Everything we do is to either gain something we think is helpful or to avoid something we think is harmful. A person either runs towards something or away from something. So if we want to sell something we have to convince a customer of the benefits to gain from buying or the bad things that will happen if they don’t buy. This ‘carrot or stick’ motivation is also used in attempting to change people’s beliefs or values.

We acquired most of our beliefs and values from other people during our childhood. This was a mixture of what they were taught in their childhood and whatever changes they made to suit their needs. All of this was what other people found helpful or harmful for them but times have changed and we have to look to the future in a very different world.

Like every other person before us, we face the conflict between our need to belong and our need to be an individual, but there are compelling reasons why we should change how we judge our self worth and self confidence as we face the problems of this century. By changing with the times, we stand to gain a resolution of our inner conflict and have happier relationships with other people. We could also avoid the inevitable disastrous consequences of an economic system based on continuous growth. We could do our bit to have a base of sustainable development adopted. Sustainable development: not sustainable growth.

We could judge everything by its effect on sustainability and by that I mean maintaining a balance of three equally important things:  a sustainable population level; a sustainable use of resources; and an economic system based on a smarter use of resources. Development is an important human need but it should result from a smarter use of resources while maintaining a steady economy and population level. Global cooperation is essential for establishing effective sustainable development and that means we need to treat the people of all nations as equals.

Instead of going along with our society’s adversarial competitiveness, this new base for judging our self esteem, self confidence and importance would be our level of skills, knowledge and performance in regard to sustainable development. And our cooperation with others to achieve this would bring a sense of belonging and dynamic peace to our relationship with people and with the environment.

Bob Myers.

It’s true that we are born with the need to be an individual and the conflicting need to belong, not only to belong to other people but to nature and the cosmos (or God). We are also born with incredible potential to satisfy these conflicting needs and enjoy peace and happiness. Each of us arrives in this world with the potential of the full range of human characteristics, traits, virtues or whatever else you want to call them. We have the potential to be whatever it is possible for a human person to be and to maybe surpass the achievements, positive or negative, of any person who has lived before us.  

Which of our characteristics or traits are encouraged or restricted is determined by the culture we are born into, and by the beliefs and values of the people around us, especially our carers and teachers, who experienced the same process.  And although they loved and cared for us, and wanted us to feel we belong in a spiritual way, the social structures of our culture strongly encourage the opposite. Our economic system is competitive and so is the majority of our recreational activity. Our parliamentary and legal systems are adversarial and emphasise the fear of punishment for maintaining social order; these systems only succeed in perpetuating the desire to dominate rather than belong.

To a large extent, our culture encourages the characteristics or traits that cause us to judge our self esteem and self confidence by comparing ourselves against the wealth, possessions, power, knowledge and skills of other people. Winning, status and image is portrayed as giving us importance and happiness. This is false because the balance between the need to belong and the need to be an individual is upset when one person’s gain in self esteem is another person’s loss. All the violence in the world stems from our failure to set up social systems with values and beliefs that maintain a balance between the need to belong and the need for individuality.

There is no happiness without peace; no peace without justice; and no justice without equality. Difference doesn’t disappear with equality. It’s possible to have importance and equality. It’s possible to have authority and equality. By changing what we base our sense of importance on, we can also change our sense of belonging and bring the two into balance.
Bob Myers.

The popular perception is that street violence is on the rise and media reports reflect the public’s rejection of random acts of violence.  To me, the wording of some reports  add to the confusion young people must experience at a stage of life so crucial to them in their search for identity and their efforts to make sense of society.  The fact is that some violence is not only acceptable but is encouraged by society. Violence is a major factor in our entertainment and many of our heroes gained their hero status through violence. Sometimes it seems that the good guys only win because they are more violent than the bad guys, so the message is that violence is Ok as long as we approve the target.

What could cause kids to use violence so easily? To many adolescents, their peer group is the ‘we’ approving of the target, and that makes certain violent acts not just acceptable but necessary if it forms part of their identity. Members of the group may say things like, ‘This is what we do.’  Any statement about ‘who we are’ makes it an identity thing. But that isn’t unusual because violence plays a major part in our identity too. It is often said that Australia forged its identity through the violence at Gallipoli but the difference there is the bravery involved.  

