We can't. Not as long as there are people who crave power over others. Conflict is not caused by cultural differences. Those differences are used to manipulate and cause conflict, whereby certain individuals gain power and control.

I'll take a shot at an answer, but I'm by no means an expert. People more versed in this than I am, feel free to jump in and correct my errors. Lets call this part 1 to my answer, since the posts have limits.


Peaceful conflict resolution is going to require fundamental changes in world philosophy and morality derived from philosophy.


Most societies and cultures and their underlying philosophies in our world claim to promote the individual. At the same time holding sacrifice for others as the highest virtue. A fundamental contradiction that cannot be resolved since they are in opposition and only one of the two can have primacy.

If history shows us anything, it shows us that sacrifice to others, in the person of the state rather than individuals, has controlled. The only real difference between most societies has been in how the state was controlled. We have or have had, Monarchy, Democracy, Republic, Totalitarianism, Communism, Socialism, Democratic Republics, etc. You get the picture, almost anything we can think of has been tried at some point.

A primary failing of every society, including ours sadly enough, is in protection of individual rights. Of particular significance fundamentally are property rights. Why focus on property rights? Because of all other rights this is the one that can be measured and quantified fairly easily.

Consider this:
If states or individuals do not respect your property rights, why would they respect any other of your rights as an individual??
They won't, as history has also shown, over and over and over. Every war you research has had economic causes at base. Always over property and rights to it in some form. To end conflict, the drivers for conflict have to be stopped.

Let me give two examples:
The crusades to the middle east, all of them. If you go through the historical record there is a single drumbeat underlying all of them. Land and income for younger sons of nobility. Under common law throughout Europe at the time, and upheld by the Church, was that property inheritance passed down to the eldest son exclusively. Beyond that initial grant the inheritor could distribute to siblings. Most distributions from the new noble were to buy their brother(s) as spot in the church to take them out of line of succession. That way they no longer had motive to remove their elder sibling.

Or on a smaller scale, and current. Look at the rioting and looting in Baltimore. Did looting stores have anything to do with the incident that sparked the riot? Nope, but the Mayor ordered the police to back off and allow the looting. I don't know about you, but I would sell any property I had and leave. When the local government gives random thugs more right to your property than you have, you have no protections at all.

Objectivism addresses this at a fundamental level by resolving the contradiction of individual Vs sacrifice. Sacrifice of yourself is not a virtue, it is the opposite of virtue. Evil makes a good word for it if we can agree to use the word independent of Theism.

So at a fundamental level individual rights have to be the base upon which society rests.

After all the reverse of giving is taking, and if you don't give enough the state comes in to take. States protect rights on a limited basis, even in America.

The relentless attempts by we humans to try to obtain something for nothing, is, quite literally, the root of all evil.

It's not going to happen ever. Not when you have religion involve like we see in the world today. The Supreme Court just created one today with the gay marriage ruling. They're probably activist in this minority group who try to destroy christianity by taking it to the Roman Catholic Church and various other Christian Churches that don't recognize this form of marriage. This is not a rational decision by the SCOTUS.

Sadly, Puzzlelady, your desire for peaceful resolution of conflict took another blow today in France. When one side holds as a core belief that there can be no peace until they control the entire planet, dealing peacefully with each other (as "traders" to use AR's term) takes a distant back seat. It saddens me greatly, that there are people in the world who voluntarily choose to turn off the "logic circuits" in their brains. When they resort to violence, it angers me as well.

puzzlelady, you have asked the most intriguing
question -- world peace. . my answer is simple.
strength. . the world is peaceful around my house
because we are strong and show it. . we need not
be the world's policePerson if we lead by strength
and tolerance of everyone's uniqueness. . R E S P E C T
for others, with INtolerance for violence. . we should
stop people like Putin and Khameini (Iran) by refusing
to allow them into ANY monetary interactions while
they are acting up. . freeze them out. . grow our
economy with laissez-faire capitalism and use the
resultant strength to influence others against violence
and international encroachment. . IMHO. -- j
.

Conflict between nations could be eliminated by having one nation conquer the rest, but it wouldn't be an improvement.

We need to return to the era when individuals were better armed than the government. That's the only way anyone will ever escape tyranny. (And today that means moving outside any of the areas the big nations own or are fighting for, at least until we're big enough to defy them.)

Conflict among individuals is human nature and unavoidable. And no society bigger than a small tribe (say, 150 people) can expect to do without an active police force for any length of time.

We can't because we're human. Adam and Eve couldn't get it right...I have no reason to believe that the rest of us ever could.

Even if there were only 2 people left on Earth, one of them would, eventually, assume the role of the superior. Oh, sure, we would make a valiant attempt at maintaining "equality", but human nature would take over, in time. When desperate enough, your mind will tend to convince you that any action is justified.

You hit on the answer in your headline...one individual at a time. You can not resolve pagan cultural conflicts, idiot-non-logical conflicts nor mystical conflicts with broad sweeping diplomacy!

Peaceful conflict resolution rests on a philosophical basis of respecting human rights. Ayn Rand was right in so many ways. Human beings today are so far from a group that actually decides what to do based on thinking rather than "feeling" that peaceful conflict resolution is a far out dream. I would be lucky to peacefully live in close proximity to neighbors at this point !! Forget about nations cooperating peacefully.

