Ursula Franklin said “peace is not the absence of war, but the absence of fear”. The context, from an interview about the use of force in the pursuit of peace, is:

Peace, for me, is a consequence of justice. For that reason, peace is defined, not as the absence of war, but as the absence of fear. And for that reason I am convinced that means that are unjust or violent cannot, even for the best of reasons, provide peace.

https://peacemanagine.org/archive/v10n6p23.htm

This is a high bar. No enforced ceasefire, no polite society with deadly force in its grin, no economic end of history where war is merely too expensive to capital. Instead, justice is present, fear is absent, war naturally evaporated.

Identifying fear with the cause of conflict reframes war as an emotional response - not as a reasonable, rational, regrettable but sadly inevitable way humans tend to behave.

The Religious Society of Friends has since its founding been known for its peace testimony. It sits alongside several other denominations and movements known as “peace churches” which place particular emphasis on nonviolence and pacifism.

These churches generally concur that violence on behalf of nations and their governments is contrary to Christian morality, but agree that the teachings of Jesus were to explain the principles of the Kingdom of God rather than and contrasted with the ways of any earthly government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_churches

An example of this emphasis is in the Quaker approach to aid and development. From a Quaker Service Australia report on a project in Cambodia:

KCD has demonstrated how language skills training can promote inter-ethnic peace in other locations. A shared language is a critical prerequisite for promoting understanding between these diverse ethnic communities … This project provides ethnic Vietnamese children with the language skills they need to overcome many of their current disadvantages and provides opportunities for children from different ethnic groups to work and play together. … With the start of Khmer language classes, most Vietnamese children are learning Khmer for the first time.

https://www.qsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/QSA-Notes-June-2023-Peacebuilding-in-Cambodia.pdf

A focus on material needs is important, but a distinctly Quaker-flavored form of community development is to focus on the language barrier that allows fear and estrangement to survive.

Filed under:quotesquaker

Ursula Franklin was a scientist, author, activist and Quaker who wrote, among many things, on technology.

De-escalate speed, and also de-escalate vocabulary. Much of our vocabulary comes, again, out of production and advertising. I think we might make a pact with each other never to use the word “awesome”. I think the world was fine without the word awesome. De-escalate vocabulary, de-escalate hype.

Ursula Franklin Speaks

I consider reflecting on the ways my vocabulary and attitudes are shaped by a consumerist and technological society to be part of my spiritual practise.

Hype and marketing lead us awayh from the truth in order to influence others. I want to remember, when I am trying to be persuasive, to influence using truth, not exaggeration.

It’s good enough if things work. Everything doesn’t have to be “splendid”, “cutting edge”, “world class”. Those are responses to production. See where those things come from.

It’s very poor practice to hurry on your plants in the winter; when we have fluorescent lights all our plants get spindly and look miserable. There is nothing to speed per se.

Like efficiency, speed has a direction. It is not its own virtue; it depends on towards what we are speeding. And while there are many injustices we wish to speed away from, speed allows or necessitates us to miss details, to omit nuance, sometimes to fail to attend adequately to reality.

Filed under:quotestech

The epigraph to Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities reads:

“We are all very near despair. The sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

I’m struck by how the swing from despair to contentment in the quote mirrors the journey of her book’s title, from death to life.

The quote resonates so much with me because of this fragment: “the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort”.

I have a real sense that we humans are made to be creative, to strive, to exert our effort. We aren’t made for drudgery, for rote work or degrading toil. Our effort sustains us in a world that constantly challenges and threatens us. It is how we care for each other.

This innate creativity can be twisted - into hustle culture, into propsperity gospels, into class warfare that convinces the poor that they must overwork themselves to enrich the owners. But I, for my part, still feel most content when I have done hard work for a good cause.

I made this quote the epigraph for my own website because I want it to be a statement of intent, a reflection of what I value and why I write.

Filed under:quotes