'Defining Peace' lecture February 12th, 2012

'ZFest' Tel Aviv, Israel

Shalom!

At times like this, I really wish I spoke Hebrew.

I have no idea what he just said, but I'm going to make a quick introduction

before I begin the formal speech

in great gratitude to The Zeitgeist Movement Israel

that have made this possible.

[Applause]

My name is Peter Joseph.

I work with an organization called The Zeitgeist Movement.

While most of my talks are about inherent economic inefficiencies

which are fueling the majority of the civil unrest, ecological abuse

and general deprivation that we see in the world today

coupled with highlighting existing, yet unapplied scientific realizations

that could solve such problems in general

not to mention creating a new societal design

originating out of another form of thought

that would virtually guarantee environmental

and social sustainability if implemented

the central focus of this talk is a little bit more temporal.

It's different than any other talk I've given.

The title of this presentation is 'Defining Peace: Economics

the State and War'.

It's divided into 4 sections.

The first is entitled 'The History of Human Conflict

and the Human Nature Debate'.

As the evidence will show, the stubborn concept that we

humans are inherently and inalterably aggressive

and territorial will be addressed.

Finding that early societies did not engage

in mass warfare and that most conflicts

especially the large scale mobilization we see in the modern world

are actually the result of conditions

real or contrived that lure

the human being into a position of aggression.

This will then lead us into the consideration of our environmental condition

and the structural and psychological modes that encompass it

leading to the understanding that when it comes to war

the condition as we know it is set by the state

generally speaking.

Part 2: 'The State Character and Coercion'.

We'll consider the origin of the modern state and its characteristics.

It's been found that there's an average set of qualities

that pertain to these concentrations of power.

Moreover and more profoundly, the influence of the state

on the values of the culture will be addressed

especially regarding loyalty, patriotism

and how easy it has been

for a very small number of political and commercial interests

to entice the public that their wars are moral, right and beneficial.

Then in Part 3: 'The Culture of War

Business, Ownership and Competition'

a deeper look at the underlining condition motivation

which appears to have created the state and its power

and the war propensity itself will be considered.

Focusing on the roots of our social system

and how not only is war natural

to the current economic methods we use

it is inevitable.

It will be expressed that the structural basis and resulting psychology

that exists in the monetary market system of economics

that governs the world today is the core driver

of human conflict in the world overall.

In the final section, Part 4: 'Defining Peace

a New Social Contract'

we will consider the causal logic of what we have described prior

and in a basic reductionist method, deduce what societal characteristics

support peace, and what do not

and how we as a world society can reset

our societal condition to allow for this newfound human balance

before it's too late.

Before we begin, I need to address a broader issue

that I feel is understated in the world.

It seems to sit at the core of society as historically lackluster inability

to change (which I think we all might notice)

not only in the context of global warfare

which we see as almost natural in the world today, unfortunately

but also with respect to common sense social changes for the better

which are systematically rejected, without legitimate logical defenses.

Very simply, it appears that traditional sentiment

is constantly in conflict with emergent knowledge.

For example, once an ideological institution is established

usually with the basic consensus of the population at large

a time-armorial distinction emerges

which implies that this practice or belief is now empirical to the human condition

and will last forever.

We see this characteristic in religious, political and economic thought

most pervasively, but no intellectual discipline

or social advent seems to be immune.

Even those who call themselves scientists

claiming to hold dear the vigorous ethic demanded by the scientific method

often fall victim to traditional biases

and erroneous loyalties, skewing their findings.

Those loyalties are almost always born

out of a traditional, customary culture and its dominant institutions

with which those personalities are groomed.

I think Dr. Gabor Maté put this issue very well

"It is simply a matter of historical fact

that the dominant intellectual culture of any particular society

reflects the interests of the dominant group in that society.

In a slave-owning society, the beliefs about human beings and human rights

will reflect the needs of the slave owners.

In a society which is based on the power of certain people

to control and profit from the lives and work of millions of others

the dominant intellectual culture will reflect the needs of the dominant group.

If you look across the board, the ideas that pervade psychology, sociology

history, political economy and political science

fundamentally reflect certain elite interests.

The academics who question that too much

tend to get shunted to the side or to be seen as sort of 'radicals'."

A cursory glance at ideas which were once considered absurd

impossible, subversive or even dangerous

which later evolved to serving human progress

shows a clear pattern of how wrong we can be in our loyalties.

It is axiomatic to say that many ideas which will enable progress

and benefit society in the future will be hideously opposed

and fought in the present-day.

It seems the more broadly beneficial the new idea, in hindsight

the worse the initial reaction is, by contemporary culture.

