foreword: forward

With these words, as with all of my work, I aim for nothing less than the transformation of global consciousness. Recognizing that this is a very tall order, I've decided to start with you, with teaching you how to become a Resolver as best I know how. In fact, this is the only place that I can start, because the transformation of global consciousness can only occur one person at a time, one link at a time, in what I hope will be an ever-increasing, momentum-gathering giant leap forward, of which I hope to be (and hope you will be) a very small, but very significant, part.

All major transformations for our species have begun this way, in the mind of one human and then transferred piece by piece, person by person, heart by heart, until they simply became "the way things are." In her book The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong describes the relatively short period of extreme change (only a couple of hundred years) that took place during what she calls the Axial Age, and which gave birth to numerous religious traditions that continue to influence minds today, including Judaism (which paved the way for Christianity and Islam), Hinduism, and Buddhism. Let's add here other ideas throughout the course of human history that have marked significant shifts, born of the musings of folks such as Plato, Virgil, Shakespeare, Guttenberg, Linnaeus, Jefferson, Lincoln, Salk, Stanton, and Einstein. I'll stress here that these are only a tiny few of the minds that have revolutionized everything, and brought all of humanity forward to this moment fairly successfully, brought us to this space in time that finds, among other things, me writing and you reading.

Now to be clear, I hardly confuse myself with any of the names listed above. But I do recognize that I'm standing on the shoulders of these giants, and some other giants of whom you may have not yet heard but who I think will end up being equally significant to our species, folks like Alfred North Whitehead, Emile Durkheim, and Martin Buber (to name only a few, people you'll learn more about in these pages). I am deeply indebted to these and all of the other thinkers listed above, as are you, I believe you'll find, if you stop and consider them for a moment. I don't think it can be denied that we owe them for all the possibilities that they strove for, all the hope that they poured into the world by pursuing perfection, grace, and understanding, for leaving the world better than they found it, for us. Indeed, we owe them our very selves. So I think that we also owe them the act that is picking up the standard where it fell from their hands and trudging forward as far as we can go in the direction they were pointing. We owe them tomorrow.

There are two extremely important names that I left off of the above list that I'd like you to think about now, because it is these two gentlemen who we will, more than anyone, be following as we make our way together in learning about both Conflict Resolution and Community. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as The Mahatma, "the great-souled one") and The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are men who changed everything, for everyone, and they did it just this last century, laying the groundwork for a new human path unlike anyone before them had ever done. The history of human interaction has always been marked by conflict, by struggle, by war, by the idea that in order to settle differences, physical violence and aggression were often not only necessary, but normal. It has always been "the way things are."

This is no longer the case.

It can be said that Gandhi and King waged the only truly successful revolutions in human history, if success is measured in terms of the means by which they were striving rather than by the end which they had in mind. These two men stood against injustice and oppression without employing the usual tools of these approaches to social control. They avoided lifting a single hand in aggression, and ultimately arrived via these means at the end they sought. Thanks to the work these truly gentle men did in responding to violence not with swords but with words, with nonviolent acts, with compassion, grace, and fortitude, we have two nearly perfect examples of what it means to interact differently as humans, to interact from a perspective that incorporates peace, respect, and dignity as "normal" and eschews violence and all other forms of aggression as (at the very best) woefully misguided, or (at the very worst) as harbingers of doom.

Today, we also have another thing which folks in the past who were trying to improve upon our course had no access to: we have the capacity for instantaneous communication and preservation of knowledge delivered via the internet and telecommunications. We have remembered, preserved, and built upon Gandhi's and King's work because in a lot of ways we have had no other choice: the memory of their accomplishments is freely accessible and openly available to anyone with an internet connection or a library card. We cannot gaze upon the image of either of these two men without thinking about Compassion (or without knowing fairly clearly what that idea means), and all humans who have heard their story are party to this experience. In other words, we have our standard-bearers; they have not fallen. We must only choose to follow.

This is where you come in. To my mind, the Global Transformation I spoke of above has to be an inner transformation. If we are to truly follow in the path of Gandhi and King, then the harsh reality is that we'll have to look at ourselves and root out the violence and aggression therein: this would seem most helpful and most useful, and would play a significant role in simmering down the boil that many would say characterizes human reality these days. It isn't violence and aggression over there that is the problem (although it is indeed a problem) - it's the violence and aggression right here that diminishes our capacity to believe in peace, in one another, and in ourselves. And now, for the first time in human history, we have the opportunity and the means by which to join with others in fashioning a Community of Resolvers that brings the knowledge and sensibilities born of these great thinkers to every other community to which we belong. Indeed, nonviolence is no longer only a political tool, it is a way of being, and the success or failure of this way of being is in our hands, and no one else's.

And this, dear reader, is the reason I described the path to peace as a "harsh reality." If you truly want to be at peace with your Self and with Others, then it's up to you. You'll likely have to take some hard looks at your own actions, intentions, and choices. Conflict isn't "out there" somewhere, in our coworkers or life-partners or kids, or in the strangers at the mall or on the freeway. It's within, in our responses to them. Like Gandhi and King, you'll have to really know this, and be ready to instantly forgive and to take responsibility for Resolution, even when you didn't "start" the conflict. In short, you'll have to let their mission guide you, and not your ego. If you think you're up to this task, if you're serious about becoming a Resolver, if you agree with me that there are few things more empowering, enlightening, or hopeful than learning how to bring everyone - especially ourselves - that elusive peace which we all seek, then by all means: please join me in turning the page.

- Michael Bush
Founder / Director