I believe the main cause of random violence is that living in an adversarial society means that a big part of our identity, or sense of who we are comes from comparing our attributes and achievements  against those of other people, in two ways.  One  is by competing with others to gain knowledge, power, expertise or wealth, so we feel somehow superior to, or more important than, others. But that often requires  incredibly hard work and dedication. Some people find it much easier to gain that sense of superiority or status through domination, which usually involves the use of some form of force or violence to ‘put others down.’

People judging themselves by using either competition or domination find that they are better than some and not as good as others. So, even those who are the best at one thing may sometimes be tempted to use the ‘put down’ method.  All in all, the adversarial base for an identity divides people and is a breeding ground for violence.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to the adversarial base. We also gain part of our identity by how we use our individual differences to help each other achieve and progress, rather similar to what happens in nature. Instead of comparing ourselves against each other, we share our knowledge, skills and wealth. People with this outlook gain their sense of importance to each other rather than against each other. This cooperative base  tends to unite people and, therefore, reduces the level of violence.

We may never be free of our adversarial ways but, if we are really serious about reducing violence, we need to put more effort into changing the messages we pass on to our children in our entertainment and the heroes we create for them. As individuals, we could start by deciding to adopt the attitude that, ‘there is no one in the world more important than me and no one in the world less important than me.’ We are then free from the competition-domination, status-seeking  game and  a whole new way of relating to other people opens before us.

Bob Myers.

Many studies have shown that a strong link exists between inequality and all kinds of social diseases. My latest book, Travelling the Road of Peace and Happiness, contains information from some of those studies, including the following:

Based on thirty years of research by leading organisations, various universities and independent social scientists, (The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better) argues that inequality is the root cause of many of society’s ills.

 The authors claim that if an affluent society suffers from one social disease – for example high levels of stress – we can be reasonably sure it will also have high rates of obesity, drug use, mental illness, imprisonment, violent crime, distrust, depression, and illiteracy. And the more unequal the society is, the higher will be the rate of those diseases. Although most of the evidence is centred on income inequality, they make a strong link between perceived social inequality (judging ourselves in relation to other people) and all the stress-related social diseases.

They emphasise that inequality doesn’t just affect the poor of society; the affluent are also adversely affected. To put that in a more positive way, reducing inequality also benefits the affluent members of the society.

Most people think of equality in terms of income but reality makes it very unlikely that there will ever be a society in which everyone has the same income. At the beginning of board games like Monopoly every player has an equal amount of money but it isn’t long before that equality is upset. Some social analysts use equal opportunity to rate a society’s level of equality, which is certainly more practical than rating it by income.

 The studies mentioned above indicate that money is very important for health and happiness only up to a point, but past that point it makes little difference to health or happiness. What then becomes important is the perceived social equality, which is so delicate and at the mercy of a society obsessed with domination and competition in almost every area of daily life. The obsession with domination is seen in our parliamentary system and legal system, both of which set and reflect the adversarial nature of our culture in regard to conflict resolution and differences of opinions.

The obsession with competition is seen in sport, which has become unhealthy because of the high emphasis placed on winning. Instead, the emphasis should be on participation, or on the comradeship of team sport, or on the social side of individual sport. The harm caused by the attitude of ‘winning is everything’ comes out when elite athletes reveal their battles with depression or their thoughts of suicide to escape the pressure to be constantly winning.

Violence begets violence and what these studies are revealing is that socioeconomic inequality is a form of violence built into our normal social systems producing the violence that we call ‘social diseases.’ None of us are to blame for the system we were born into but each of us can do something to change the system. Our politicians are well aware of the studies linking inequality to all the social ills and that the social ills are increasing because the gap is increasing. They are also the ones who can have the most influence on changing the system, simply by adopting policies and making laws that reduce the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.  However, we are the ones who could put pressure on our politicians to base their bid for power on their ability to come up with policies centred on reducing the present socioeconomic gap. And the good news is that it appears we would all benefit from reversing the trend of the past twenty years (according to the Salvation Army reports).

An added bonus is that it would provide the means by which we can hold our politicians accountable. If the gap between the haves and have nots is decreasing under whatever party is in power, we would know their policies are working. If the gap is increasing, we would know their policies are not working and we probably should give the opposition a chance.

Bob Myers.

