Non-Violence As A Way of Life Must Spread Widely to Create a World without Wars and Cruelty in Daily Life

While many wars, civil wars, and violent conflicts rage across the world, causing massive distress and loss of life, durable peace agreements are becoming increasingly difficult to reach. There are several important reasons why this is happening. One of these, which gets less attention despite its great importance, is that the crucial task of promoting non-violence as a way of life has been badly neglected. Due to the neglect of this very important responsibility, humanity’s great potential and possibility to lead a life based on non-violence have not been realized. Instead, violence in its various forms continues to cause massive distress, injury, and death in daily life. At the same time, a strong, continuous movement for peace has not yet emerged—one that possesses the strength to stop wars, including the kind of wars that hold the possibility of ultimately causing an existential crisisExistential CrisisA situation where the survival of the human species is at imminent risk, often associated with nuclear warfare, climate change, or global pandemics. for humanity and all life on Earth.

Human beings are not necessarily either violent or non-violent by birth. While there are, of course, some individual traits and leanings, to a large extent, whether a society or community will experience high or low levels of violence is decided by the social environment that exists or that it is able to create. Particular attention must be drawn to the important but neglected fact that there is a need for constant, highly creative training, education, experimentation, engagement, and thoughtfulness relating to non-violence as a way of life. This means that any individual, particularly in their early formative yearsFormative YearsThe early years of a person’s life (usually childhood and adolescence) when their personality, behavior, and beliefs are strongly influenced and shaped., must be helped, encouraged, inspired, and motivated to willingly and happily accept non-violence as a way of life. This ensures that he or she makes conscious and constant efforts to avoid violence, including thinking and conduct based on physical and emotional violence, as well as dominance, discrimination, bullying, abuse, injustice, falsehoods, arrogance, and intoxication.

If human society is based on education, training, and constant thoughtfulness to avoid violence (and the related falsehoods, injustices, and dominance), then we can create a very beautiful world. First of all, this world will achieve a remarkable reduction in distress and disruption in daily personal and community-level life. There will be a significant reduction in violent acts, attacks, and crimes; in emotional and physical violence in daily life (including in close relationships); in family breakdowns; in self-violence, suicides, or suicide attempts; in all kinds of intoxications and addictions; and in bullying, whether in schools or the workplace.

The reduction of violence-based thinking itself will bring great happiness and serenity into people’s lives, thereby increasing their creativity and progress in noble work. At a wider level, the much greater emergence of a non-violence-based life among humanity will also greatly increase the possibilities of world peace and disarmamentDisarmamentThe reduction or withdrawal of military forces and weapons, particularly weapons of mass destruction.. As the majority of people strongly favor peace and disarmament and are willing to take to the streets for this as part of now substantially strengthened peace movements, world leadership will, sooner rather than later, have to respond. They will be forced to take major decisions to end wars and eliminate the most destructive weapons. This process will be assisted by the fact that with so much continuous peace work and education taking place, most senior and responsible positions will be occupied by individuals deeply committed to peace.

An important fact to note here is that while violence more obviously and immediately destroys the victims, in terms of less obvious but nevertheless very significant impacts, violence also destroys the perpetratorsPerpetratorsIndividuals or groups who commit violent acts against others.. Those who inflict violence must destroy their basic human sensitivity in the process. This, in turn, hollows them out and makes them incapable of sensitivity even in close relationships, as this writer has argued in greater detail in his book *Burning on Both Ends*. Hence, when non-violence as a way of life is accepted by most people, it reduces distress at several levels.

Non-violence should be practiced not only at the level of human relationships but also in the context of humanity’s relations with all other forms of life. Therefore, there should be constant efforts to avoid relationships based on cruelty and violence with all other life forms at all levels.

Gradually, this should be taken further to foster a greater understanding of avoiding violence and dominance in humanity’s relationship with nature, so that humanity learns to live in harmony with nature as much as possible in the present times.

Both for reducing distress in people’s daily lives and for avoiding highly destructive wars—as well as for protecting other forms of life from cruelty and destruction—it is of the highest importance to adopt non-violence as a way of life. It is crucial to take up the responsibility for all the community and educational work that needs to be continuously carried out in highly creative ways across all levels of humanity.