How to shape peace today

On International Day of Peace, Christine Schliesser counts today’s conflicts, deliberately imagines peace, and recalls an old song.

Christine Schliesser

Christine Schliesser lectures in Theology and Ethics at Zurich University, and is a scientific collaborator with the Center for Faith & Society at Fribourg University.

a dirt barricade blocks a cross roads, behind which stands a roadside cross

A crossroads in Ukraine.

Jonny Gios on Unsplash.

One in four. This is the number of people living in conflict-affected areas on this planet. A record 100 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide. Psychologists tell us that we can only process numbers in the two-digit realm in a meaningful way. Any number larger than that eclipses our capacities to attach a face, a story, an existence to that number. 100,000,000 is simply too large to picture. So imagine the entire UK population on the run, plus the population of Australia, plus that of Hongkong. In 2022, 16,988 civilians were killed in armed conflicts, which is a 53 per cent increase compared to the year before. And as you read these lines, there are 32 ongoing violent conflicts in the world, including drug wars, terrorist insurgencies, ethnic conflict, and civil wars.

Just as we are overwhelmed with trying to grasp the extent of violence, conflict and war, we are equally at loss with imagining peace. When in 1981 the United Nations General Assembly established the International Day of Peace (IDP), it was recognizing exactly this by emphasizing that “it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. Constructing, envisioning, imagining. The tough world of realpolitik, however, seems to leave no place for such kind of romantic games of mind. Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor of Germany, made no attempt to hide his scorn for the imaginary, “Let him who has visions consult a doctor”. This shows a remarkable misconception of reality, however. French philosopher Henri Bergson points to the power of imagination, for to invent “gives being to what did not exist; it might never have happened”. Perceiving and transforming reality thus become mutually supportive forces. And the numbers above make it clear that peace is not the default option of reality, but needs to be envisioned. “Inventing peace”, as film director Wim Wenders calls this conscious effort.

Restoring momentum to the SDGs is a crucial sign of life for global cooperation – and for peace.

So peace begins in our minds, but it cannot remain there. Just as love yearns to be embodied, peace seeks concrete shape. And just as the shape of love is acts of kindness, the shape of peace is acts of justice. In the Jewish and Christian tradition, the term shalom is used to convey this kind of inclusive vision of peace and justice. This year’s International Day of Peace (IDP) coincides with the UN General Assembly. When conceived 78 years ago, a vital part of the United Nations’ raison d'être was the common vision for peace. The experiences of the horrors of two world wars totalling more than 76 million people dead – another one of these unfathomable numbers –united the nations of this world in their quest for peace. Yet the shape of peace is justice. So three years after the conception of the UN, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born, celebrating its 75th birthday this year.

As the world leaders currently convene for the UN General Assembly, however, the nations assembled there will be anything but united. The demand and supply of international collaboration seem grossly disproportionate as multiple challenges, including geopolitical, ecological and economic crises, eat away on multilateral ties. This year’s IDP also coincides with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) summit, marking the mid-point milestone of the goals.

Endorsed in 2015, the 17 SDGs unfold the vision of a better world, including the eradication of poverty, advancing education and gender equality and environmental stewardship. If justice is the currency of peace, it seems only appropriate that this year’s IDP’s theme is ‘Actions for Peace: Our Ambition for the #GlobalGoals’. “Peace is needed today more than ever”, says UN Secretary-General António Guterres. This, in turn, means that the vision spelt out by the SDGs is needed today more than ever. It is a misunderstanding to conceive of the SDGs as an add-on for better times. Rather, restoring momentum to the SDGs is, as Stewart Patrick and Minh-Thu Pham from the Carnegie Foundation point out, a crucial sign of life for global cooperation – and for peace, one may add.

To dispel the ever-prevalent “myth of redemptive violence” as the still predominant paradigm, we need exactly this kind of active imagination.

One would think that the scale of the challenges spelt out by the 17 SDGs requires the joint collaboration of all actors. Yet one factor that is strikingly absent in this equation is religion. This is all the more remarkable given the fact that 85 per cent of this planet’s population profess adherence to a faith tradition, according to the World Population Review 2022. This makes faith communities the largest transnational civil society actors. Now religion – every religion – is inherently ambivalent. But this means that each religion can not only be used to incite hatred and violence, but also contains potent resources for peace and reconciliation.

Many of the SDGs including peace, justice, equality and care of creation to name but a few align with core concerns of, for example, the Christian faith tradition. Just imagine the potential for transformational change towards peace and justice if faith-based actors worked together, among each other and with secular actors! To dispel the ever-prevalent “myth of redemptive violence” (Walter Wink) as the still predominant paradigm, we need exactly this kind of active imagination. Or as the poet of an ancient song once put it:

“Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss”.

