and meaning. Recognizing the role the quest for power plays in our lives, we can understand why someone would want to receive the Nobel Prize, become a powerful political leader, write a literary masterpiece, or have their name on a monument.

Three Forms of Power

As we work with the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model, we learn that power takes three general forms:

Healthy — power which moves us toward life. Examples are honesty, accountability, forgiveness, wisdom, respect, compassion, and thankfulness.
Benign — power which can be used in either healthy or unhealthy ways. This would include commitment, perseverance, excellence, patience, loyalty, and courage. For example, one could be courageously loyal to a leader who advocates tolerance and understanding or to one advocating hatred and genocide.
Unhealthy — power which moves us away from life. Examples include dishonesty, wrath, ignorance, arrogance, greed, and hate.

Living the Heroic Life

Becker argues that we are driven to live heroic lives. The problem, he observes, is that heroic behavior produces the greatest evil in the world. Why? Because we are heroic for our viewpoint, our tribe, our “way of life,” and our way of denying death. That means differing viewpoints, tribes, ways of life, and immortality schemes are threats. The result — as we’ve seen with crusades, terrorism, racial differences, etc. — is violence.

But if we’re driven to live heroic lives, are we doomed? Becker seems to think not. He observes that heroism conducted on a universal or “cosmic” level is the only way we can find value and meaning which does not result in evil. Cosmic heroism is heroic behavior on behalf of all life. Examples of those who have taken this course are Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and the doctors and staff at Médecins Sans Frontières.

Cosmic heroism means accepting life as it is, living with mystery, and realizing that the universe is anything but static. As far as being human, I live with the knowledge that there’s no security whatsoever.

The Power of Choice

Living a heroic life on a universal level is not easy. It requires humility, wisdom, courage, patience, and perseverance. It’s challenging, but the rewards are great because the path of the cosmic hero produces depth, richness, and joy. In the end, it’s a choice — one made moment to moment. One thing that reassures me as I make my way though the experience of being in the world is the realization that — in those moments when I am fearful, petty, and small — I can turn back on the path of cosmic hero and find my way home.

Rethinking Violence

2008-10-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

“Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Understanding the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model requires moving beyond the traditional views about violence and into a wholly new framework. At the core of that framework is the PAR Model's definition of violence as a thought-borne pathogen that presents as any action resulting from:

An intention to do harm; and/or
Attempts to gain inappropriate power and control for self-serving gain which results in harm.

Common Characteristics

By examining some of the common characteristics of violence, you can begin to shift your understanding of violence, its precursors and outcomes. Some common characteristics of violence are:

It is infectious, due in part to the loss of power and control by victims. A common reaction is to respond to violent episodes with violence (“profane” or “sacred”).
It is self-replicating. Because of its infectious nature, violence drives more violence. Scapegoating and mob behavior are examples where violence infects those who have not been the direct recipients of violence themselves.
We are “acclimated” to violence; numbed, tolerant, and unaware. This allows violence to spread rapidly.
It is addictive. Although toxic, it can create an addiction which has its roots in power, control, and the need for stimulation.
It is often characterized by denial and lack of accountability on the part of the players on the “drama triangle” (persecutor, victim, rescuer).
It is fed by social systems including government modeling (violence as an effective strategy in response to crime and international relations), media (violent entertainment), prevailing negative cultural beliefs (bigotry, stereotyping, scapegoating), ethics (greed, avarice, exploitation, etc.), and the definition of heroic behavior.
It is seductive by nature – it invites more violence, even from those who abhor it (for example, the Oklahoma City bombing which in turn drives the state-sanctioned killing of Timothy McVeigh).
It can result in a variety of presentation complaints ranging from the mild to the fatal — depression, paranoia, PTSD, headaches, bruises, puncture wounds, fractures, hearing degradation, digestive ailments, fetal injury, gun shot trauma, death.
It is preventable, using many of the same public health strategies used in increasing seat-belt and bicycle helmet usage and decreasing cigarette usage and chemical dependency.
It is widespread — presenting in epidemic proportions.

