Читать книгу The Art of Waging Peace - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 22

You cannot go wrong if you assume nothing and treat everyone with respect and compassion.

—Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman¹

Martial arts taught me that we must first learn defense before we can truly learn offense. This timeless principle also applies to waging peace. Waging peace attacks the hatred, greed, deception, apathy, ignorance, and misunderstandings that permeate our society and hold people’s minds hostage. But before we can attack someone’s hatred, we must first learn to defend against it by knowing how to deescalate hostile situations.

Trying to attack hatred by being hateful in return is like trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. If I have a conflict with someone and kill that person out of hatred, the problem doesn’t necessarily go away. It could even escalate and become worse, because the person’s friends and family may decide to take revenge. This can be seen in countless examples of gang violence, feuds between families, and wars throughout history.

In this book I will describe four lines of defense that can stop violence in its tracks. The first line of defense is the infinite shield, while the second line of defense is the sword that heals, a term coined by Martin Luther King Jr. He said, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”²

What is the difference between the infinite shield and the sword that heals? The infinite shield consists of the respect expressed through our composure, attitude, and behavior. It speaks loudly not only with words, but also through actions, leading by example, and the respectful way we treat others. Sometimes the respect we give to others is all it takes to prevent and deescalate conflict on both a personal and societal level, but sometimes it is not enough. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the infinite shield is certainly powerful, yet it is not impenetrable and can be breached. When the respect we give to others is not enough to ensure peace and justice, the sword that heals uses strong ideas and persuasive dialogue to transform how people think, along with nonviolent tactics such as protests, boycotts, and other methods to apply political and social pressure. (In the second part of this book, I more thoroughly explore the sword that heals.)

When a conflict escalates to a point where you have to use your sword, the last thing you should do is drop your shield. When King used the sword that heals to nonviolently struggle for a more just and peaceful society, he did not abandon the respect he gave to others. He said:

The nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. This was always a cry that we had to set before people that our aim is not to defeat the white community, not to humiliate the white community, but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community . . . Then we had to make it clear also that the nonviolent resister seeks to attack the evil system [emphasis added] rather than individuals who happen to be caught up in the system. And this is why I say from time to time that the struggle in the South is not so much the tension between white people and Negro people. The struggle is rather between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will not be a victory merely for fifty thousand Negroes. But it will be a victory for justice, a victory for good will, a victory for democracy.³

Because waging peace is such a deep and complex art form, a person could write a very long book about the subject and still only scratch the surface. Therefore a central question I had to ask myself when writing this book was, since there is so much to say about waging peace, how can I best offer a thorough explanation of waging peace, describe the obstacles that prevent us from achieving peace, and refute the myths of war in a relatively short book? To keep this book accessible I decided to write with the following principle in mind: focus on the basic building blocks. The purpose of this book is not to explain every tiny detail about waging peace, which would require thousands of pages, but to instead explain the basic building blocks of waging peace. By doing this I hope to offer you a foundational understanding that you can build on through your own personal study.

So far we have explored the basic building blocks of the infinite shield, but we could easily explore the infinite shield for several hundred more pages because there are so many ways to use it. Just as ancient Greek shields were made primarily of bronze, I have explained how the infinite shield is comprised primarily of respect. But I have not yet described the many ways we can use the infinite shield and the countless situations where it can be effective. Just as the ancient Greeks had to develop their skill at using a bronze shield and learn how to wield it in combat, we must learn how to wield the infinite shield and use it for maximum effectiveness.

One way to wield the infinite shield is in the realm of leadership. An entire book could be written just on how the respect we give to others significantly improves our overall leadership ability, and how different ways of conveying respect can be used to solve numerous leadership challenges. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman offers some insights into how being respectful and professional makes us much better leaders and mentors:

A warrior trainer is a sensei—a professional—who has confidentiality standards like a priest or a doctor. Say a doctor conducts a physical examination where he checks a police officer from top to bottom. Do you think at night over a beer he tells other doctors about the officer and laughs about the poor man’s droopy butt? No, because he is a professional . . .

Friends tease each other. SWAT teams tease each other; it comes with the territory. If you are a leader, however, you are not permitted to play the teasing game. You never joke about your trainees’ failures, but you do brag about their achievements. Your entire repertoire is to talk about what went right . . . When word gets out that this is the type of trainer you are, people will no longer avoid training but will want to be there because of the environment you have created.

The fundamental rule of warrior leadership is to punish in private and praise in public. Report all failures and problems up the chain of command, but report successes to everyone. Maybe you were publicly punished and embarrassed at one time and now you despise the person who did it to you. Perhaps there was a time when a leader called you into his office and told you in private that you did a great job yesterday. While you appreciated the nice comments, you wish he had said them in front of everyone. (It’s only fair, if you had messed up everyone would know!) . . . Do not talk trash about your students. Punish in private, praise in public. This is the way that a warrior-trainer, a sensei, creates a training environment in which the warrior spirit is nurtured and his warriors want to train.”⁴

When a Greek soldier wielded his bronze shield with the right techniques he could block spears and arrows on the battlefield. When we wield the infinite shield with the right techniques we can block avoidable misunderstandings and unnecessary hostility not only in the workplace, but in our friendships and relationships. One technique I would like to discuss is the way we can wield the infinite shield to calm people down. One of the most important life skills we can have is the ability to calm people down, because if people are not calm they cannot think clearly. Grossman explains:

Have you ever tried to have an argument or a discussion with a truly frightened or angry person? It cannot be done, because the more frightened and angry the person is, the less rational he is. This is because his forebrain has shut down and his midbrain, the one like a dog’s, is in control. In fact, you might as well try to argue with your dog; he might be intrigued by the experience but it will not accomplish much. Nor will you accomplish much when trying to talk to a human being in this heightened condition. To connect with him, you must first calm him down.⁵