Americans Do Talk About Peace, Just Not The Same Way People Do In Other Countries

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Americans don't talk much about peace. But it turns out they care about it a lot-they just don't talk about it the way people who have experienced war or civil conflict do.

When public opinion polls in the U.S. ask people about peace, it's either in the context of religion or world peace.

Instead of using the word peace, Americans are more likely to say that they care deeply about safety and security and issues like terrorism, crime, illegal drugs and immigration.

But they still care about the same things people in places that have faced war are focused on.

Peace is hard to define. In the dictionary, it's equated with tranquility or the absence of war. We see it as broader. Peace is the ability for people to live in harmony with themselves and with each other. In practice, however, that can mean many different things to different people.

In Colombia, for example, many communities told us they felt at peace when they had the infrastructure necessary to supply basic needs, like clean water, or when they could actively participate in regular social gatherings. In Bosnia, residents highlighted the ability to use public spaces, including rebuilt ruins from the war, as well as the presence of more day-to-day amenities like streetlights and parking.

But until a recent project in Oakland, California, we weren't thinking about our work in America as also being about peace.

Since 2021, we've been working with six community organizations in Oakland to understand how people define and experience safety and well-being in their everyday lives. As it turns out, these concepts helped us get at how Americans, who have not experienced war like the people in other regions we've worked with, might also understand peace.

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