Compassion as a Consequence

As one is immersed in this new approach, one notices that blame, disgust, indignation, vengeance, and the experience of powerlessness begin to fade. Often, solutions to prevention and intervention challenges appear as immediate and obvious manifestations of the process of seeing violence clearly through the lens of the PAR Model.

My concern has been that the traditional punitive approach to dealing with violence is not only ineffective, it actually aggravates the condition. Since violence arises from an experience of power deprivation, taking power away via punishment increases the deprivation In short, punitive response are themselves forms of violence.

In my discussions with those applying the PAR Model, one of the most common observations is that the practitioners feel a strong sense of compassion for all those impacted by violence, including the person expressing the symptoms of the disease. Compassion is a significant source of healthy power for both the person expressing it and the one who is the object of the caring. One is left with the realization that one of the most effective tools in eradicating violence is unleashing relentless compassion.

Getting Infected

2008-08-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

“Thought is an infection.
In the case of certain thoughts,
it becomes an epidemic.”
— Wallace Stevens

The death of Cpl. Jason Bogar last month in Afghanistan provided me with an intimate look at my own violence immune system. As I've mentioned in other postings, Jason — the son of a friend of mine — visited one of my courses on the “Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model” before he was deployed to Iraq, then Afghanistan where he was killed in combat.

When I got the news from my friend, Rev. Michael Bogar, that his son was one of the nine killed on the 13^th of July, I was deeply affected. My affection for Jason came from my brief experience of him as well as my awareness of Michael's love for, pride in, and concern for Jason.

Right: Cpl. Jason M. Bogar with
children in Afghanistan.

Powerlessness

After getting over the initial shock of the news, I felt a deep sense of powerlessness come over me. I kept mulling the memory of Jason in my mind. I thought about the incredible pain Michael and Jason's mother, Carlene Cross, must have been going through. I thought about the rest of Jason's family. I thought about my own sons. I wished there was something I could do to fix things in some way, to bring Jason back. But there was no fix for this.

Rage

As I realized that there was nothing within my power that would make things right, I felt myself go cold. Thoughts of revenge against the Taliban soldiers, the Army, our government, “warmongering” supporters of war, and any other “villains” I could think of ran through my mind. I felt as though I and those I care about had been victimized and that someone should pay for it.

Watching

As I got more agitated and frustrated, my attention turned to the PAR Model. I noticed how caught up I was in the “Objectification/Action Process” — a central concept in the model. I was moving through the five stages of the process which ends with violence.

Stage 1 is the transaction — the knowledge that Jason was dead and that there was nothing I could do about it.
Stage 2 is the accusation — I characterized the situation in perpetrator (“them”) and victim (“us”) terms. This provides the justification for violent action.
Stage 3 is objectification — I began to characterize those I was accusing as objects. They were “terrorists,” “warmongers,” “stupid politicians,” “mindless officers,” “enemy,” “incompetents,” and so on.
Stage 4 is passing sentence — making sure that what ever I thought they “deserved,” it would be congruent with the crimes I decided they committed. Here the process stopped. I didn't make it through this stage or to stage five.
Stage 5 is the execution of the process — the delivery of the punishment, the acts of violence.

What Happened?

A couple of things happened for me. First, I was observing the process, knowing that it was the voice of powerlessness talking. The PAR Model describes violence as a “thought-borne pathogen” — a “brain bug,” if you will. I know how it works and how I was at risk of transmitting the bug through any act of violence of my own.

Second, my violence immune system is sufficiently healthy that, other than having some angry thoughts, there was no way I was going to act out any violence. I wasn't going to hurt anyone physically, demean anyone or threaten anyone. My immune system is healthy because I have a more-than-sufficient experience of power in my life. My level of resiliency is such that the pathogen could not take over. There was no risk of hurting anyone in this case.