We can't. That is, not in the case of regimes which
have no respect for individual rights,and attack us,
or attack our important allies, such as Great Brit-
ain or Israel. We just have to be prepared to de-
feat them in war.--Now, in the case of not being at war with such a nation (as yet), perhaps we
could propagandize Objectivism, in the form of
letter bombs dropped there, written in their own
language. But don't expect any quick success.

There hasn't been an adequate level of punishment against those who initiate violence; therefore, we get more of it. For example, if ISIS is ever defeated, the ISIS soldiers will probably be allowed to return home. No punishment to fit the obvious crimes they're guilty of. An appropriate punishment for them would be to take no prisoners at all. Kill every one of them for their obvious wickedness. That's the only deterrent, and if that doesn't work, then arm up, because there is no cure.

You seem to have the misconception that peaceful conflict resolution is achievable by one party. If one of the participants in a conflict intends to use force, then the other has to concede or find another way to force a dialogue. Economic weapons can be effective, but only with the cooperation of other nation-states. Our own State Department has undermined the sanctions imposed on Iran by granting exemptions to various parties to conduct business as usual with Iran.

The United States is unique as a superpower in its ability to even consider non-violent means of resolving conflict, primarily because it has the ability to exercise extreme violence if all else fails. States like Liechtenstein have no recourse but to concede against force, being too small to oppose even slightly larger states. For a range of nation states, against a similar-sized opponent, non-violent solutions are possible, but violent means of defense remain as a requirement if other solutions are to remain credible.

Peaceful conflict resolution is only possible if both parties are willing to consider non-violent solutions.

Allow people to separate into groups of like-minded individuals working toward a common goal.
Separate out those irrational individuals whose epistemology is that of a win/lose nature where the individual causes loss and conflict between others to gain.
Mind your own business and make education and entlightenment tantamount and ubiquitous.
Cull out the lazy and those prone to following the herd.
Reward achievement. Punish those who are destructive. Don't confuse the two.

Among individuals there will always be conflicts, some more peacefully resolved than others, but in practical terms none will have much impact on anyone other than those immediately involved.

The elites operating under color of nation states on the other hand are by their very nature violent and aggressive. The conflicts over political or territorial power between them also tend to effect countless numbers of people who have no part in their disputes. The only way to end that kind of violent conflict is to delegitimize the concept of nation states itself.
-

We can achieve that only when each Man takes full charge and responsibility for his own life and well-being. That can mean only opting NOT to be RULED.

But instead what we see is Men forming GOVERNments of Force to negate their very own Right to Life. How "rational" is that?

http://no-ruler.net/11397/going-voluntar...

You are asking if there is a way to control the human mind. The answer is plain: not while maintaining liberty.

If all men were 100% logical and abstained from seeking power, you could see a world without significant cultural issues, governmental differences, or even differences of religions. Since that has never existed from the dawn of man and doesn't look to get any better as the human population increases, I can only logically deduce that unless there is some massive and incontrovertible external force to change our direction, the dream of peace is so far from reality as to render it under the heading "pure speculation".

A culture's values will determine a culture's success or failure. The values elucidated in the Declaration of Independence are being replaced by claims of "inequality exists; therefore we demand equality in wealth, status, achievement, happiness, property, etc. and we will sacrifice any individual to reach equality," Valuing individual rights and responsibilities denies the "reasons" to sacrifice the individual to collectivism ... and looters and moochers can't stand that.

There is just no way. The human race is socially still in its infancy. Some 2 year olds are easier to teach manners to than other 2 year olds. Eventually, as they grow older, they mature and learn to get along with one another. But even then, there are always some who never learn. Hopefully, as humanity matures it will learn to get along with itself. If not, no matter what wonders science produces, there will always be those who want power over others causing death and destruction. That is why a strong country dedicated to the freedom of the individual must set an example for the rest of the world to follow. Once that was the USA. If it cannot become that "shining city on a hill" again, then look elsewhere for leadership like China which is changing away from a totalitarian state into a looser, freer state. Still collectivist, but then-- who knows?

I sometimes thing, and this is dreaming as I don't see how to work out the obvious much less hidden kinks, that..
1) all government limited ONLY to protecting legitimate rights.
2) all initiation of force in all forms strictly forbidden
3) perfect surveillance nipping any and all initiation of force, even by government, in the bud.

(3) is for better or worse almost inevitable as technology improves in any case. It isn't very survivable without the other two.

I think we've been trying one way or the other since the dawn of our kind on the planet, without much luck. I think it boils down to who has and who doesn't along with just plain old status and power achievement. Then once it's obtained, another conflict arises in order to hang on to whatever.

I'm firmly convinced that our species is hard wired towards getting things and not sharing unless we see an advantage in doing so. Inherent in even Objectivism is the right of self defense of self and private property.

Torture is illegal by international law and any thugs in US or other governments that condone its use should be removed from office and punished severely.

We can stop glamorizing and sanitizing massive use of force where there is nothing real to gain. That would help quite a bit. But more importantly we need enough people that stand up for real inalienable based in reality rights and hold their own and all governments and groups accountable only when and as they violate them.

I have no quarrel with a complete idiot or even an extremely evil person as long as they have no ability to initiate force against me. I wouldn't have anything to do with them but I am not going to lose sleep that they exist.