World Peace: The Role of the Individual-3

Action is obviously a key stage of the consciousness development of activists. The details of this are made clear from my studies of consciousness development. However, one seeks in vain in most psychology textbooks and university courses for the psychology of action! Instead, consciousness is usually treated by academic psychology in terms of passivity: studies of sleep and dreaming, drugs and yoga meditation, and attitude change that is described in terms of an "outside" force changing the attitudes of an otherwise passive subject.

An appropriate view of action is taken by the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire (1968) in his important book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire considers that action is essential to effective education, which he calls "problem-posing education" as opposed to the "banking concept of education" that is used by entrenched powers and bureaucracies to keep people passive:

"Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of men as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation. In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take man's historicity as their starting point."

Affiliation is the next stage after action. Quite simply, activists find that they are more effective when they work in a group rather than alone. As the great peace activist Eugene Victor Debs concluded at the end of his life, "Unorganized you are helpless, you are held in contempt. Power comes through unity." (See Adams 1987).

Affiliation, more than any other step, requires the learning of psychological skills. From the study of autobiographies, it may be seen that these skills include the willingness to compromise and accept group discipline, the courage to give of oneself and to accept criticism, while curbing the excessive criticism of others, and the patience to help others develop their own unique powers of thought, feelings and actions. The principle of "listen to understand" is essential (See the Manifesto 2000 above). Given the emphasis on individualism in the United States and other Northern countries, it is not surprising that introductory psychology books give almost no space to these skills.

It is clear that world peace cannot be attained quickly, and that the task is long-term. A peace activist must be ready to work throughout an entire lifetime in order to achieve some progress. It follows that effective peace activists are those who manage to integrate their activism with the other aspects of their life, their family life and earning a living. This is difficult because there is very little money available to pay people to work for peace, and for most activists, their work for peace must be in addition to an income-generating job.

As far as consciousness development is concerned, it makes little difference what organization a person joins, as the same psychological skills are needed and can be developed. However, the long-term effectiveness of the individual's efforts depends on the relation of his/her affiliations to historical forces on a global scale. This is what I have called "world-historic consciousness" in Psychology for Peace Activists (Adams 1987). The present book attempts to discover some of the important forces at this moment of history that can help people develop world-historic consciousness and guide their decisions and affiliations to be most effective.

It appears that we are entering into a period of history when the principles and possibilities of world-historic consciousness become evident to millions of people and social progress can become radical and revolutionary. In such a time, there can be an additional step in consciousness development which I have called "vision", the wide-spread sharing of the world-historic consciousness of the leaders of the movement. However, if the ground has not been prepared in advance, and if the "vision" is not widely available, it may be too late to mobilize the masses of people for progressive social change. I hope that this book will contribute to the development of the vision that is needed.

End of chapter

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