Recovery

My recovery from the grief, sadness, and sense of powerlessness is helped greatly by being given the opportunity (and privilege) to contribute to Jason's memorial. Taking some form of positive, concrete action dramatically speeds the recovery process. Writing about Jason (including this posting), remembering things for which I have every reason to be thankful (including the brief experience of knowing Jason), and recognizing what is going on internally have contributed to rebounding from a terrible event.

I'm still sad and disappointed. But I have no thoughts of getting even or having anyone pay. The violence pathogen's attempt to hijack me was unsuccessful.

Power and Resiliency

In forthcoming postings, I explore the notions of power and resiliency further.

War and the PAR Model

2008-08-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

“War does not determine who is right
— only who is left.”
— Bertrand Russell

The death in Afghanistan of Cpl. Jason Bogar, the son of a friend of mine, brought home my desire to see the “Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model” applied in international conflict settings. Jason visited one of my PAR Model classes before being deployed to Iraq, then Afghanistan where he was killed. During his visit, we talked about how great it would be if we could apply the PAR Model in a military setting.

What Causes War?

There are several established theories about what causes war. One widespread theory is based on the supposition that human beings are, by nature, violent and war is thus a inevitable expression of this nature. This theory doesn't explain periods of peace, cultures which are completely devoid of war (the Amish, Ladakhi, Semai, Nubian, Mbuti), or the near-universal human belief that war is something bad and should be avoided.

The PAR Model takes a different stance by proposing that human beings are basically cooperative — and must be to survive. The violence human beings act out is a symptom of the active presence of a thought-born pathogen (a “brain bug”) that thrives in an environment of fear resulting from an experience of powerlessness.

Another school of thought proposes that, because we are animals, we compete for resources and territory like other animals do. Here again, the PAR Model differs. I suggest that humans beings are unique in that they are a hybrid between the material and conceptual, being part animal and part symbolic (I draw heavily here upon the work of Otto Rank).

Additionally, our conceptual side (sense of self, beliefs, knowledge, etc.) is evolving steadily. We are unlike any other animal in so many ways — we are aware of the certainty of our own physical death, we wear artificial skin (clothing), can conduct non-synchronous communication (voice-mail, videos, letters), and leverage the resources available to us in ways that are beyond the ability of any other organism. Again, the PAR Model posits that it is the experience of powerlessness that drives violence and war.

Left: Boys playing on an anti-aircraft
gun during World War II.

A common social theory is that war is the extension of the geopolitical process, probably best exemplified by Carl von Clausewitz's statement, “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” While this may be true, it is — again — symptomatic of a deeper issue: individual and collective fear resulting from an experience of powerlessness. In politics, this fear is often amplified by political leaders as part of a process of manipulating the general population to undertake wars which — inevitably — kill their young, cost them money, and otherwise wreak havoc upon the quality of their lives.

The Evolution of War

The nature of war has changed dramatically over the last 200 years. It has shifted from a focus upon upon masses of troops, to efficient and massive firepower, to sophisticated maneuvering, to a new, complex, borderless, networked, form called “Phase IV” or “fourth generation” war. No longer are the most troops, best weapons, and most sophisticated maneuvering enough to prevail in a war.

To end war, we must develop a more in-depth understanding of the roots of violence and its expression in international settings, become more responsive to the need to relieve or mitigate the experienced power-deficiency of those pursuing and perpetuating war, and apply new, innovative, evidence-based approaches to eliminate the malignancy of violence which results in war. Lt. Col. Thomas X. Hammes, writing in the Marine Corps Gazette, notes that “The strategic approach and tactical techniques of fourth generation warfare will require major changes in the way we educate, employ, structure, and train forces.” I agree. The PAR Model is at the center of one such initiative to do just that.

A Revolution In Thinking

Both the PAR Model and the new approaches to dealing with fourth generation warfare are examples of opportunities to reduce and eliminate warfare. I'll explore this further in a coming blog on applying the PAR Model.

