In April 2009, a new book
to move humankind to a new, safer place

LIVING
Beyond War
A Citizen’s Guide


"Winslow Myers has not only written an important story about the causes and consequences of war, but also provides a comprehensive roadmap for the journey to a world of which humanity has long dreamed, a world beyond war."

Richard Rathbun
President, Foundation for Global Community

YouTube video review by inspired, young reader

       

"A winsome manifesto, at once lyrical and hard-edged, Beyond War evoked the new vista of 21st century possibilities that only now seem imaginable. . .a sense of shared values, collective labor, and good will, that cuts through argument, disables stereotypes, and outlives fear."

Bruce Lawrence   
Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke Univsrsity

by
WINSLOW MYERS
Foreword by Brian Swimme

ORBIS BOOKS Maryknoll, New York April 2009 180 pages
Order

Contents

Foreword, by Brian Swimme

Introduction
A Dream Whose Time Has Come
    Impractical, Naïve, and Utopian?
    A Grassroots Upwelling
    A Guidebook for Ending War
    Three Guiding Principles
    Three Core Practices
    Decision and Action
    Live the Questions
    American Leadership
    Living Beyond War Today

Part One: War Is Obsolete

1. War Doesn’t Work
    War Is Dysfunctional
    The “War on Terror”
    The Many Costs of War

2. War Will Be Fatal Unless We Change
    “The Unleashed Power of the Atom”
    Drifting toward the Waterfall
    Cracks in the Dam of Deterrence
    Survival and Change

3. The Root Cause of War
    Acknowledging Our Shadow
    Cooperation and War

Part Two: We Are One on This Planet

4. An Open Mind
    Searching for Truth
    Our Worldview Aff ects Reality

5. Interdependence
    Your Fate Is My Fate
    Unity and Interdependence
    Expanding Our Identification

Part Three: The Means Are the Ends in the Making

6. Living Beyond War
    I Will Resolve Conflict. I Will Not Use Violence.
    I Will Maintain an Attitude of Goodwill. I Will Not
        Preoccupy Myself with an Enemy.
    I Will Work Together with Others to Build a World
        Beyond War.

7. Far Better Than War
    Diplomacy and Nonviolent Confl ict-Resolution Processes
    The Contribution of Appropriate Humanitarian
    Foreign Aid to Developing Countries
    Respect for and Adherence to International Law
    Cooperation and Collaboration with Other Nations

Part Four: The Challenge of Change

8. The Process of Change
    Building Agreement on Principle
    The Diff usion of Innovations

9. Decision

10. The Power of Dialogue
    What Is Dialogue?
    Beyond Argument
    Beyond Impatience
    Beyond Inauthenticity
    Beyond Fear: The Power of Story
    Beyond Drift
    Beyond Assumptions
    Beyond Boxes
    Building a Shared Vision

11. Hope

Appendixes
    A. Further Reading and Viewing
    B. Excerpts from a 2002 Editorial by Matthew
    Happold, Professor of Law, University of
    Nottingham
    C. Excerpts from an Editorial in the Wall Street
    Journal by Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn,
    George Shultz, and William Perry
    D. A Voice from Africa: Excerpts from Njabulo
    Ndebele’s Commencement Address at
    Wesleyan University, May 2004

Acknowledgments




"The abolition of war...is no longer an ethical question
to be pondered solely by
learned philosophers and ecclesiastics,
but a hard-core one for the decision of the masses
whose survival is the issue."

—Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 1961

"Man will put an end to war,
or war will put an end to man.
"
—John F. Kennedy, 1961

"War is an instrument entirely
inefficient toward redressing wrong:
and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."

——Thomas Jefferson

"The unleashed power of the atom
has changed everything save our modes of thinking,
and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

—Albert Einstein

"Preventing nuclear war means preventing all war."
—Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr.

"Too many people believe you have to
be either for or against the Iranian people.
Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and
everyone’s an individual.
The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense."

—Admiral William Fallon
former head of the U.S. Central Command
in charge of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

"The conscious choice to
take responsibility for the continuation of human life
is further complicated by the fact that
we are able to respond to it only before it happens.
Since after extinction
no one will be present to take responsibility,
we have to take responsibility now."

—Jonathan Schell

"A human being is part of the whole,
called by us the universe.
A part limited in time and space. He experiences
himself, his thoughts and feelings, as
something separate from the rest,
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and to
affection for a few persons nearest
to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion to
embrace all living creatures."

—Albert Einstein

"Once a photograph of the whole earth from space becomes available
a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose."

—Fred Hoyle, astronomer, 1948

"Always remember you are absolutely unique.
Just like everyone else."

—Margaret Mead

"You can’t assert yourself in the world as if nobody was
there. Because this is not a clash of ideas.
There are people attached to those ideas.
If you want to live without violence, you have to realize
that other people are as real as you are."

—Clifford Geertz

"You never change things by fighting existing reality . . .
To change something, build
a new model that makes the existing models obsolete."

—Buckminster Fuller

"One day we must come to see that peace is
not merely a distant goal we seek,
but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.
We must pursue peaceful ends by peaceful means."

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Public sentiment is everything.
With public sentiment nothing can fail;
without it, nothing can succeed.
Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes
deeper than he who
enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.
He makes statutes or decisions
possible or impossible to be executed."

—Abraham Lincoln

"Never doubt that
a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

—Margaret Mead

"An enemy is one whose story we have not heard."
—Gene Knudsen-Hoffman

"When I meet a man,
I am not concerned about his opinions.
I am concerned about the man."

—Martin Buber

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask,
“Mother, what was war?"

—Eve Merriam


Order