What perhaps should have come first

I probably should have started with what peace is (and isn’t).  Most people think they know, since they use the word all the time.  Journalists certainly must think they know, since they frequently report on the state of this or that “peace process” (another interesting subject we will hopefully get to in time).  But what most people say when asked what they mean by peace (and I’ve asked a few, believe me) is something like “the absence of war”.  Well, if you are in the middle of bombs, bullets and destruction this would probably seem like a pretty good definition.  However, it is far from adequate.   Again, there has been a lot written on this, but to sum up, “the absence of war” is, at best, a definition of what is often called “negative peace”.  It only tells us what we don’t want, which is war/violence.  It doesn’t tell us what to do to get a society or a world. where war and other kinds of violence don’t happen (or, at least, are greatly minimized).  Seen from this perspective, “peace” would be a bi-product of a way of organizing societies and international affairs that permitted us to deal with problems of diversity and social justice (among others) in ways that are creative and pacific.  Or, in other words, peace is an outcome of a successful civilization.  The sum of all the values and institutions incorporated in that model of civilization that make it work in a positive rather than a destructive way would be what we might call “positive peace”–a condition we want to realize, rather than one we want to avoid.

So what do you think of these definitions?