Update of 2/24/2024: Perhaps, I underestimated the controversy of this research a bit. Here is e.g. a very critical article reflecting on Galtung: Lover of Tyranny, Not Peace Johan Galtung, the father of the academic discipline known as Peace Studies, died, as he lived, in the free world that he otherwise scorned and condemned. "Raised in privilege, he despised Western freedom and prosperity. ... His concepts of “structural violence” and “structural fascism” made it possible for him to argue that the United States was in fact far more brutal and oppressive than the USSR and Red China. ... He loved the USSR. He sneered at what he saw as America’s fetish for Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. In 1972, he celebrated Fidel Castro for having freed Cuba from “imperialism’s iron grip.” ..."
R.I.P.
Whether or not one agrees with his research, Professor Galtung made some important (perhaps some controversial) contributions to peace and conflict research.
E.g the term structural violence (Wikipedia: "also referred to as social injustice" or "oppression" [really ???]) has been quite possibly terribly abused many times by ideologues. It has become a term of art to be used/abused whenever convenient for ideological purposes. Thus, it has become devoid of meaning and most likely removed from how Galtung defined it.
The irony here is actually that these ideologues apply the term by using structural violence! What a nice infinite regress of intellectual poverty!
"... Galtung was jailed in Norway for six months at age 24 as a Conscientious Objector to serving in the military, after having done 12 months of civilian service, the same time as those doing military service. ... In jail he wrote his first book, Gandhi’s Political Ethics, together with his mentor, Arne Næss. This event would trigger a lifetime work for peace: 170 books, plus. ...
His contributions to peace theory and practice include conceptualization of peace-building, conflict mediation/transformation, reconciliation, nonviolence, theory of structural violence, theorizing about negative vs. positive peace, peace education and peace journalism. ..."
His contributions to peace theory and practice include conceptualization of peace-building, conflict mediation/transformation, reconciliation, nonviolence, theory of structural violence, theorizing about negative vs. positive peace, peace education and peace journalism. ..."
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