War Loss

2008-07-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

“The dead cannot cry out for justice;
it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

I read the news about nine American soldiers killed in remote eastern Afghanistan, the most lost since June 2005. It wasn't until I got an e-mail message from my friend, Rev. Michael Bogar, that it became personal. Among the nine was his son, Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, a 25-year-old serving in the 2^nd Battalion, 503^rd Infantry Regiment, 173^rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.

Jason left quite an impression on me when he visited one of my PAR Model classes a couple of years ago. Bright, friendly, and spirited, we talked about how cool it would be to bring the PAR Model to the military. Jason was thinking about volunteering for Iraq. He mixed a sense of duty and a young man's desire for adventure into a personal alchemy of purpose and meaning. “Stay safe,” I told him as we were parting. “Yeah, I will,” he replied smiling.

The wrenching pain of Jason's loss bled like some mangled, deep wound out of Michael's e-mail message. I wept. I thought about my two sons and my grandchildren. How do you come to terms with the loss of your child? Can you ever make peace with it? How do you stop the endless mulling of his memory, of the thoughts about how he died, about what would have become of him had he lived?

Fighting Hand-to-Hand

Jason's mom, Carlene Cross, told an interviewer that Jason often volunteered for dangerous missions partly because he was single and felt he could spell married troops from exposure to hazards. That sounds exactly like the idealistic and thoughtful young man I briefly knew.

Sunday, 13 July 2008 was hazardous at that remote base near the Pakistan border in the rugged Hindu Kush. Reports say that, early in the morning, Taliban militants began firing machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and mortars at a small outpost manned by Jason and about 60 other US and Afghan troops. They were outnumbered four to one. The savage battle went on for hours, degenerating into hand-to-hand combat. Nine US soldiers, including Jason, were killed. Fifteen others manning the outpost were wounded. The count of the Taliban dead and wounded was thought to be high.

It's Personal

For some time I've taken the position that the correct answer to the question, “How many children do you have?” is: “I don't know. How many children are there?” Jason was one of my “extended kids.” I had a fondness for him, built largely upon both my brief personal experience of him and the proud, loving mention of him by his father. His presence in the war made it personal.

Violence and the PAR Model

Under the PAR Model, violence is described as a “thought-borne pathogen” that emerges out of an experience of powerlessness, most commonly driven by fear. As my thoughts turned to Jason, I felt that powerlessness. I'm powerless to save him and the others who were killed or injured in the fight, to comfort his parents, to make sense of his death, to guarantee protection for my own children and their children, to immediately stop the murderous madness of war.

And I can feel the latent violence churning in a dark corner of my being. I hear its voice, demanding to know who will pay for this? Shouldn't the masters of war bleed personally for their evil? How do I get even? Why do I have to endure the damn delays in getting the PAR Model out so we can stop some of this? I feel sarcastic, spiteful, and convoluted. The pathogen has me in its grip. I'm pissed.

Dreaming

Five nights after Jason's death I had a dream about him. In the dream, Jason and the other dead are sleeping gently on the now-quiet battlefield. I come and wake them. “It's time to go home,” I whisper. Jason yawns himself awake, looks around, and grins. “For us, not for you,” he says as he stands, brushing the dirt off his combat fatigues. “You've got work to do.” He turns to his dead comrades and the dead Taliban fighters getting on their feet, gives the “on me” signal, and they gather close to him. Following his lead, they begin walking toward the light in the distance. He pauses a moment, turns to me and says, “Stay safe.”

“No chance,” I reply. He laughs, shakes his head, and turns back to his comrades as they make their way home.

Click here to see the video tribute to Jason which appeared in the Seattle Times.

