Today I had the pleasure of sharing ideas on how we can change the world through the culture of peace with Luz Castillo, a student of the Master’s degree in Conflict Mediation.
What is the antonym of peace?, Luz asked me. It isn’t war. It is violence. Non-violence is peace. But just because there is peace does not mean that there are no conflicts. Conflicts will always exist as a result of differences between cultures, points of view, beliefs, etc. This, however, is positive, because conflicts enrich our perspective of things and encourage inclusive thinking.
The media continually shows us how today’s society has no tolerance for conflict and immediately makes it a legal issue, a confrontation. How many lawsuits do we hear about on TV between celebrities who have not stopped to consider whether their differences could have been resolved by finding points in common, and that they have more in common with each other than things that divide them? And in family circles, and among neighbors…
Luz takes her studies in Conflict Mediation very seriously and she believes that, by applying mediation strategies in our personal and our professional lives, we will develop a much more comprehensive view of the world, one which is open to the understanding that different points of view may, in fact, have points in common. The culture of peace, as part of our sense of ethics and responsibility.
