Peace Education and Interrelationship of Dimensions of Society

“The Ladder of Peace”.

I used the image of a ladder to signify that in order to achieve the highest level of peace in every mankind you have to move from the base. I believed that it is essential that we need to achieve first self-respect or personal peace for us to move to the next step of The Ladder of Peace before we learn or we prepare ourselves in accepting other factors like respect for others, respect for other groups, respect for other nations.

I used arrows to enfold what harmony or coordination each step may belong.

Peace does not mean absence of conflict, let us put in mind that it is the ability to handle conflict in a peaceful way.

“The Box of Cultural Social Dimensions”.

I identified six dimensions namely: technological, economic, political, social, shared values and beliefs.

Technological dimensions include the system starting from the era of gathering and hunting to agricultural revolution to the invention of different power like nuclear power. The new technology produced food surplus that allowed and encouraged the development of city states, division of labor and other revolutionary changes in the other five dimensions.

Economic dimensions, simpler societies produced and allocated wealth on the basis of family obligations and without recourse to using money. From history it started from barter to state redistribution to aristocracy to new occupational categories.

Political dimensions relate to power and influence. With increased complexity, the distance between the people with the least to the most power widened. In contrast to a widespread ideology of equality and democracy, the real politics in complex societies is very hierarchical and continues to become more so.

Social dimensions refer to patterns of interaction and social organizations. Favoring relatives or nepotism is increasingly being seen to be a negative and undesirable mode of allocating social and economic rules.

Shared values dimensions refer to the application of judgements such as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, and right or wrong.

Beliefs dimensions are a clear pattern of reduction of different supernatural beings. From belief in many Gods to one God to no God or atheism.

            The dimensional approach to understanding society is that they permeate the whole of culture. From the largest group or country, down through communities, to simple dyads all six dimensions are present. Removal of a dimension means the whole culture is not there.

            An important characteristic in all these changes is that the introduction of something new does not automatically remove the old. Things accumulate. Only if an old thing is dysfunctional and cannot contribute to, or hinders, survival and growth, will it be dropped.

            Clustering means that some theorists (Marx and Weber) differ in causing changes. Marx saw in the foundation (bottom two), technological and economy, as causing changes in the other four. Weber saw changes in the top two, shared values and beliefs, as causing changes in the other four.