For more information on the role of religion in the SDGs, read the Open Access book series “Religion Matters. On the Significance of Religion for Global Issues” (Routledge), edited by Christine Schliesser et al.

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Mental Health

Podcasts

14 October 2024

4 min read

What all those BetterHelp ads say about ourselves

Podcasting and therapy alike scratch our itch to be inquisitive about things, even our own inner worlds.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

A podcaster speaks into a mic before a screen.

Soundtrap on Unsplash.

There's one dominion Amazon hasn't conquered. Jeff Bezos famously chose his company's name, in part, because it's the largest river in the world and he wanted to create the world's largest bookstore. And Amazon has flooded the market. But as the world of podcasting is taking over our commutes and leisure time, Amazon isn't taking it over. That top spot belongs to BetterHelp.

Now that I've mentioned it, you probably know what I'm referring to: the ubiquitous ads offering online therapy, often reassuringly read by the podcast hosts themselves. Although Amazon is the second largest ad buyer on podcasts, BetterHelp spends more. A lot more. In the US, BetterHelp spent $22million in the second quarter of this year, followed by Amazon with $13million. . BetterHelp has pretty much been the top spender on podcasts Clearly, BetterHelp thinks the demand for therapy is right up there with the convenience of getting stuff delivered to your door.

The message of online therapy, and the medium of podcasts makes for a neat match. It seems our wants and needs are more and more solo endeavours. Our desire for entertainment and help are becoming something we access alone, behind headphones and closed doors.

Overhearing people talking about their therapist in a metropolitan café is now as as common as the extra-hot flat whites themselves.

I was stunned when I heard recently that Saturday Night Live celebrated fifty years on TV. It was a reminder of an age when families and friends would diarise prime-time weekend entertainment together in front of the glow of the screen. But common experiences are diminishing. Harvard fellow Flynn Coleman highlights that the third spaces where we have customarily congregated, found community, and ourselves, are vanishing.

She is, of course, right. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of the damage our atomised online worlds have created. But where the CDC health report last year tragically detailed the harm social media causes teenage girls, the online space is not without hope. Krish Kandiah writes, 'Instead of demonising new technology as the problem, perhaps we need to find ways to turn it into the solution.'The online world isn't going away, so it must be at least part of the solution. Teletherapy is now available on the NHS, and while there are questions over the affordability and availability of online mental health care, and I cannot vouch for BetterHelp, making therapy more accessible by taking it online plays an important part in winning the battle of declining mental health.

Far from an echo chamber, an online therapist can challenge presumptions at right angles and enable clients to access worlds they previously only dreamed of. And, any good therapist wouldn't encourage you to isolate yourself. We still need community.

Therapy isn't as much a solo endeavour as we might first think. Of course, the therapeutic relationship itself is between two people, however objective one party might be. And just as the old adage goes, 'a problem shared is a problem halved', overhearing people talking about their therapist in a metropolitan café is now as as common as the extra-hot flat whites themselves. Therapy is losing its stigma, and the benefits of it are shared just as we want to share a podcast that's stimulated or amused us.

That elusive arrival at contentment, of happiness, of satisfaction is quite the claim for an online service provider to make.

Some things are sacred, though. James Marriott recently argued in The Times that the burden on those in the public spotlight to overshare isn't always helpful. How, where and with whom we share our inner thoughts matters. The Christian tradition sees that growth happens through relationship, rather than through broadcasting. Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila wrote almost half a millennia ago about a journey inward, inside of ourselves to a space where only God dwells, if we choose to let him enter. On that journey, she wrote ‘It is a great advantage for us to be able to consult someone who knows us, so that we may learn to know ourselves.’

On that journey of self-knowledge, the online world can enhance our lives, but not replace it. Just as The Rest is History podcast can give you details about ‘greatest monkeys' that your friend can't, specialist help from an online therapist will help you in ways friends won't. But BetterHelp wants to be your friend. The main heading on their website mimics what we've probably all heard from someone we know: 'You deserve to be happy'. They've learnt from the Steve Jobs school of marketing: don't sell the product or service; sell how it will make them feel. That elusive arrival at contentment, of happiness, of satisfaction is quite the claim for an online service provider to make.

Podcasting and therapy alike scratch our itch to be inquisitive about things, even our own inner worlds. Where podcasting has challenged the old powers that sought to control the flow of information, we also do well to listen to external expert help. In this age, the online stream can flow information to us which, like the Amazon, might overwhelm us. It’s worth us asking: is there an external source of even better help available? One that will overwhelm us too – but instead overwhelm with the love we crave in our deepest selves?