Abstract
IT IS TIME TO INVENT PEACE War is no more necessary than smallpox or ignorance. War, like most human activities at this stage of our species' development, is a human invention. It is fed by and reinforced by a worldview that sees war as natural and inevitable. I have named this the "enemies worldview." It is the dominant worldview on our planet today. There is a secondary worldview I call the "cooperation worldview." It sees peace as preferable to war and is convinced that just as war is a human invention that we have lived with for millennia, peace can also become a reality. This secondary view holds that peace is possible so long as we put our imaginations and energies toward cooperating with each other to make us all secure rather than competing for the security and prosperity of some at the expense of the insecurity and misery of others. Masculinity is as much a social construction as war or any other institution. Today, "normative masculinity," meaning masculinity in its dominant form in most societies, favors war. It could be reconstructed to favor peace. This reconstruction is essential to moving toward peace throughout the world. THE ASSUMPTION THAT WAR IS NECESSARY "War will always be with us." "We have always had war." "War is part of human nature." "Men are aggressive; there is nothing you can do about it." "It's testosterone. Men are biologically destined to make war." "Our economy needs war; we ...