The Ever Increasing Urgancy for World Peace

In his Wall Street Journal essay, “Violence Vanquished,” Steven Pinker claims that contrary to perceived notions of increasing violence and turbulence in the world, "brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise.” Pinker establishes this argument through numeric comparisons of death tolls, genocides and other aggressive perpetrations in modern society with those in prehistoric times. He credits the fall in these quantifications of “violence” to the processes of pacification, civilization, humanitarian revolution, Long Peace, New Peace and the rights revolution that have together created an environment conducive to “our better angels.”

Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922) – Conference held in Washington, D.C. in 1921 and based on the belief that if powerful nations reduced their weapons, they would no longer see each

The progress made in the 20th century is staggering. Advancements in science, medicine and technology alone have brought incalculable benefits to human beings. Yet on the darker side, the 20th century was also the most violent time of human history. Two world wars, the massacres of Stalin, the Holocaust of Hitler, and many other such events killed over hundreds of millions of people and inflicted extreme suffering on hundreds of millions more that will make this period in time and period that will be remembered forever.

The idea that Steven Pinker discussed in his Ted Talk was that over time our world has become a more peaceful place to reside in. Breaking his evidence down into the viewpoint of millenniums, centuries, and decades, he utilized mortality rates due to warfare, homicide, and death penalty. Furthermore, Pinker analyzes the history of warfare from a social perspective that investigates the effect that anarchy, the value of life, and the expanding of one’s circle of acceptance.

There are moments in our history where the citizens of the world stand up and for their beliefs, their honor, and themselves. They come together to reform the existing government that is holding them back from achieving their desired lifestyle. When this occurs, most likely, war is inevitable to follow. When war comes to a country, death and destruction is destined. Leaders and rules change, but the pride of its citizens prevails and becomes

Our history was altered during the twentieth century through warfare that has occurred worldwide. Starting with the first major war in 1914, First World War, new technological advances involving the strategy of warfare have been introduced, thus altering its effects on society. People kill and get killed defending the beliefs of their nation, religion, family, and political views. The governments of several countries changed during the twentieth century due to the outcomes of warfare. Some of the advances have led to safer, more precise warfare, while others have been destructive to the existence of many species, Homo sapiens included. The advances that are continuing to come out could permanently alter the way the world functions. Actions

In the early 20th century, there was a great deal of conflict around the world. This conflict was mainly centered in Europe with some action happening in the Americas. There was a lot of tension that began to build between countries. This tension finally snapped and sent the world down a quarrelsome path. Countries called upon their allies to bring aid. Soon enough groups of countries started fighting each other. Everyone had their own agendas and dreams. The imperialistic ideas of the countries and the nationalistic ideas of the people came crashing together and created an era of history never to be forgotten.

As most people would agree, the 20th century contained some of the bloodiest and most gruesome events ever recorded in history. Why do words such as Hiroshima, Rwanda, The Final Solution, A Great Leap Forward, The Great Purge and so many more spark such vivid images of blood, torture and murder in our minds? And despite those horrific images, what is it that causes us humans time and time again to commit such crimes against humanity? Those are the kinds of questions Jonathan Glover, a critically acclaimed ethics philosopher, tries to answer in the book he had spent over ten years writing, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Through Humanity Glover tries to answer those questions in a way which will give a solution as how we can

As the turn of the twentieth century, the continent of Europe was mostly at peace for over thirty years due to many peace organizations being active and also due to many peace organizations being active and also due to the fact that Europe was attempting to create an everlasting peace and was attempting to outlaw war completely throughout the world. Although the entirety of Europewas at peace during the first staged of the 1900's, there were darker and less visible forces at work in the less developed and less civilized parts of Europe; this was due to the fact that there were many gradual yet majorly significant developments that blasted and propelled Europe, and eventually the entire Earth, into war. One such venomous growth was the growth

The twentieth century has been the age of the outbreak of two world wars causing deep destruction and loss of human self and ultimate certainties.

Martin van Creveld wrote The Transformation of War book in 1991 when he detailed a predictive hypothesis about the changing character of war into what he called ?Nontrinitarian War. There were conflicts arise as intrastate wars and were not based on the simplified version of Clausewitz?s ?remarkable trinity? of government, people and military forces (Van Creveld, 1991, pg. 49). In his book, Van Creveld offers an account of warfare in the previous millennium and suggests what the future might hold. The drive was that major war was draining and the emergence of forms of war ?that are simultaneously old and new? now threatened to create havoc.

To make this world a better, safer place to live, there are really two things that stand out. The first is that we need to promote in whatever way possible the idea that we are all human beings and they we are in this together. The world and its resources need not be a zero sum game. Too often, we are divided by race, class, gender, nation-states, religions and we forget that we are all the same inside, that we all want the same things, and that this world has enough resources for everybody if we work together. Conflict, war, and strife are the things that make this world unsafe, more than anything else. It is estimated that 5.4 million people at least were killed in wars between 1955-2002, to say nothing of the conflicts before and after (ScienceDaily, 2008). Millions more are injured and displaced as the result of such conflicts, to say nothing of the negative impacts on economies and the lives ruined as a consequence.

The modern world is becoming smaller, highly integrated and technologically more advanced. It is also becoming highly fragmented, less peaceful and unsafe for both present and future generations. The world today is indeed in search of a new culture and a common system of values and new behavioral patterns for individuals, groups and nations. The replacement of the existing culture of violence by a culture of peace can only be achieved in a longer perspective. In a period of transition and accelerated change marked by the expression of intolerance, manifestation of racial and ethnic hatred, violence towards those regarded as “others” and the growing disparities between the rich and the poor.

Modern History is littered with Treaties and Peace Agreements… yet we still live in a World dominated by unrest, conflict and ….war.

In 2012, the concentrated eruption of disputes in East Asia, the continued conflict between Pakistan and Israel both suggest that the haunting history has been and even is increasingly to be sources of distrust, hatred, and thus conflicts in the world. As the 20th century passed away, the 21st century has brought us a difficult task as how to deal with our tumultuous past. I hope that the world in the new century would be a world that can be at peace with its past---it would not be mired in the historical grievances, but would instead look into possibilities of the future.