Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Is there such a thing as a culture of war, or a culture of peace? If war and peace are matters of culture, how does a community of individuals develop a culture of war, or a culture of peace? Is war a matter of violent clash between human communities, both guided by a culture of war? Or are there circumstances under which a human community guided by a culture of peace turns to violence as a way of resolving conflict with another community?

The sad reality of the world in 2022 is that we are compelled to raise these questions about war and peace. In what sense are war and peace matters of culture? To answer this question, we begin with the standard definition of what culture is: “a set of ideas and values shared by the members of a social group in their effort to adapt to and survive in their environment—natural, social, and spiritual.” With this definition, a culture of war, or a culture of peace, can be defined in terms of the characteristic mode of interaction and communication employed by a human community towards the natural, the social, and the spiritual environment.

We can say that a human community is guided by a culture of war in its relationship with the natural environment if it sees nature as an adversary that needs to be conquered and exploited in order to promote human welfare. It is guided by a culture of war in its relationship with the social environment if it regards competition as the mode of interaction with other communities, and employs assertion, if not outright propaganda, as the mode of communication with them. It is guided by a culture of war in its relationship with the spiritual environment if the individual develops and is guided by the self that is full of conflict between mind and body, between ego and id, between instinct and intellect, between passion and reason.

In contrast, a human community is guided by a culture of peace in its relationship with the natural environment if it sees nature as the space of interaction between life and matter, with harmony in that space being regarded as crucial in promoting human welfare. It is guided by a culture of peace in its relationship with the social environment if it regards reciprocity as the mode of interaction with other communities, and employs dialogue as the mode of communication with them. It is guided by a culture of peace in its relationship with the spiritual environment if the individual sees the self as an aggregate of all the instincts, motivations, and propensities that need to be harmonized and integrated.

Given that there are a wide variety of human communities, why is it that certain communities develop a culture of war, while others a culture of peace? Perhaps there is a biological factor behind human aggression as has been pointed out by some ethologists. At the current phase of human evolution, however, a cultural factor probably plays a more important role, surrounded as we are by all kinds of fruits of civilization that have little to do with our basic biological needs.

What factors, then, are responsible for developing a culture of war? As far as our relationship with the natural environment is concerned, climate, widely interpreted to include weather, geography, and other characteristics of the living environment, plays an important role in influencing the culture a specific human community develops. The history of civilizations gives us many examples in which northern communities, having acquired a culture of war living in a harsh and unrelenting environment, invade and conquer their more mild-mannered southern neighbors. Similar examples of aggressive behavior have also been noted among human communities living in barren environments of deserts and steppes.

A culture of war develops in a human community where the individual tends to view individuals from other communities as aliens, foreigners, and outsiders. Differences in race and religion add to this sense of differentiation, resulting in suspicion and mistrust of others and, unfortunately, in aggression and violence when conflicts of interest develop for territorial, economic, and other reasons. From the point of view of the individual’s mental setup, a culture of war develops in a human community where the individual is action-oriented as opposed to reflection-oriented, ego-centered as opposed to group-oriented, preoccupied with ego-development as opposed to self-integration.

To the extent that war and peace are matters of culture, it becomes important to cultivate and promote intercultural communication between human communities. The first step towards intercultural communication would be for individuals in both cultures to realize that war and peace as cultures have resulted from and reflect the differences in the way different human communities interact with the natural, the social, and the spiritual environment.

Where cultural differences are involved, we need to make every effort to develop the verbal as well as the non-verbal mode of communication with members of other communities. A human community guided by a culture of war tends to develop the kind of language that is employed not only in actual warfare but also in the conduct of daily affairs. In fact, life itself becomes a battle as metaphors developed in the battlefield are employed to describe the challenges of life in business, politics, and even in education.

If transforming a culture of war is what is needed to cultivate and promote intercultural communication, we must begin with the task of reforming the language of war that predominates in a human community guided by a culture of war. Since there is thought behind speech, reforming language would then lead to a change in the individual’s mental setup. And a change in the individual’s mental setup, hopefully, would lead to a change in people’s value system, from a masculine value system inherent in a culture of war to a feminine value system that emphasizes such values as accommodation, compassion, and integration.

The fact of the matter is that no human community is guided entirely by a culture of war, or a culture of peace for that matter. Every human community is guided by a mixture of these two cultures and oscillates between them as the condition under which it operates changes. The relationship between the two cultures in a human community is like the yin-yang duality diagram in which the region of yin (a culture of peace) contains some elements of yang (a culture of war), and vice versa. As such, the matter of intercultural communication comes down to the question of how each individual regards himself/herself with respect to the natural, the social, and the spiritual environment. Indeed, a culture of peace would not develop in the world unless and until all of us find peace with ourselves in the global environment in which our existence as a species takes place.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Globalization, seen in the context of the evolution of civilizations, has brought about some notable changes in the way challenges and responses between civilizations take place. For one thing, it is now possible to promote communication and cross-fertilization between civilizations with varieties of new means of communication which globalization as the information revolution has brought into our lives. There are some indications that challenges and responses in the world of the twenty-first century are giving rise to a global civilization of a sort—from an increasing participation in the citizens’ movement for basic human rights to an expanding awareness about our common fate as a species in the global village. While these are hopeful developments, there are other indications that threaten the cohesion and stability of the world as a system of civilizations, including terrorist attacks, ethnic conflicts, and military invasions.

