Strategies Against Violence: Design For Nonviolent Change

"What would you do to advance the cause of peace in this mad world?" An outstanding group of professionals in psychology, psychiatry, sociology, political science, law, education, journalism, philosophy, and the arts answer this question, working with the concepts and tools of their fields to build a plan or model for behaviours that are likely to advance man toward peace and nonviolent change. They provide a rich sampling of the new ideas for human life that are needed if we are, in fact, ever to evolve into a more peaceful species. The book grew out of a series of sessions organized and chaired by Israel Charny at the annual meetings of the American Ortho-psychiatric Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The contributions are organized around three themes: the person, the community and the culture, and the world. Topics include a model for nonviolent strength to counter aggression by others; an examination of the psychology of Adolph Eichmann, with some startling conclusions about how men should cultivate their normal aggressive emotions and enjoy fantasies of violence; how the American democratic process can be turned unknowingly toward disastrous collective violence; and the problem of reducing the contagion of violence spread by daily newscasts of violent events.

Israel W. Charny is senior researcher at the Henrietta Szold National Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences in Jerusalem and associate professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University's Center of Criminology and School of Social Work.