Thanks, Johan Galtung

Defining violence and peace

Just last week, a giant in the work of Global Peace shuffled off this mortal coil: Johan Galtung. Galtung, was, in essence, the father of Peace Research, founding the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO)  in 1959. Peace Educators owe much to Galtung; his work has given us the definitions of Violence and Peace that guide us.

Since I haven’t done so yet, I’ll write today about what’s commonly known as Galtung’s ‘Violence Triangle’. Anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me or taken a class or workshop with me knows that I (and probably all peace educators) see everything through the lens of violence. This is not a bad thing. I think it’s a very helpful thing. Violence has antidotes, but unless we name the violence and examine its manifestations and interconnections, we cannot get to those antidotes.

I typically use the definition that violence is anything that insults one’s dignity (and/or keeps one from realizing their full potential). It is easy to go from there to see that poverty, alienation, marginalization, and all forms of oppression and injustice are violent. 

Galtung wrote:

Direct violence is intended to insult the basic needs of others (including nature), structural violence with such insults built into social and world structures as exploitation and repression, and cultural violence, aspects of culture (such as religion and language) legitimizing direct and structural violence.

Let’s break that down:

Direct Violence is what we commonly think of when we say the word ‘violence’ and includes acts of war, torture, fighting, gun violence, and physical and emotional abuse. Direct violence needs direct ‘actors’. With Structural Violence, what exists is a permanent state of violence. Violence is deliberately baked into society as exploitation, marginalization, fragmentation, etc… When folks talk about systemic racism or patriarchy (or the like), those are forms of Structural Violence. Often called Indirect Violence, Structural Violence is embedded in the social, political, and economic structures that make up society. In essence, it is the water we swim in. To maintain Structural Violence, institutions and practices of Cultural Violence exist. These can be found in mindsets, language, and habits of being, and as I’ve alluded to in earlier posts, education is a form of Cultural Violence (since it inculcates children into accepting Structural Violence as the norm). Religion is the other prominent form of Cultural Violence. I am consistently challenged by this concept as a member of the clergy because I see so clearly how religion has been and continues to be used as a tool of oppression. (More on that some other time…)

To extend this ‘primer’, we must also understand what we mean by the word Peace. As I wrote in my book Gettin’ My Word Out: Voices of Urban Youth Activists:

Negative Peace, as a concept, focuses on reducing/ending war and all physical violence. Education for negative peace develops a citizenry that is well-informed to take action for the achievement of peace through eradicating direct violence and working for disarmament… Positive Peace requires the amelioration of all structural and systemic obstacles to peace, and thus the creation of true peace. In addressing the need for justice, equity, democracy, and an end to structural violence, positive peace takes concern beyond the end of war and physical violence.

I like to explain it through a metaphor of a glass: Today our society is full of violence and war. Removing these forms of violence empties the glass, creating a negative amount of violence - thus negative peace because things have been taken away. Next, we have to refill the glass with justice and equality and other values, beliefs, and practices that counteract structural violence, to reach positive peace. When that glass is refilled in that way, that is True Peace.

Here’s a video I made with the children of the 4th Universalist Society in NYC many many years ago (all those tiny hands are college students or college graduates now). We created a service about Negative and Positive Peace and also engaged the congregation in Boal’s practice of “Theatre of the Oppressed”. 

And finally, since it seems so timely, here’s an image from Alchetron about Galtung: