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Introduction:
Ron Fisher, of American University, explains that our ultimate goal should be a culture of peace, in which people -- and especially decision makers -- look to cooperative nonviolent methods for dealing with their differences, and eschew violence except when attacked.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
A Culture of Peace
Ron Fisher
Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, School of International Service, American University
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Q: What advice would you give to someone coming into this field?
A: The first advice I would give somebody starting out is to get a good solid
base in the conceptual foundation and the practice of the field. Advance that
with some skill sets that you can actually offer. At the same time to think
beyond where we are now toward the policy domain, and start thinking about how
the field of conflict resolution, its principles, its practices, its assumptions
that we believe to be true can slowly influence policy makers at both domestic
and also international levels. For them to move in the direction of trying to
bring about a culture of peace in the sense that people look to cooperative
non-violent methods with dealing with their differences. They can build
institutions to do that.
Even the use of violence as a last resort is eliminated, except in situations
where some aggressor chooses to use force. This choice would be way outside what
the vast majority of people in the world would condone or see as acceptable,
that may be seen as an intermediate stage. If human beings don't learn to
respect their differences, and live in cooperative ways, then this human
experiment I don't think is going to survive, quite frankly.
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