Adventures with Ideas: Truth, Beauty and the Paradoxes of Life
Juliet Bennett's Blog
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • Home
  • Peace
  • Mastering Conflict: A Journal on Peace & Obesity

Mastering Conflict: A Journal on Peace & Obesity

29 Sep ’10 Leave a Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

Welcome to Peace and Conflict Studies. First assignment: to write write five journal entries that reflected on the learning process throughout the first half of semester. Written on the first day back at university, after five years of working,  travel and a six months teaching myself everything I could at my Opas place, this is what I wrote:

3rd March 2008

Some quotes that stuck with me from today’s class:

“Peace is an active process”

“While hunger rules peace cannot prevail”

“The real weight of peace starts in everyone’s mind.”

In the PACS hallway a picture grabbed my attention: a dove in jail with a ball and chain, and blue sky shining through the window. Peace behind bars. What are the bars? Why has human civilisation led such a violent path? Why are we still living in conflict? What is standing in the way of peace? Who is standing in the way of peace?

Peace exists, it is alive, it is possible – why are humans preventing it? Man-made barriers hold back peace from prevailing. Man can free the dove. Peace is possible, and it’s up to us to identify the barriers, and develop ways to break them down.

Barash (1991) describes the scenario of lifeboat with sufficient resources for everyone. Squabbling breaks out among the occupants, and resources are thrown overboard, including the compass. Is that what we are doing to our planet? How can we prevent our boat from capsizing and losing our resources altogether?

Conflict occurs in many forms: within an individual, between individuals, within groups, between groups, within nations, and between nations. Each of these forms of conflict is inter-connected. Conflict between nations may be driven by a conflict within the individual, which may be driven by conflict with another person for example resentment towards an abusive father may influence a leader to respond aggressively towards another nation. Similarly conflict between individuals may be due to conflict between nations, for example argument over food due to hunger due to poverty caused by war.

What are the core motives of conflicts? Money? Power? Status? Fear? Desire for “happiness”?

Do we continue to live in conflict simply because we haven’t envisioned anything different? Have we just accepted that conflict is part of life?

…

On the bus home, a rather large man squeezed into the vacant seat beside me, and I started thinking about obesity. Is obesity a form of conflict?

Is there an ongoing battle inside this man’s head that says: “Shall I eat this donut, or an apple… eat the donut!!!” Or does this thought not even enter his mind. Does he eat out of depression, or maybe is it addiction? Depression and addictions must also be forms of personal conflicts.

Galtung (2006) says “Violence, insults to the basic needs of body, mind and spirit, is caused by unresolved conflict and polarization.” Obesity must involve some kind of conflict between the Mind and Body.

What does obesity reflect about the inequality in our world? There are so many people dying from lack of food, yet growing numbers are dying from excess of it. Can what was once a sign of wealth, now be considered a sign of lacking self-worth or self-control? If only we could share it around, maybe everyone could be a whole lot happier and healthier.

Is obesity a reflection of a structural violence in our own society?

Galtung (2006) discusses structural violence, saying it is typically built into the very structure of social and cultural institutions. He says that when people starve or go hungry, suffer from preventable diseases, or are denied a decent education, housing, opportunity to play, grow, work, raise a family, or express themselves freely – violence is occurring. I do think that obesity is a reflection of structural violence in the world.

Just look at the popularity of McDonalds and KFC – food soaked in fat and thick salt layered on top. To make things worse, due to the ‘low fat’ revolution, now even when think we are eating ‘healthy’, we are being tricked. Processed packages of preservatives labeled ‘low fat’. Diet coke – ‘cancer in a can’. Man-made chemicals that the body doesn’t know how to process. Should this food be legal? Is this a form of legal genocide? Does it remain legal only due to economic reasons? Greed. And due to the fact that death is drawn out over a number of years rather than immediate gun, trigger, death. Is there a lack of education – do people not know how to eat properly, following their parent’s habits who followed their parent’s habits, creating a line of obesity in their genes?

What are the consequences of obesity? Of course there are society pressures on the health system, which I suppose means higher taxes for everyone else. If obesity is a cause of unhappiness and a lack of satisfaction in people’s lives, could the flow-on affect go as far as influencing people’s daily choices that in turn impact on the world as a whole?

I know when I’m feeling down, or lacking energy, my passion for helping others and helping the environment fades away- not that I don’t care anymore, it just becomes second priority to thoughts about myself and my own unhappiness. Kind of like in Maslow’s needs hierarchy – I have to have my lower needs met – physical security & belonging needs met first, before I can think about higher needs like helping others.

Obesity is not only a barrier to positive peace like in these examples, but it’s not much good for negative peace either: will people care about preventing war, if they are in the middle of their own war, with themselves?

The percentage of obesity in Western society is growing rapidly, and as fast food makes its way into China and other developing countries, they face obesity problems too. Doesn’t this prove to the government that fast food is structural violence – slowly killing their population? Shouldn’t this be stopped?