Getting Results

2008-06-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

“There is nothing so practical
as a good theory”

— Kurt Lewin

The value of the “Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model” lies in its ability to produce tangible, measurable results. The results are fairly obvious: a reduction and, ultimately, elimination of violence — interpersonal to international. That translates into improved health, reduced costs (taking a chunk, for example, out of the more than US $1.2 trillion Americans pay for violence each year), greater personal and public safety, and overall improved quality of life.

Seven Key Areas

The PAR Model can be applied in seven key areas:

International Relations — Heads of government, policy makers, diplomats, intelligence agencies, military personnel, and international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, SEATO, etc.
Conflict Risk Areas ( such as those we've seen in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Columbia, Kenya, Indonesia, and Sudan) — Government ministries, police forces, military organizations, relief agencies, and other stakeholders.
Peacekeeping — UN Peacekeeping forces, relief organizations, and military and criminal/justice agencies within recipient countries.
Prisons — Prison staff, incarcerated individuals, community corrections personnel, parole officers, families related to those incarcerated, and community outreach groups.
Schools — Administrators, students, teachers, parents, support groups such as PTAs, school boards, school security personnel, and school volunteers.
Public Information — Print, television, radio, web, outdoor, and internal programs within schools, corporations, advocacy groups, and others.
Family and Community Health — Local public health agencies, healthcare providers, parenting educators and support groups, mental health professionals, parents, children, and social service agencies.

Delivery

There are myriad ways to put the PAR Model into action. These include conferences and symposia; university curricula; public and private school curricula; professional and public trainings; e-learning programs for professionals and consumers; web -based resource centers; documentary film production; certification programs for trainers, educators, consultants, and policy professionals; research in partnership with groups such as the World Health Organization; publication of books, and magazine, newspaper, and journal articles; scheduled audio and television programming; community resource center development; audio and video public service announcements; and more.

A Public Health Initiative

Like all public health initiatives, the implementing the PAR Model requires the participation of many stakeholders. It will take time for the Model to make its way into the mainstream. It will require a substantial effort as we shift from an fear-based punitive approach to an evidence-based public health approach. But the potential rewards are so great and so passionately desired that I'm very encouraged by the opportunities to bring the PAR Model to bear to benefit everyone.

Reality and Violence

2008-06-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

“What we achieve inwardly
will change outer reality.”

— Otto Rank

What is real?

Early on in the process of preparing for the arrival of the “Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model,” I was struck by the realization that “now” has no duration. Any “now” of which I could conceive could be made infinitely smaller. And, any “now” that I thought about, as it steadily moves across the continuum of time, would have gone into the past by the time I became conscious of it. I learned earlier that, in terms of quantum mechanics, the world at the quantum level consists of probabilities, not certainties. Assuming this is true, the implications are interesting.

Perhaps the most interesting implication is that “reality” and our relationship to it is more flexible and has more possibilities than I realized. This led to a series of questions which immediately became obvious” Are we humans “things,” “processes,” or both? How much reality do we experience and how much do we miss? What is “experience” and how (and by whom) is it created? How does language figure in all of this?

Learning more about the work of Milton Erickson, MD; Steven Pinker, PhD; Ernest Becker, PhD; Ken Wilbur; Rūmī: a number of Zen practitioners: and a myriad of others helped me develop an appreciation for the influence language has in how I experience reality. I use words to think about the meaning, value, and nature of things. I use language to explain, calculate, justify, plan, and decide about things that have my attention. The moral framework in which I operate is a linguistic one.

Language and Reality

The appreciation of language is an important element in the PAR Model. It’s clear than none of us can experience the totality of reality. We’re very limited to the amount of information we can process, so we select information that best fits us and which is congruent with other information we have. In short, we construct our reality out of the raw materials the universe provides to us. And we use language to describe it to ourselves and to others.

The Universal Field, Discriminator, and the Construct

In the illustration above, the totality of reality is represented by the Universal Field. This field consists of all information at all times under all conditions. In our typical state of consciousness, we can’t be aware of and knowledgeable about every bit of information in the Universal Field. What we can do is select, interpret, and associate pieces of information which become our “reality” or Construct which we often — mistakenly — believe is the totality of reality.

