Patrick Geddes and the Science of Peace - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

As a biologist, Geddes was, as usual, an outsider, questioning the received wisdom and supposed inevitability of the ‘Darwinian’ struggle for existence. Independently, Patrick Geddes and the German marine biologist Karl Brandt recognised, not parasitism but mutualism – Zusamenleben. Instead of Tennyson’s ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’, Geddes focused on the biological and social achievements of cooperation, from protozoan symbiosis to complex human societies. The theory of competition as the essential factor of life drives all empire building and all wars, just as the mistaken claims of ‘Aryan’ racial superiority supposedly validated racism. Geddes’s alternative and positive analysis of how to live on this earth, including the mutual civic responsibilities of all citizens, informed every aspect of the original Cooperative Holidays Association and the Ferienheimgesellschaft. Leading scientists, including Fellows of the Royal Society, became volunteer teachers at CHA centres. On holiday together, in Britain, France and Germany, young people learned how their world is made and how to live together. Delivering messages of peace, they travelled to the Reichstag and to Westminster. Challenging and outspokenly opposing the determined policies of governments isn’t an easy choice. Throughout history, many dissidents have faced the worst penalties their governments can impose. Opposing war, and a government agenda determined on conflict and destruction, peace campaigners frequently experience the hostility expressed by the supposedly ‘patriotic’ majority. The past is not another country… Living wage... Housing… Child poverty... Health and Social Care… Education... The Environment… Anti-Semitism... Islamophobia... Eugenics… Hate crime… Proxy Wars… Arms trade... Chemical weapons... Oil… Pacifism...

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