I dream of the ecology of peace
For me, peace has always been a priority: I find it absurd that human beings kill each other for two different flags and for the interests of warlords.
I believe it is the small things in everyday life that make us happy, not the opportunity to boast about our country’s position in the world power rankings.
When I think about the war between Russia and Ukraine, and I hear Western governments increasingly talking about the need to prepare for a confrontation with the world’s leading nuclear power, I can’t help but worry.
I remember my university years and the teachings of one of the Western thinkers who most influenced me: Gregory Bateson.
Steps to an ecology of peace
We live in a world of circular causality, but we continue to think of it as if it were linear. Thus, we become blind to the consequences of our own actions.
I remember being happy when the Soviet Union fell. I thought the Cold War was finally over. However, precisely in light of Bateson’s teachings, a part of me wondered how the world might evolve once its homeostatic mechanism was disrupted by the disappearance of one of the two superpowers.
Perhaps lost in these thoughts, I fell asleep.
And while I slept, I dreamed. Or perhaps it was a vision sent to me by the gods of Olympus.
In the dream, I found myself in a room filled with maps that were slowly transforming into networks of relationships. Gregory Bateson entered. He spoke to me not as a politician or a military strategist would, but as a mental ecologist.
«You know, Carlo,» he said. «I see that people still believe that conflicts are made up of territories, armies, and borders. But territory is not the map, and war is not the cause: it is the symptom of a pathological relational system.
When a system enters a spiral of symmetrical escalation, each action by one side becomes the justification for the action of the other.» Each one says, “I’m just reacting.” And so, no one sees that they are part of the cycle that fuels the conflict.
Ukraine, Russia, Europe, the United States: they are not isolated actors. They are nodes in a feedback loop. As long as each defines its own security as a response to the perceived insecurity of the other, the system will inevitably produce more fear and more weaponry.
He looked at me and picked up a pencil.
“When a system is deadlocked, the solution isn’t on the same logical level as the problem. You don’t prevent escalation by winning it. You need a change of perspective.”
He drew two people pulling on a rope.
“If the problem lies in deciding who will pull harder, any solution remains a tug-of-war. Creativity is about changing the rules of the game.”
We need an ecology of peace
I asked him what a change of rules might mean today. Bateson smiled.
“Not an imposed peace. Not a total victory. These are simplistic fantasies.
Instead, I envision the creation of a vast zone of mandatory cooperation, where the interests of the parties are intertwined in such a way that the cost of war is systematically greater than any benefit.
For example, disputed regions administered through temporary multilateral bodies, large-scale energy and environmental projects managed jointly, joint universities, youth exchange programs, sister city relationships, and economic systems that distribute benefits to all parties involved.”
He then added:
“What matters is not a single measure. It is the structure of relationships. In ecology, organisms survive not by eliminating all conflict, but by being integrated into networks of interdependence.
Stable peace is not born from a balance of power, but from a balance of relationships.”
The room was filled with images of rivers.
“Look at a river. It doesn’t overcome the rocks. It finds new paths.
Humans are extraordinarily intelligent at solving problems they themselves have created, but surprisingly slow to see the patterns that generate them.
The real question isn’t, ‘Who is right?’ The real question is, ‘What kind of relationship does this situation continually produce?’”
“Humans are remarkably intelligent at solving problems they themselves have created, but surprisingly slow at seeing the patterns that generate them.
The real question isn’t, ‘Who is right?’ The real question is, ‘What kind of relationship does this situation continually produce?’” As the dream faded, Bateson uttered one last sentence:
“When two systems are locked in a struggle for survival, the creative solution is to design a reality in which the survival of one depends on the well-being of the other. This doesn’t eliminate conflict, but it transforms it. And it is transformation, not victory, that characterizes the intelligence of living systems.”
“Don’t go, please!” I called after him. “I understand what you’re saying, but how do you stop those who build their wealth on the foundation of wars? Come back, help me understand.”
Bateson turned and smiled.
“We’ll talk about this in the next dream, my friend. Now you have to go to work.”
I I woke up with the feeling that the question was no longer about how to stop the war, but about how to redesign a system of relationships that makes peace possible.
And although I still have many doubts and uncertainties, I feel increasingly convinced that we can build a world of peace. But to do so, we need to understand the ecology of peace.
Thank you, Gregory.