The discriminating mechanism for pulling information out of the Universal Field is the Discriminator, which I sometimes refer to as the “lens.” The lens is tempered by our values, beliefs, aspirations, fears, and experience. The lens defines how we see the world, how we construct our “reality.” The Construct, of course, is not reality. It appears to us as reality because it’s what we know. And it’s very, very convincing.

Reality and Violence

In creating the PAR Model, I asked, “What is common in the construct of those who engage in violence? How did their reality get so marked by real or imagined powerlessness and an absence of alternatives that they resorted to violence?” I realized that the key to ending violence was ending the power deficiency which is very real to people in the grasp of violence. That means two things: First, helping them get clarity about the false power violence provides them and, second, exposing them to powerful alternatives which build their violence immune system.

* * *

In future postings, I’ll delve into the notion of the construct as well as the issue of the human experience of power.

Time for a Change

2008-06-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

“We shrink from change;
yet is there anything that can
come into being without it?”

— Marcus Aurelius

Home on the Range

When I worked as a ranch hand in southeastern Montana, I heard the phrase “get a bigger hammer” used a number of times. Being an inexperienced and somewhat bewildered young man from the city, I had much to learn that first summer along the Powder River. I had to become skilled at maintenance work on the trucks, tractors, buck-rakes, combines, pick-ups, and other ranch machinery.

Left: The author as a
ranch hand in southeastern
Montana, circa 1964.

Sometimes, in trying to loosen a bolt, we’d hit the wrench with a hammer to break it free. If my boss saw me straining to turn the bolt the wrong way — thus tightening it further — he would smile and say, “Son: maybe what you need to do is get yourself a bigger hammer.” The point was, of course, that if something isn’t right, doing it in a bigger way or with more force won’t fix it.

So it is with how we see, describe, and respond to violence.

How’s it working?

By violence, I use the definition from the “Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model.” To wit: “Any action resulting from an intention to do harm or any action resulting from attempts to gain inappropriate power and control for self-serving gain which result in harm.” Such actions include war, genocide, child abuse, violent crime, torture, “honor killings” of women, rape, economic violence, bigotry, deprivation, slavery, neglect, and “ethnic cleansing.”

“How’s it working?” is, I think, a good question to ask when we want to know whether on not a technique, program, theory, approach, or process to reduce or end violence is effective. We could (and should) apply it to the application of the “punitive” approach — one humanity has commonly used for more than 10,000 years.

How is the “War on Terror” working? How is jailing 2.2 million people in the United States working? How is torture working? How is “three strikes you’re out” working? How is the concept of “enemies” working? How is building “Titan” prisons in the United Kingdom working? How is beating your kids to teach them to be better people working? How is political oppression in Burma, North Korea, and Zimbabwe working?

And violence costs us a fortune. In the United States alone, we spend more than US $1.2 trillion each year to deal with violence. There are clearly better things we could do with our financial treasure.

Terrorism and Success

For example, if terrorism really gets the results those engaged in terrorist acts want, then “get a bigger hammer” — do lots and lots more of it. Does it move the cause forward with a better quality of life for those whose lot it’s intended to improve, or does it make life even more miserable? Has “getting a bigger hammer worked?” If not, maybe all the parties to this absurd drama should try something else.

Time for a Change

It’s clear we need to make a change. The traditional punitive model rarely works and, when it does, it’s only over a short term. We need a better way — one that is evidence-based (thus successfully answering the question, “How’s it working?”) and free of political or religious bias. The PAR Model — built on a public health foundation — fits the bill. With preliminary results in, including startling results at a Level 5 (maximum security) prison, this approach is part of a revolution of promise and hope — one which rejects many conventional notions about violence. This new Model allows us to move from despair and powerlessness to effective restoration and healing.