Alternative medicines are fast gaining acceptance in the western world, partly as a result of the rising awareness of the effect the body has on mental health, and the effect the mind has on physical health. In years gone by a sick person went to the doctor to get a prescription for a magic pill that somehow knew which part of the body to heal. Now a sick person can choose from a wide range of treatments. Acupuncture, meditation, relaxation therapy, massage, physio-therapy, herbal medicines, magnets, aroma therapy, color therapy, essential oils and many more. Traditional medicine tries to find a physical reason for all disease whereas in the alternative medicines, physical health and mental health are very much tied together. This is now being acknowledged in western medicine with the result that more and more doctors are becoming skilled in the alternative methods, to increase their effectiveness in treating patients. 

The new awareness is that disease - physical or mental disharmony - occurs when the flow of the life force through the body is impeded in some way, and the various alternative methods are attempts to clear the blockage, allowing the life force to again flow freely and repair the damaged area. The life force is known by various names, such as the Absolute, electromagnetic energy, bio-energy, the Spirit of God, and so on, but what we call it doesn’t change it in any way. It is what it is. 

Such a wide choice of treatments can be confusing, like trying to choose toothpaste in a supermarket, but all alternative treatments have one thing in common; they basically aim to restore health by freeing up the flow of the life force into and through every part of the body. To the Chinese, the life energy (chi) is split into two, the yin and the yang, and has to not only flow freely but must do so in a balanced way. The various Chinese methods restore the free flow of chi and balance yin and yang to restore physical and mental health. .

From biology we know that every cell in the human body is identical in that it contains all the information required to form a complete human being, and yet each cell is restricted to interacting and communicating with the cells in its immediate vicinity to form a particular body part, perhaps the left big toe or the right ear,. And the cells achieve this without having any idea what a big toe or an ear is; each only knows how to communicate with the cells around it. Each cell retains its own identity, its individualism, and each has needs that must be met at the same time as it communicates and cooperates with all the cells around it so they too meet their needs and achieve their task. None of the cells in a group would know that a human body would result from their cooperative achievement to form skin, nor would the groups of cells forming nerves, or veins, muscle or bone know the end result 

Instead of exchanging words, the communication between cells takes the form of a free-flowing exchange of the energy of life, with each cell not only receiving the energy but acts as the channel supplying the energy to all the cells it comes into contact with. Cells wither when blockages occur that stop this flow of the energy of life, and if the blockage continues to cause cells to wither, a diseased area develops. A serious blockage can lead to serious disease and even to death. The various alternative medicines and methods attempt to get rid of the blockage to allow the life force to flow to the damaged area and restore it to health. A deliberate attempt to do this is called ‘taking restorative action’. 

In the bigger picture, people with a holistic worldview regard all people as being joined together to form the one ‘body of humanity’ or what Christians refer to as the body of Christ, and each person’s health is of equal importance in contributing to the health and welfare of the whole body. Using this analogy, everything said before about the importance of each cell in providing a path for the free flow of the life force to other cells in the human body applies in the body of humanity. Each cell in the body of humanity is then relying on all other cells to deliver what it needs, and is relied on by others to provide a path for the free flow of the life force to them.

Blockages are more visible in the body of humanity and take many forms. There are blockages in communication, money and possessions. There are blockages in the free distribution of the earth’s wealth or food resources. Governments and individuals accumulate huge fortunes while millions starve to death. Foreign governments and commercial interests extract the mineral wealth from countries like West Papua and turn a blind eye to the violations of the rights of the indigenous people. Along with the tangible effects of these blockages of the life force, there are the emotional and psychological effects on the sense of importance and belonging that come from people feeling they matter, or don’t matter, to the rest of the world. Some governments are being dragged screaming and kicking into doing something about the adverse effects industry is having on these people but it seems to happen only after the exploitation has been made public knowledge, or when there is a real danger of losing power if they don’t appear to be doing something.

Groups of cells in the body of humanity sometimes use force to clear these blockages but too often they are not intent on freeing up the flow of the life force to benefit all parts of the body. They are intent on taking control of the blockages for their own benefit and have little or no regard for the health or welfare of others. For example, armies highjack food supplies meant for the relief of famine-affected areas, sell it on the black market and pocket the proceeds.

