Peace Out
Why Civil Society Cannot Save the World
Article Summary and Author Biography
Two new books -- one condemning the culture of liberal piety embraced by the Nobel Peace Prize, the other detailing the global influence of conservative civil society -- underscore the dangers of using Big Ideas to try to save the world.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD is James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and Editor-at-Large of The American Interest.
Cambridge University Press
2012
240 pp.
0521145449
$26.99
Blinded by the light: protesting in Central Park, New York City, 1967 (Getty Images / Fred W. McDarrah)
Every aspiring beauty-pageant queen knows what to say when asked what she wants most: "World peace." World peace is at least nominally what we all want most. But evidently, we are not very good at making it. The modern peace movement is almost 200 years old; its origins can be traced to the period that followed the devastating wars of the Napoleonic era in Europe. In those two centuries, peace movements have had little discernible impact on world events, and what effect they have had has often been bad: the European peace and disarmament movement of the 1930s, for example, greatly facilitated Hitler's plans for a war of revenge. For all the good they have done, those well-intentioned souls who have sought to achieve world peace through the organization of committees, the signing of petitions, the holding of rallies, and the promotion of international treaties might just as well have stayed home...
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