“To Leap Beyond yet Nearer Bring”. From War to Peace to Nonviolence to Nonkilling
[first published in Peace Research. Canadian Journal of Peace Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1996)]
Summary: We “leap beyond,” hopefully Nearer [to] bring,” by raising a question. As Bertrand Russell has observed, “Philosophy begins when someone asks a general question and so does science” (Russell,1977: 10). The question is, “Is a nonkilling society possible- If not, why not- If yes, why- Since a “nonkilling society” is not a common term in English or perhaps in any other language, we need an initial explanation. Let us take it to be a society with three defining characteristics, each with two parts. First, there is no killing of humans and no threat to kill. Second, there are no weapons specifically designed to kill humans and no justifications for using them. And third, there are no social conditions that depend upon threat or use of killing force for maintenance or change.
