“If you want peace, prepare for war.” That is a fairly popular quote based on a similar sentiment expressed by Publius Vegetius Renatus. Despite its popularity, I see some problems with it. Here’s my take on the phrase.
By itself, the quote seems short-sighted. If there’s a larger context to the quote that adds useful information, then I’d have to rethink this. At face value, however, preparing to fight without doing anything to prepare for peace just results in more fights as each fight lays the groundwork for the next fight. It’s gotten so bad that there are now powerful enough weapons to kill all humans and most other life on Earth (and there have been many instances in which that has almost happened). Clearly, preparing to fight has done nothing to bring peace.
The strangest part of this to me is that many who agree with this quote also seem to believe that pursuing peace will backfire and result in violence, destruction, and the loss of everything good. I don’t see how anyone can actually believe that cultivating anything related to love, gentleness, peace, tranquility, civility, effective communication, de-escalation, nonviolent conflict resolution, psychology, and the like will result in more violence. Especially when they believe that cultivating violence, aggression, and different ways to hurt others (new and old alike) will result in peace. That is the opposite of how it actually works. Those who get good at fighting and never get good at peace end up seeing fighting as the solution for every problem, whether on the small scale or large scale. Families whose interactions often involve violence, yelling, punishment, and other acts of cruelty have frequent fights, and the fighting tends to get passed down through many generations. The same is true for countries that feature lots of fighting among civilians, whether within one single country or between different countries. Similarly, the more peacefully humans interact with each other, the less fighting there is, whether between members of a family, civilians in different countries, or any other gathering of humans.
There are martial artists who, along with their fighting skills, develop respect for others and learn ways to avoid fights. As a result, most of them never need to use their skills in a defensive situation, and those who do turn to violence do so only as a last resort. Most of the martial artists I’ve met only use violence when they’re training with each other. A few of them have used violence in the real world to defend themselves when escaping, de-escalation, and other approaches failed, but those instances have been few and far between.
My best relationships didn’t become amazing through fighting or being prepared to fight at any given moment. They’re as good as they are because they’re with humans who can work through problems peacefully. If an issue arises between me and a friend, either of us can bring it up in a civil way and then we’ll work together to resolve it. There is a huge sense of safety in those relationships, and I love it. My worst relationships, meanwhile, featured fighting as the primary, and often only, response to problems. There was no safety, no actual love, and no lasting peace. I hated it, and I want none of that in any of my relationships going forward. If you examine the relationships you’ve had over your life, I suspect your experience and preferences with both good and bad relationships will be similar.
This has been on my mind since I joined a social media group dedicated to grownups who love teddy bears and other stuffed animal friends. Many members have one or more stuffed animals who have been with them from a young age, and several continue to collect new ones as they go. I love being part of that incredibly sweet group, and I love the company of my stuffed animal friends, whether they’ve been with me for a few years or since I was a little kid. Cultivating sweetness like that with stuffed animals is bound to spill over into interactions with real animals and humans (as it did with my dog Sawyer, who was my best friend ever, as well as my best human friends), making it a great way to bring more peace to a hurting world.
I long for the day in which humans not only no longer prepare to fight each other but never even think to do so. Were such a day to arrive, I have no idea how many generations it would take, how much healing would have to be done, and how many peaceful methods of solving problems and resolving conflict would be needed. The relationships in my life that have gone from contentious to peaceful have required conscious effort and lots of work on both my part and that of the other person. That’s been hard enough to do between only two humans, so I’m not holding my breath for it to happen between billions of humans anytime soon. I still hope that huge progress will be made in that direction during my life. Until then, I’ll keep doing what I can to prepare for peace with those close to me.