Community, Violence, and Peace

the long version

Community, Violence, and Peace explores the concept of community and the belief that it can resolve the dilemmas of excessive violence and insufficient peace in the twenty-first century. Herman begins by analyzing two fictional communities, the spiritual community of Plato and the materialistic community of Aldous Huxley. He then investigates four historical communities, the biotic community of Aldo Leopold, the ashramic community of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the beloved community of Martin Luther King Jr., and the karmic community of Gautama the Buddha. After an extensive exploration of the characteristics of these communities and the quandaries that each generates and that renders them objectionable, Herman argues that substituting communal egoism for communal altruism will settle the predicament of violence and peace in the twenty-first century.