What is going to happen in the future? Obesity causes low immune and many diseases, and ultimately shortens the life of the individual. Deutsh (2000) discusses Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ and Marx’s ‘directly antagonistic classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat.’ Could the future of humanity see a class split based on healthy vs. obese? Or will they find it difficult to reproduce, and in the end just die out and leave our society with healthier fit people left? Maybe I’m taking this train of thought a little too far …

Are there any solutions? Is an obese person, now faced with a large burden-of-a-body, do they just give up? It would seem quite an impossible task, to get healthy again. I wonder what it would take for them to get them on the right track. Still Rupenstein (2003) says that destructive conflict ‘which destroys or injures valued lives, psyches, institutions, and possessions’ is by no means inevitable. I do think there are solutions to every conflict, we just have to find them and implement them. It all starts with understanding the problem.

In conclusion for today’s thoughts, I consider the concept of conflict. Is conflict something we can not escape? Its existence throughout history does show conflict as a part of human evolution. Conflict is good – it is the conflict in my life that has led me to be who I am today.

Is peace realistic? Of course it is. Peace does not mean the end of conflict, but the end of all forms of violence.

In order for our Earth to have a future, we must make peace with our environment, with other nations, and we must come up with ways we can keep harmony and peace and allow everyone the opportunity to live this way. How? That’s what I’m in this course to discover!

Photo: Photo of the back of the KFC uniform in Bombay, India. I thought it strangely appropriate for this student of peace’s journal on obesity…

Peace
Conflict Transformation
Similar posts
  • Business leadership in climate change — I am consistently surprised by the initiative and leadership taken by businesses to address the climate crisis. Not all businesses obviously (e.g. ExxonMobil, the Koch brothers and the other vested interest that have funded climate denial movement and created vast climate confusion), but MANY businesses and business analysts, scholars and consultants are doing a extraordinarily better job than many governments [...]
  • A story of (mis)fortune: the farmer a... — I have been trying to remember where I read or heard this story, perhaps Eckhart Tolle or Deepak Chopra. After a big of Googling (key words like “farmer”, “horse”, “neighbour”, “son”), I discovered this story is claimed by various sources as Zen Buddhist, Chinese Proverb, Taoist and Sufi. The story goes something like this: There once lived a farmer and [...]
  • Why the right (brain) is right… — Are you a right-brain or left-brain type of person? Is there such a thing? Are there differences between our left and right brain hemispheres? Does it matter? Research into the left and right brain hemispheres was popularised in the 1970s, it exaggerated and reified the two sides of the brain as if some people were “right-brain” dominant: creative, image-based, intuitive, emotional; and other people [...]
  • Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model’ and the ... — My latest academic publication – on the work of my favourite philosopher of all time: Alan Watts, and how his “dramatic model of the universe” can contribute to peace 🙂 Abstract This article explores the contribution of Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model of the universe’ to the pursuit of peace. It locates Watts’ critique of dominant Western worldviews alongside process philosophers, ecologists and [...]
  • “Seizing an Alternative: Toward... — After two years of anticipation, in June this year I attended a conference called “Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization”, which brought together many of my favourite scholars. I was like a teenager anticipating a music festival with all their favourite bands. Such a geek! Around 2000 people attended the conference from around the world, splitting into 12 sections [...]
My Blog’s Birthday: One Year On
Mastering Conflict: A Journal on Cyber Conflict & Celebrity

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

TRUTH

BEAUTY

ADVENTURE

ART

PEACE

  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Comments
  • Is “God” a Fractal?
    15 Feb ’11
  • Is Lindt chocolate slave chocolate?
    11 Sep ’09
  • Creativism – a philosophy for life
    10 Sep ’09
  • Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
    17 Apr ’10
  • Coming to grips with the elephant in the room
    28 Jun ’10
  • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    4 Aug ’10
  • A short biography
    2 Sep ’09
  • Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card
    13 Apr ’10
  • Alan Watts Fan Club
    3 Dec ’12
  • The Very Short Life and Times of Me and Kombi Xee
    23 Feb ’11
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s response to climate change
    17 Jan ’20
  • Business leadership in climate change
    1 May ’19
  • A story of (mis)fortune: the farmer and his son
    8 Oct ’18
  • What is life really about?
    1 Mar ’17
  • Why the right (brain) is right…
    22 Feb ’17
  • New life: reflections on being a new mum
    29 Dec ’16
  • Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015”
    1 May ’16
  • Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model’ and the pursuit of peace
    18 Mar ’16
  • A new lens to view the world: the world as process
    14 Jan ’16
  • 2015 in review
    1 Jan ’16

Adventures with Ideas... on Facebook

Archives

Categories

  • Academic (35)
  • Adventure (119)
  • Beauty (23)
  • Featured Posts (10)
  • Peace (124)
  • Random Life Stuff (102)
  • Truth (164)
Constitutional Recognition

Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

Tags

Alan Watts Atheism Big History Bridge Series Central America Chocolate climate change Conflict Transformation Creativism Ecology Europe God Health India India/Nepal inspiration Life in Oz Life philosophy Meaning of life Modeling My Brazilian My Christian Journey Narrative Narratology Occupy optimal trajectory Panentheism peace philosophy Photography Politics population Potentialism poverty religion slavery social construction South America The Pyramid Travel United States War What is God Wikileaks Yoga

Related posts

  • Conflict Transformation
    • Mastering Conflict: Journal on Peace & War
    • Mastering Conflict: Ignorance is NOT Strength
    • Mastering Conflict: A Journal on Cyber Conflict & Celebrity
    • Tips for Communicating Inside Conflicts
    • Conflict Resolution Techniques

Donation

evolve theme by Theme4Press  •  Powered by WordPress