Introduction
Though, the love of peace is an eternal desire of every human but there is also satisfaction paralleling with peace. Power, wealth, knowledge, fame, etc put men into conflicts with each other because these are social characteristics and men share them with each other. Everyone struggles for a bigger share and hence it put men into conflicts. It is why Machiavelli defined politics as a “perpetual conflict”. Surely, the satisfactions are momentarily as by achievements men grow for a desire of bigger achievements. When one grows, he expands his rights for bigger share because he sees himself capable of getting bigger shares. And why should he stop himself of getting more share while he can do? Surely! Everyone has some capability to grow and hence the power to effect others. The capability of everyone to effect each other forced men to create codes of interactions, exchanges and socializations that collectively, we know as laws.
Peace: Laws are social adaptations in order to achieve peace. Laws are also adapted to achieve order in a human population living together. Hence laws are evolutionary products that evolved men to evolve societies, cities, countries and civilizations and in today’s world a global village. If we look from perspective of law, peace and order is synonym. Hence we can define in social terms as, “Peace is a social order”.
Now when we have defined peace as well as we have known the nature of peace, so studying and discussing peace is a not a difficult task for us. As laws are men’s products as they depend on human experience, knowledge and intellect. As men’s intellect, experience, and knowledge grow so the laws are also grow. Based on these conclusions it is easy to deduce that every society has its own levels of orders relative to their experiences and knowledge. Similarly, we can deduce that every society has its own level of peace.
Peace is not just absence of violence but it is level of order. How much a society has peace depends on its level of order. As there are levels of order so there is levels of conflicts. Before going to discuss more elaborately the relations between laws, crime culture and peace, I would like to pose a radical question here. As Machiavelli defined politics as perpetual conflicts, so is there possible that there is perpetual peace also. My answer is certainly, yes. As peace is social order, so it was existed as men getting to know about them. There were always order to some degree in terms of family, tribe, nation, organizations and etc.
Laws: “Law is the minimum requirement of a human’s society to live in. Laws are made and approved by consensus.” ” If one breaks the laws or fails to comply with laws then it is understood that he is not fit with orders of society or he is dangerous for peace of society. Hence he is declared criminal. The laws are there to make criminals back to order and for this different kinds of disciplinary actions or punishments are devised. However, laws are the source of excellence. Those who abide laws are not considered as special as it is expected from all members of society to abide laws of that society. In other words it is the responsibility of every citizen to abide laws.
Values: Yes! Every society has its own systems of excellence. These systems of excellence which are commonly known as values make individuals according to them special. An individual is valued according to his values.
Argument: Laws are developed as historical developments and social adaptations of men to attain order and peace. Laws are neither the source of excellence nor abiding them people special but they are responsibility of every citizens and members of society as they are the assurance of safety of specialties, achievements, progress and weak that can’t defend an survive by themselves. It doesn’t mean that societies are devoid of any means of excellence. Every society has developed their own systems of excellence for everyone equally and these are known as values. There are organizations and institutions in every society for helping its members achieving and evolving in these values.
More important than this is the fact that laws are mechanism for peace. Because peace is neither satisfaction nor it is the end of conflicts. Conflicts are perpetual and satisfactions are momentarily, so peace is real sense is order. Peace was existed there forever living side by side of conflicts. I accept that conflicts never end and will always be on work as a "hub of evolution" but I also believe that, "conflicts are also evolving" and this evolution would distinguish us from the "perpetual conflicts of beasts". What I mean by peace is not end of conflicts but evolution of conflicts from beastly competition to human competitions. The competitions which ensure "freedoms of human consciousness" that lead us to human excellence". What men have constructed are "civilizations" and what men compete each other for in conflicts are also for construction and development of civilizations. The sources of conflicts are the differences between visions of "civilizations". It is inhuman to destroy a civilization. It is just expression of shallowness in level of evolution or more clearly, "expression of beastly conflicts".
There are several reasons for differences between visions of civilizations. The main reason is ignorance. Ignorance, about other civilizations and ignorance in understanding them and both types of ignorance exist in today’s world of information technology. The main reasons for lack of understanding are lack of interest or a threat to interest and misinformation that benefit some individuals.
These individuals are the sources of consensus which make laws. Surely every system has flaws which make powerful and wealthy individuals in ranks of decision making. The consensus between these powerful and wealthy individuals does not always represent the consensus and desire of people they represent. These laws and policies that these individuals make are the sources of international conflicts. Misinformation and ignorance about other civilization suit the positions and interests of them so they try to keep them molded in their own benefits. Awareness and empowerment of common people by new technologies are one of hope to reduce ignorance and make people more able to decide about themselves and about the relations with fellow men. The empowerment of masses may also help in making laws that assure justice and sustainable peace by evolving beastly conflicts into humanly conflicts.
Conclusion: Men can achieve perpetual peace from the smallest unit that is individual to global level by evolving laws. For evolution of laws it is necessary to evolve the consensus through which laws come. If the laws are made out of consensus of powerful and neglected the weak, beastly conflicts will not evolve to human conflicts.
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