Possible answer to Morgan R.'s question
Morgan, I have been thinking about the discussion you started on Friday at the start of class. You asked if there was such a thing as a peaceful culture. I have been thinking about some pre-Civil War Indian cultures as peaceful. They valued land, each other, their peace. They fought when their hunting grounds or food supplies, which directly impacted their livelihoods, were threatened.
Also, certain cultures in Africa pride themselves on their-equivalent-of-our-chivalry. They place a large emphasis on beauty (the men wear eyeliner and lipstick--Johnny Depp anyone?--and participate in beauty pageants, while the women hand-pick the men they find attractive). They guard their herds from predators—human and animal—because their existence depends upon the size of their herds.
Margaret Meade, in a 1940 essay entitled “Warfare Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity,” discusses the lifestyle of Eskimos and Lepchas of Sikkim in the Himalayas. Meade claims that neither of these groups understands war, not even defensive warfare. Though either group might face fights, murder, or theft of property—the circumstances necessary to goad men to war—there is no war; the idea of warfare is foreign to them.
Perhaps there exist proportional relationships between having stuff to the privileging that stuff to wanting more (better) stuff leading, very generally, to the willingness to fight for more stuff that isn't all that important. Perhaps, too, we should draw distinctions between offensive and defensive warfare, as I think defensive warfare does not make a peaceful tribe un-peaceful.
Comments
Western Culture Should go to Therapy
True true Miss Morgan S.! I know that there have been cultures out there that at least have it mostly together! You would think that at this point in our history (with all the privilege we have in terms of food, shelter, health care, goods and [last but certainly not least] entertainment) that if there was ever a chance of peaceful cohabitation now would be it. It is not that peace can't have or doesn't exist in the world... but that it seems so far removed from our way of thinking.
So, I have likely told this story before, but here goes again: I posted the link to the meditation "game" Journey to the Wild Divine. When my roommate got this game in 2003 my computer was the best and the brightest, so we loaded it on my laptop and everyone got a chance to play. You enter the game to soothing yoga music and are talked to by a variety of nice bots who lead you through various exercises. You are connected to a bio-feedback machine that connects to your computer via the USB port, which monitors your breathing and heart rate. In the game you use breathing to light a fire, or juggle balls in the air with your mind, or open flowers. Mean while, Myst style, you are collecting various tokens of your training to pass into higher levels of your practice.
Enter me, whose parents had to remove her from the soccer team at seven years old for yelling at the other players to do it right. I start meditating with this game like crazy. I breath slower and slower till I can pick up that damn chakra key, and make it to a cave with a little old man. By this point I have been playing the game in a marathon 5 hour session. The old man tells me that I have been going through too fast, that I didn't really learn anything, that I was being competitive, and to go back and really meditate.
Needless to say I stopped playing the game (and then moved out of the house with the roommates and had to give back the game...).
I suppose that the reason I tell this story is to get to an idea I have about our culture. We don't understand peace, or its ramifications. "I can be more peaceful than you!" Our sense of non-violence is utterly wacky. There are lots of reasons that I think this is, and mostly it involves repression and bianaries and always feeling trapped (with all that freedom too!), but mostly its that we move too fast. Western culture, to varying degrees, never puts the breaks on. We are always looking forward, occasionally back, but very rarely now.
I have no doubt that we as humans have the capacity for peace, and I don't think that we should stop trying to imagine alternate ways of being other than speed violence bunnies, but we have some fundamental issues to work out as a culture.
Western Culture Should Go To Therapy.
But is this assuming that
But is this assuming that there is something wrong with competition and that only meditative games can bring about relaxation? What about other kinds of games? I know that I play racquetball to release stress and for me that game is far from calm or meditative
The same thing goes for video games. I do play some of the more meditative games (like Viva Pinata and Animal Crossing) but the kick ass pointless games can serve the same purpose for me!
I think that relaxation and
I think that relaxation and "peace," though often coupled, are different dealios. I could go hunting a shoot a bunch of geese and be more relaxed, and have released stress, but I doubt the geese would see it as peaceful. And how do the games release that stress? Ramming cars into other cars, or beating up other fighters in the game? I had a blast last Friday in the office being a "button masher" and felt considerably more energized for the game play. Inner peace and nonviolence... wasn't really the goal. But then I would have to define inner peace, and that is dangerous space... inner peace would mean different things for different people, as does non-violence/peace. I would rather have someone playing a "violent" video game than beating another person up for real... I guess I wonder more why we would consider (myself included) a fighting game where we K.O. another player relaxing/stress reducing...?