Western culture has had a very strong bias toward
materialism for several hundred years. We are now seeing destructive
results of this bias in many areas. Happily, this rather demoralizing
materialist view of the world is being seriously challenged by
developments known collectively as “New Science,” along with a greater
recognition of what has been called the ‘Wisdom Tradition’ common to
almost all cultures, with which new science is entirely consistent.
Just
as the materialist view was internally consistent, building up from
matter-based physics to competition-based theories of life and evolution
and on to our present violence-prone societies, so the emerging
worldview presents an internally consistent shift to consciousness-based
(quantum) physics, cooperation-based evolution and animal behavior, and
a more insipiring – and accurate! – image of the human being.
Completion of this transition cannot but lead to the growth of peace
institutions and a greater awareness of nonviolence.
This
resource is meant to provide a convenient access to this new scientific
knowledge and its implications. We hope it will help enhance your
understanding of and ability to communicate the needed cultural shift to
a science focused on humanity’s true potential and a culture grounded
in a human image that is more realistic and more inspiring – and of
course much more nonviolent – than that held up by what is now called
“classical science” as well as the mainstream media.
The
resources are in two sections, one organized by scientific discipline
(psychology, physics, etc.) and the other by the relevant topics in
nonviolence (empathy, cooperation, etc.). We link our users to a free,
open-source bibliographic management tool called Zotero that essentially
stores our resources in these two sections. Zotero does not require you
to install any software to view these resources.
Under each discipline or topic you will find three links:
- “Start here” will take you to one or more resources we find especially helpful for beginners or anyone who wants to see what we consider the basics in this field.
- “[Name of discipline or topic]” will open all the items under that discipline or topic.
- To visit the whole database go here
