Systemic conversion: War to peace

In a war system, the rational thing to do is to strive for global dominance by means of overwhelming force.

--Kent Shifferd (2011, p. 98)

Kent Shifferd (1940-2024), a renaissance man of the highest order, started the first Peace and Conflict Studies academic degree program in Wisconsin. I was one of his many students in his 30+ years of teaching. We, his students, knew that he would challenge us with the logic of the destructive methods of conflict before seeking, with us, a path to the constructive methods of conflict. We knew two things when we finished such deliberations: 1) We would be facilitated to find possibilities in the most collaborative possible way, and, 2) Dr. Shifferd would gently intervene to help us regain momentum if we began to sputter and stall. 

In the end, in his 2011 book From War to Peace: A guide to the next hundred years, was all about the incremental yet quickest and surest road to a peace system, something which would all but obviate the need or even the possibility of war. He never had a magic one-step whoosh of a wand, but rather the recognition of the infinite subsystems that needed conversion from war to peace, thereby flattening the hierarchy of peacemakers. A preschool teacher could account for a key component of such conversion as well as a Pentagon strategic planner or an elected official. Everyone is part of a system every day and Dr. Shifferd's challenge to all of us was to be, insofar as daily possible, a great or small part of converting some societal subsystem away from war and toward peace. That is a feminist, uplifting, nurturing analysis and picture of a line of sight from war system to peace system.

References

Shifferd, Kent D. (2011). From war to peace: A guide to the next hundred years. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.