Communication blockages rip marriages apart, disrupt family life, wreck businesses, and cause conflict in all sorts of relationships, including international conflicts. Blockages in understanding, tolerance and openness to the truth of others lead to people becoming prisoners in castles of beliefs, blindly defending them and cutting off all efforts to seek reconciliation. The behaviour of many members of the three ‘religions of the word’ provide a classic example of this type of blockage. A free flowing of compassion, understanding and forgiveness is essential in establishing quality relationships and therefore to good mental and physical health.

A happy and healthy cell in the body of humanity is one that receives its share of the life force in the form of food, shelter, clothing and security and allows that energy to flow freely to all those around them. If every cell successfully did that, every part of the body of humanity would enjoy physical and mental health. 

Like the body cells cooperating to form a big toe, we don’t know what we and those around us are actually here to achieve, but even though no one knows the meaning of life, we can know what gives life meaning. Life only has meaning when we have a goal to strive for. There has to be a reason for getting out of bed each morning, and so nature has provided us with a goal that gives life meaning for as long as we live. The goal is simple but we have to be constantly alert for distractions if we are to succeed. We are distracted by all sorts of goals that complicate life but, since we are all equal, the primary goal set by nature is the same for each of us. My primary life-long goal is to rid myself of all blockages to the free flow of the Spirit in all its forms. That is the best way I can influence and assist the flow of the energy to and through others. I have no direct control over the flow through others. I can only hope to control the flow through myself, so it is available for others. It is sufficient, and difficult enough, for each person to strive to regard each other as equals, and adopt some norms of nature that are in conflict with the norms of society. This means to rid oneself of the blockages caused by competition and revenge in all its forms, and turn towards assertive achievement and restorative action.

Bob Myers.

The importance of peace of mind became obvious to me during the years I spent working with dysfunctional families, involving all sorts of conflict and violence against people and property. The unhappiness and angst in these relationships motivated me to find a starting point that anyone could use to help people gain peace of mind; one that would fit in with any religion. Studying people in conflict made me aware that peace of mind doesn’t mean being free of problems and conflicts because these are just part of life’s journey. So at first it didn’t seem like rocket science; all anyone needs is the knowledge and the skills to handle whatever happens. However, life is never that simple. Knowledge and skills are reasonably easy to pick up but everyone is different so the problem is ‘what knowledge and what skills will be right for every person?’

All journeys have a starting point and a destination, with a road between the two. All adults already have a great deal of experience in dealing with problems and conflict and the ability to learn more along the way. That is for the starting point for the rest of our journey. Happiness is the goal that we all seek, although some people may refer to it as ‘peace of mind’ or ‘having a sense of security.’ To complete the plan we need to choose a path to the destination and pack a compass to keep us on track when we can’t see our way forward.

Fortunately, nature has installed a belief deep within all of us that will take us to that destination but since we have freedom of choice, it’s up to us whether we go that way. The compass that comes with that choice will show us the way through, over, or around problems and conflicts, and help us to avoid creating new obstacles. However, it only works if we practice using the many tools that come with it. ‘The equality of all people’ is the name of the road to peace of mind, and ‘nonviolence’ is the name of the compass that keeps us on the road, or shows us the way back to the road if we wander off it.

I began consciously using the tools of nonviolence as an honorary probation officer, and managing a youth centre, where many opportunities arose to help angry youths and adults resolve disputes. But the big test came as the supervisor of a non-government residential facility for teenagers who, for various reasons, were labelled ‘homeless’ and/or ‘uncontrollable.’ The young people in our care constantly tested and questioned society’s values, beliefs and rules, and for what seemed like a long, stressful time I went along with the general community’s expectation that the staff of the facility should control these young people. The reality was that it was often a ‘them and us’ power struggle that no one really won, partly because we represented the social system that had failed to meet the needs of the residents, and then put the blame on them.

Anyone who looks back can probably see a pattern in their life but I believe the experience of working with the residents, the parents of residents, and the staff of the facility strengthened a subconscious belief I already held that ‘the equality of all people’ is the base for resolving relationship problems. The equality of people is what I now try to ground my thinking in, because I can see how it has strengthened and guided me through some stressful times. I can also see how much strife I got into, and how much strife I caused, when I failed to act in accordance with that belief.

Most people intuitively know we are all equal, and this is why being made feel inferior is so stressful.  The intuitive sense of equality persists in spite of the huge differences in wealth, power, abilities, knowledge and health between people in the social systems we created, and that we may well pass on to our children.

