PowerandLove 第4章 Introduction: Beyond War and Peace(1 / 4)
作品:《PowerandLove》OUR TWO MOST COMMON ways of trying to address our toughest social challenges are the extreme ones: aggressive war and submissive Neither of these ways We can try, using our guns or money or votes, to push through what we want, regardless of what others want-but inevitably the others push Or we can try not to push anything on anyone-but that leaves our situation just as it
These extreme ways are extremely common, on all One on one, we can be pushy or conflict At work, we can be bossy or "go along to get " In our communities, we can set things up so that they are the way we want them to be, or we can In national affairs, we can make deals to get our way, or we can let others have their In international relations-whether the challenge is climate change or trade rules or peace in the Middle East-we can try to impose our solutions on everyone else, or we can negotiate These extreme, common ways of trying to address our toughest social challenges usually fail, leaving us stuck and in There are many exceptions to these generalizations about the prevalence of these extreme ways, but the fact that these are exceptions proves the general We need-and many people are working on developing-different, uncommon ways of addressing social challenges: ways beyond these degenerative forms of war and
A character in Rent, Jonathan Larson's Broadway musical about struggling artists and musicians in New York City, says, "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!"[1] To address our toughest social challenges, we need a way that is neither war nor peace, but collective How can we co-create new social realities?
TWO FUNDAMENTAL DRIVES
To co-create new social realities, we have to work with two distinct fundamental forces that are in tension: power and This assertion requires an explanation because the words "power" and "love" are defined by so many different people in so many different In this book I use two unusual definitions of power and love suggested by theologian and philosopher Paul His definitions are ontological: they deal with what and why power and love are, rather than what they enable or I use these definitions because they ring true with my experience of what in practice is required to address tough challenges at all levels: individual, group, community,
Tillich defines power as "the drive of everything living to realize itself, with increasing intensity and " So power in this sense is the drive to achieve one's purpose, to get one's job done, to He defines love as "the drive towards the unity of the "[2] So love in this sense is the drive to reconnect and make whole that which has become or appears These two ways of looking at power and love, rather than the more common ideas of oppressive power and romantic love (represented on the cover by the grenade and the rose), are at the core of this
OUR FULL WORLD