Peace and Conflict Studies

        Peace is a moment or a period of time when there is no conflict. On the other hand, conflict is a form of disagreement, either internally or externally. Both peace and conflict vary by levels, ranging from personal, household, community, national, and even global. One common factor among all people of the world is that both peace and conflict occur everyday in everyone’s life. So, what does peace look like? Is peace achievable? What does conflict look like? Can peace truly exist without conflict?

        Peace can come in many forms. For example, on the personal level, peace can be relaxing in a warm bubble bath after a long day at work, or it can be accomplishing a goal you’ve been working on for an extensive period of time. Another example, on the community level, peace can be reducing crime rates, or a large gathering of community members to clean up trash. Both of these examples I find very achievable. However, on the national or global level is where I find it difficult to give an example or create an image of peace without being unrealistic. I feel like the possibility of peace can be viewed as a probability. The fewer people you are trying to create peace amongst, the greater the probability is that peace will be successful. Similarly, the more people you are trying to create peace amongst, the lesser the probability is that peace will be successful. This is true, in the sense that while there are good people in the world, who strive for peace daily, not everyone views peace in the same light. Since peace is such a subjective word and is difficult to define, someone may feel that in order to create peace they need to have power over a group of people and dictate what those said individuals can and can’t do, while someone else may see that peace is created through freedom. This is where conflicts arise.

        Conflict, like peace, can also come in many forms. For example, on the personal level, conflict can be regretting a decision that you have made, or it can be the uncertainty of one’s future plans; On the community level, conflict can be an increase in crime rates, or it can be a large factory closing down, causing many members of the community to lose their jobs; On a national or global level, it can be involvement in war, or it can be an economic crisis. Conflict is easier to identify, because it is a negative aspect of life that we are responsible to fix. When you turn on the news, you may hear one story that talks about a positive result of a group/individual action, for every five stories that talk about conflicts going on at the moment. In fact, in today’s world, conflicts amongst celebrities, for example, are appealing to many people. They love hearing that celebrity A cheated on celebrity B, or that celebrity A fought with celebrity B over social media. Even worse is the hoards of people who tune into shows like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” just to see these people deal with their endless conflicts, while cheering on more conflicts to occur. Society thrives on conflict. With conflicts being so prevalent in today’s day and age, it is hard to see a future focused on peace. However, can peace exist without conflict?