The Idiot Guide to World Peace

THE IDIOT GUIDE TO WORLD PEACE presents an alternative approach to the question of how to bring about world peace. The author's point of departure is that a fundamental change of the current violence-inducing social and political structures can only come about through a psychological transformation on the individual psychic level. The book provides the reader with the tools for inner change, by offering alternative information, not readily available with the mass media, so as to sharpen the individual's critical mind, by fostering creative thinking along the lines of peacemaking. It is obvious that every peace process must start at the level of the individual, and at the inner level, the level of the mindbody, and the spirit. This is so because work on our inner selves brings to daylight that violence really begins inside, before it catalyzes in the outside world as a result of many people's inner war. The imperative is thus to stop this inner war first of all. While the author provides conclusive information about political and legal strategies for bringing peace to the world, these strategies or policies alone will achieve nothing of grand impact if not a change of consciousness on the inner human level accompanies them. This is so much the more important when socially explosive and somehow painful social and personal problems are concerned, for then it really is paramount to be flexible and open-minded for finding more peaceful and human approaches to deal with them. The author shows with quite a body of evidence that world peace is and remains utopia if we continue to deny viable solutions to today's stringent social questions that are more or less veiled by the mass media, or presented in a distorted manner. Science has given clues for us to be certain that the pleasure function is the natural self-regulative motor that promotes human solutions, communication and peaceful interaction. The way to fight violence, to paraphrase James W. Prescott, is to enhance pleasure, and first of all tactile pleasure, and to bring caring touch again in all forms of human interaction, especially with the young. Adult-child affectionate relations and non-harmful erotic interaction have to be recognized and socially coded; without bringing this about as a new social paradigm and policy, world peace cannot be achieved. Why this is so, while it may be a novel insight for many, the author elucidates in this guide.