We don’t usually think of people as being part of nature, probably because we inherited age-old beliefs and traditions that portray us as constantly fighting against nature. In recent years our awareness of climate change, and the threat it poses for life on earth, makes it obvious that we need to cooperate with nature if we and the planet are to survive. As part of nature, humans are subject to the natural law but, over time, we came to believe we are superior to all creation and set up social systems to control and exploit the earth to meet our needs. However, to nature we are still all of equal value. The rain falls on everyone and the sun shines on everyone. A tsunami sweeps rich and poor from the beach, and an earthquake takes no notice of a person’s social status. Nature doesn’t make one person more important than another, people developed social systems, so it was people who decided:

• who is important and who isn’t;
• what is important and what isn’t;
• who has power over others;
• and how people should behave.

Accepting that people are part of nature leads to the thought that, If I were in harmony with nature, I would not only be in harmony with the environment and other people, I would be in harmony with me, and to be in harmony with oneself is to have peace of mind. Fortunately for us, peace of mind doesn’t only come when our relationships are equal. If it did, we would probably never have peace of mind, or peace would be a fleeting experience, because of all the inequalities, disputes and conflicts in daily life. We can have peace of mind amongst all of that by actively responding to inequalities, disputes and conflicts in a nonviolent way. And as we persist in experimenting with creative ways to use the tools of nonviolence, we are already in harmony with nature. The magic of our compass is that equality, nonviolence and peace of mind are names attached to the many faces of the same thing.  

Although we live in a violent world, most of us believe we are nonviolent and seldom experience violence. When asked to give examples of violence, most people refer to the physical harm caused by bashings, guns, knives and bottles but the great majority of violence between people in everyday life is emotional violence, delivered personally or increasingly via cyberspace: hurtful rumours, putdowns, insults, and the like. The effects of emotional violence can be devastating and has resulted in suicide.

One definition of violence is: ‘any verbal, nonverbal, emotional or physical behaviour that dominates, divides, diminishes or destroys ourselves, or others’ (From Violence to Wholeness). All these behaviours harm or weaken relationships, so a shorter definition of violence is ‘any behaviour that harms or weakens relationships.’

Violence can also be just part of a system, such as family, community or nation, if the rules favour one person or group of people at the expense of others. An example of systemic violence in a wealthy economy such as ours would be when the laws ensure that certain groups of people will remain in poverty.

  Competition, domination and inequality.

Most problem relationships, even in families, are affected by one of two things, either competition or domination. A conflict does not become harmful until either competition or domination creeps into it. Both of these cause inequality by putting distance between people. Our culture puts great pressure on us to follow scripts involving competition and domination every day of our life. The urge comes from within us but is made ‘normal’ by:

·         the fear of losing face or being judged as ‘not good enough;’

·         clever advertisers getting us to judge ourselves by our possessions; and

·         the level of competition and violence in our entertainment and socialising.

The pressure from the influence of competition affects how we respond to differences with our loved ones as well as with those we don’t like. Competition is present when we feel a need to win, or to at least save face, and makes it difficult to sort out differences without getting into a harmful conflict or giving in.

 It’s natural to want to achieve. However, what we try to achieve and how we measure success can cause problems. Unfortunately, ‘the need to achieve what I am capable of achieving,’ has become ‘the need to win’ which means to be better than other people. Competition is now so much a part of our culture that it is regarded as part of human nature. Winning has become the main goal in so many things, boosted by the wide-spread belief in the myth that competition is necessary for advancement, development or progress. For people who shun competition and simply give in, life can be very difficult.

Competition is one way but there are other ways that non-competitive people can learn about. Cooperative achievement is one alternative to competition, consensus and a method inspired by Gandhi called truth-seeking are also available. Open Space Technology is yet another alternative. Alternatives like these have been around for a long time and work very well but are not widely taught. However, if we are to solve the problems and conflicts unique to this century, the alternatives to our adversarial ways need to become part of the culture our children and grandchildren live by.

That’s why parenting is an important part of discussions about conflict resolution. It’s said that the only certainties in life are taxes and death, but there are two more.

• Family life is where we mainly learn how to resolve conflict because healthy conflict occurs in all families.
• Healthy conflict can become destructive when we follow the urge to win, or the urge to dominate (control or punish).