Let’s face facts. Whether you love it, loathe it, embrace it or deny it, even if you’re ambivalent or apathetic about it, the American Empire is in crisis.
Historians bicker a lot, but seem to agree on one thing when it comes to empires: they collapse. That’s just what they do. They’re about as stable as a celebrity wedding. And thus far in human history, we know that when empires finally implode due to their own contradictions, they’re either replaced by another empire or they plunge the earth into a millennium of ignorance, pestilence and mud farming (you can thank the Romans for the last one).
So what will happen when our splendid imperial dynasty finally bites the big one?
It’s kind of depressing to think about it, really. In fact, have you snuck a peek at the mainstream media lately? Even though you reside within the blissful Wes Bubble, chances are you’ve at least glanced at one of the ubiquitous day-old New York Times fragments that populate our campus floors. And chances are good too that you’ve been slightly overwhelmed by the endless stream of death, destruction, greed, hate, fear and sheer stupidity. Even among those of us who are trying to reverse this tide, the tendency is to focus exclusively on the obstacles. War, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, exploitation, alienation, domination, manipulation, apathy, Fox News, the break-up of Phish… the world is a shitty place.
Rarely, or only in small pieces, do we ever transcend mere analysis of the situation. Instead of fighting piecemeal against something negative, always on the defense, how about we try something else? In a way, decent folks have been doing it all along; just not coherently or aggressively enough. What’s needed is a positive program of action.
Not many people know about the Culture of Peace initiative at the United Nations. But it’s been working for a number of years now to nurture a positive alternative to the culture of war, injustice and exploitation that is raging around us every day. The tagline for the culture of peace is “Tools for Optimism.” This is the other side of the coin: the worldwide, collective movement for a just, humane and non-exploitative social environment.
This Tuesday, WesPeace will be sponsoring a talk by Dr. David Adams, the former director of the United Nations’ “International Year for the Culture of Peace.” Dr. Adams has traveled the world, working with grassroots groups to build lasting structures for peace. He is recently back from the World Social Forum in Brazil, which is one country where the culture of peace has been taken up by local and state governments as the result of actions by grassroots movements.
The title of Dr. Adams’s talk is: “Alternatives to Empire: The New Global Movement for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence.”
When the Empire falls, will the global movement for a culture of peace be ready?
Tuesday, Feb. 15
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Science 150
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