NVC -- The Case for Peace Education - Regrowing our Cultural Roots
The Case for Peace Education - Regrowing our Cultural Roots The Case for Peace Education Regrowing our Cultural Roots By Thom Bond Every year, humanity pours trillions of dollars and millions of lives into war and violence, while investing only a sliver of that effort into teaching people how to live together in peace. The imbalance is so extreme that it’s almost invisible – like a cultural blind spot we’ve inherited from thousands of years of history and stopped questioning. Yet once you put the numbers side by side, it becomes impossible to un-see. 1. The arithmetic of war: trillions for destruction In 2024, world military expenditure reached $2.72 trillion , the highest level ever recorded and about 2.5% of global GDP . SIPRI+1 Spending has risen for a full decade and is accelerating, driven by wars in Ukraine and Gaza, rising tensions in East Asia, and a rearmament race in Europe and beyond. But the true economic cost of violence goes far beyond official defense budgets. T...
