Psychology for Peace Activists

8. For many of the readers of preliminary versions of this book, the question of anger has been the most controversial. One effective activist wrote to me, "There is a wealth of scientific research showing that anger is a harmful emotion. Indeed, my own observations are that peace groups tend to be much less angry than groups that oppose peace groups. True, even many peace groups slip into some anger on occasion. I think that this weakens the impact of their work and certainly does not strengthen it or given it energy....We don't need another firebombing for peace and I am afraid that that is where anger too often leads." Another person wrote that "I would focus on love and oneness rather than anger, because I believe that the great problems of injustice in society are not solved at all by the behavior of activists....activists end up becoming just like the aggressor, if you will. I have found no love in any of the peace groups in which I have been involved, and certainly no peace. All I have experienced is anger and aggression. In my view this is not transcendence, but rather a perpetuation of the stalemate." This latter comment is from a psychotherapist who has been, as indicated, both active and affiliated, but has given up on it. I think that it supports the view that anger, and the acceptance of anger, is necessary for consciousness development. For a history of the suppression of anger in U.S. history, see Anger: The Struggle for Emotional Control in America's History, by Carol Zisowitz Stearns and Peter Stearns, University of Chicago Press, 1986.

9. In a study of student activism, Sarah Bosch and I found that students who believe that war is part of human nature are less likely to engage in peace activism. This seems to be a true causal relationship because the correlation holds up after other factors are removed by the statistical method of partial correlations, including the influence of family, friends and school, belief about the efficacy of action, and level of anger. Our paper, The Myth That War Is Intrinsic to Human Nature Discourages Action for Peace by Young People, has been published in the book Essays in Violence by Ramirez, Hinde and Groebel, University of Seville, Spain, 1987. Our results replicated preliminary findings reported from Finland by the peace researcher Riitta Wahlström. Dr. Wahlström and I were among 20 scientists who took part in drafting The Seville Statement on Violence, which states categorically that war is not intrinsic to human nature. The Statement is available on the Internet and may be found at the following: http://culture-of-peace.info/vita/1990/Seville.pdf.

10. Every mass peace movement in this century in the U.S. has been attacked by anti-communism, and in many cases actually destroyed. When William Jennings Bryan ran for President in 1900 on an anti-imperialist platform put forward by the Anti-Imperialist League, he was attacked as "communistic" The People's Council of America, the mass opposition to World War I was literally smashed by government agents who seized their mail, raided their offices, and imprisoned their leaders - all in the name of anti-communism. The peace movement of the 1930's opposed to the rise of fascism was split into two competing organizations, one that included Communist participation and the other that was based on anti-communism. The opposition to the Cold War that culminated in the Wallace Presidential campaign was not only destroyed by anti-communism, but is not even mentioned in today's "official" histories of the peace movement (see footnote 3). And opposition to the Vietnam War was set back by the anti-communism of the traditional peace movement organizations such as SANE who refused to take part in demonstrations alongside such organizations as SDS because they were "communist." For further details, see The American Peace Movements (footnote 3) and the references listed therein.

11. With the end of the Cold War, people tend to forget certain accomplishments of the socialist countries in the development of a peace economy. They avoided the cyclical overproduction and crises of unemployment of the capitalist countries and the exploitation which characterizes the relations of the major capitalist powers to the developing world. The latter is documented by the lead article of the November 29, 1985 issue of Science. In this article the dean of Rand Corporation's graduate school, a Pentagon supported think-tank, shows that the net flow of wealth was from the Soviet Union to the smaller socialist countries and the Third World, a flow which was actually increasing rather than decreasing at the time This was is contrast to the US. and other Western powers who profit greatly from their foreign economic relations The author asks what are the benefits of Soviet foreign economic relations and replies that they are "prestige, political prominence, Russian national pride, and justification for the sacrifices imposed on the Soviet populace by the Soviet system." These reasons are quite different from the basis of imperialism according to the classic definition of Hobson: the use of government machinery to secure economic gains abroad.

12. The overall effect of military production in U.S. society should be considered as a negative factor in any accounting of the economy's strength. This is explained by economist Lloyd Dumas in The Overburdened Economy, University of California Press, 1986. The development of peace economies would be aided by a new approach to the study of economics following along the lines proposed by Professor Dumas in this book.

13. See my article, Internal Military Interventions in the United States, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.31, no.2, 1995.

14. In the study by Averill quoted in footnote 5 it was found that a majority of episodes of anger recorded by the subjects turned out to have constructive results for the parties concerned. Therefore, in teaching how to harness anger, we should start from this strong positive base which is within the experience of each person. We should learn rules of perception and behavior from our own experience how to increase the percentage of episodes of anger which are constructive and to decrease the percentage which are destructive. This can be done collectively as well as individually, as in the process of "conflict management and resolution" being taught in schools and communities.

15. At one time it was thought that fear would be a good motivation for attitude change (e.g. for Madison Avenue advertising, health education, etc.). However, when the relevant studies were done, it was found that fear is not an effective motivation for changing attitudes and behavior. Instead of changing their attitudes, people tend to become more resistant to change when they are made afraid. For a technical review of the scientific studies, see Effects of Fear Arousal on Attitude Change, by Irving L. Janis, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 3: 167-224, 1967.

16. For many who work in the mass media, the decision to emphasize pessimistic rather than optimistic news is probably made without any particular awareness of its effects, and simply as a consequence of the fact that optimistic news often tends to involve criticism of advertisers (e.g. news of trade unions and community organizing) and the military-industrial complex (news from the peace movement). For others, however, the use of pessimism can be a deliberate device as part of the culture of war. In his article, CIA Psychological Warfare Operations (Science for the People, pp. 6-11 and 29-37, January/February, 1982), Fred Landis carefully documents how the CIA emphasized and fabricated pessimistic news as part of their psychological warfare when they took over the operation of newspapers in countries on the verge of revolutionary change. In particular he documents the transformations of the newspapers El Mercurio in Chile, Daily Gleaner in Jamaica, and La Prensa in Nicaragua after they were taken over by the CIA.

(end of Footnotes)