A classic case and point is the gruelingly slow recognition

of the mechanistic nature of scientific causality in the world

an understanding and method which has facilitated

every single attribute of human progress in history

from the solutions of disease resolution

to the advent of abundance-producing technology

to our understanding of the human condition itself

and how the planet works.

The scientific method, which is really

the materialization of logic and application

was not only met with the most heretical condemnation

by those institutions of political and religious power historically

it is, I'm sad to say, still rejected today

in many areas of thought and application.

Anti-science perspectives

tend to reside with issues of supposed morality

argued in a vast wasteland of subjective perspectives.

A classic example is the highlighting of technological advances

that have been used for detrimental purposes, such as weaponry

which clearly has nothing to do with technology

but with the distortion of motivation by the culture who's using it.

A more sophisticated claim is that the scientific method is simply not objective.

You will find this view held by early Western philosophers

like Thomas Hobbes or Robert Boyle.

Here I can actually find some sympathy

but only with respect to a certain irony

given the ongoing interference of cultural victimization on the outcome

of ostensibly scientific conclusions, as noted before.

So-called scientists are not to be confused with the method of science.

Very often the cultural influence and deposits of value

are simply too strong of a bias to allow for the objectivity required.

The more controversial the new scientific finding

the more dissonance usually occurs, and that's what the historical record shows.

In a classic text by authors Cohen and Nagel entitled

'An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method' (a book I recommend)

this point was very well stated with respect to the process

of empirical logical evaluation and its independence from human psychology.

It states "The logical distinction between valid and invalid inference

does not refer to the way we think (the process going on in someone's mind).

The weight of evidence is not itself a temporal event

but a relation of implication between certain classes or types of propositions.

Of course, thought is necessary to apprehend such implications

however, that does not make physics a branch of psychology.

The realization that logic can not be restricted to psychological phenomenon

will help us to discriminate between our science and our rhetoric

conceiving the latter as the art of persuasion or of arguing

so as to reduce the feeling of certainty.

Our emotional dispositions make it very difficult for us to accept

certain propositions, no matter how strong the evidence in their favor.

Since all proof depends on the acceptance of certain propositions as truth

no proposition can be proved true

to one who is sufficiently determined not to believe it."

What is it that comprises that force that stops

what we would call objective thought? Cultural conditioning and its values.

Seems very obvious, but unfortunately we're all victim to this.

We humans have no spontaneous thoughts or actions.

We are causal organisms perpetuating a chain of ideas and reactions

always existing in an 'intermediate tenure'.

Coming back to the central context, it is critical to point out

that there is nothing more ingrained in a culture sense of identity

than the broad social institutions we are born into

and the values they perpetuated. The older the tradition is

the stronger the fight to preserve it.

The world, in many respects, is now an accelerating clash

between stubborn traditional conceits

upheld by institutions which continue to gain from their exploitation

and the emergent, scientific reality and logical assessment

that is proven to illuminate the closest approximation

to truth we have as a species.

As I begin this assessment of the nature of war and peace

a controversial subject indeed, I'd like everyone to listen to themselves

monitor their own personal reactions to the statements I make.

When you encounter something you don't agree with, honestly ask yourself

where is that dissonance originating from?

Is it coming from a technical analysis

where the variables are being taken into account on their own merit

absent the messenger? Or is that disagreement coming from perspectives

which just might be based on cultural value comforts, which

for better or worse, have defined what you think is empirical normality

regardless if it's true or not.

That noted, let's get a few things out of way regarding myself

given the sensitive territory I'm about to embark.

I'm not here to speak with condemnation of any country, political party

religious claim or institution at all.

I'm not here to argue in favor of war or against US imperialism.

I'm not here to even inflame bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

nor am I here to pose judgment on any party or power explicitly

despite the endless notable atrocities illuminated by history.

Why? Because when it comes to change, and I mean real change

all currently received angles of common debate

and their postulated, inner-systems solutions 'in the box'

are invalid when the broad context is understood regarding war.

We need to think on a different level now.

Given that frame of reference, I cannot logically be loyal to any country.

I have no loyalty to any person, guru or leader

or any respect to submission. I hold no loyalty to any race, religion

political party or established ideological creed

and most importantly, I hold no empirical faith of permanence

in any assumption of supposed fact

historical, current or future, beyond the understanding

that all known human conceptions will evolve

change, refine, from here until the end of our existence.

The only constant is change.

[Applause]

The only constant is obviously change.

While that seems like a self-canceling paradox

the purpose of the historical record itself is really for us to gain inference

from everything we see in history whatever the discipline may be

and when we apply the scientific method of evaluation to its patterns

we can draw relevant conclusions.

That is basically what we do with our minds.

Science is our tool for creating a better world for all human beings