"Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum". Psychoanalysis, Peace Education and Conflict Literacy.

Mario Perini invites us to consider that although psychoanalytic approaches to addressing peacemaking can arouse omnipotent fantasies of transformation and righteousness, its authentic realisation leads to more modest and grounded aspirations. Einstein and Freud echo this point in two cameo appearances, recalling their famous exchange about whether psychoanalysis contained the seeds of world peace. Invoked by both Perini and Volkan, Freud answers Einstein's hopeful question starkly: "Violence is inevitable". Efforts to replace brute force by the "might of an ideal' were doomed. Yet he also offers hope that some measure of our dark forces might be diverted into other channels when he says that "Whatever makes for cultural development is working also against the war" (Nathan and Nordon 1960).ii (Abstract written by James Krantz). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]