Globalization, in view of these hopeful developments as well as troubling events taking place in the world around us, must be said to have been a blessing as well as a curse in the evolution of civilizations. The upshot is that the world of the twenty-first century is yet to develop a truly global civilization. The United Nations, while it has tried to develop a global civilization with its efforts to promote universal human rights and sustainable development, is unlikely to become a world government with the power to enforce its laws and regulations. If the top-down approach is unlikely to work, it is up to each and every one of us to take up the challenge of creating a truly global civilization so that the global village becomes the place we can all call “home.”

Every individual, as a societal member of a specific civilization, acts in the space of social transaction of that civilization that surrounds him/her in his/her cultural, economic, and political life. At the same time, the individual inhabits in his/her own world of psyche. These two worlds—the social world of civilization and the individual world of psyche—are not independent from each other but are interdependent, linked by a network of correspondences that exist between them.

One obvious case that points to the presence of correspondence between the social world of civilization and the individual world of psyche is the sense of affinity and comfort the individual feels towards his/her own civilization as the provider of values and norms that guide him/her in social life. This does not deny that there are some individuals who feel alienated by their own civilization, finding themselves at odds with the prevailing values and norms of social life.

What, then, is the individual world of psyche like, shaped and commanded by the workings of the human mind? Like civilization, the individual world of psyche, or the psychic world, has the horizontal as well as the vertical dimension. The horizontal aspect of the psychic world is shaped and commanded by the rational mind, or Ego. It is Ego that defines the personal mental space for each individual, in which he/she forms the sense of identity separate from other individuals. However, the mental space shaped and commanded by Ego constitutes the surface structure of the psychic world. There is another layer to the psychic world, the deep structure of the psychic world, which is the world of unconsciousness shaped and commanded by Self, the term Carl Jung employs to distinguish it from Ego. (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1969)

The world of unconsciousness is mostly hidden from the individual in the conduct of his/her daily affairs, except for occasional glimpses into it through dreams. The world of dreams is, however, the shallow part of the world of unconsciousness, for it is mostly the world of the individual unconscious. The deep part of the world of unconsciousness, the world shaped and commanded by Self, is the world of the collective unconscious, which is shared by all members of humanity, normally inaccessible to the individual except in the form of archetypes such as the Great Mother and the Wise Old Man. In order to accomplish “globalization from within”, it is essential that the individual learns to dip into the world of the collective unconscious, which is universal and shared by all members of humanity.

Correspondence between the social world of civilization and the individual world of psyche also shows up as correspondence between the outstanding characteristics of a civilization and the common personality traits shared by the members of that civilization. One mechanism by which this correspondence comes about is through what sociologists call socialization. Another mechanism is through the workings of what Freud called Super Ego (Civilization and Its Discontents, 1961). On the positive side, Super Ego helps to shape the individual’s ethical imperatives and moral sentiments. On the negative side, Super Ego for the members of one civilization can be different from that of the members of another civilization, leading to conflict and confrontation when the members from two civilizations meet.

Given that every civilization in the world today has become, more or less, a hybrid civilization through centuries of contact and communication with other civilizations, “globalization from within” will not be accomplished until every civilization evolves itself into one that incorporates the common values and norms. As civilization is something that is created and shaped by human activities by individuals as artists and philosophers, scientists and engineers, industrialists and merchants, politicians and religious leaders, it is up to each and every individual to start acting as a global citizen in his/her respective role as a member of global civilization, which defines the values and norms of the global village.

What is required of the individual is, first, to absorb the hybridity of global civilizations and, then, to transcend that hybridity to find the sense of belonging and identity in the global village shaped by that global civilization. From the psychological perspective, the task of accomplishing “globalization from within” is nothing but the task of discovering Self, which, by integrating the workings of our both conscious and unconscious minds, enables us to become one with the universe.

The spiritual traditions of the world provide us hints and instructions as to how we can go about accomplishing “globalization from within”, which goes by different terms. Hinduism calls it moksa, or liberation, which can be accomplished through jnana-marga (the path through knowledge), kama-marga (the path through work), or bhakti-marga (the path through devotion). The Buddha inherits this Hindu tradition by expounding on the path called arya-ashtangika-marga (The Noble Eightfold Path) that would accomplish “globalization from within” which he calls nirvana. When Jesus pronounces, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44), he is telling us the importance of discovering love as an agent of transforming the individual world of psyche into heaven, for love is an entity, or a form of energy, that envelopes and pervades all things in the universe. Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c1327) echoes the same advice when he says: “There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.” (Directions for the Contemplative Life) Each one of us must find the path of “globalization from within” that fits our temperament and orientation if we are to restore the global village as a hospitable place we can all call “home”.