Compassion and Integrity in an Age of Fragmentation

I want to weave that question of how we understand compassion back in to where I think we are today in our both local and national and global setting. I think we are facing, interestingly enough, a kind of a paradox. And the paradox is that those of us that study the issues of war and peace know that there has been a pretty significant decline in the number of wars. In fact, there’s kind of a pretty significant debate about whether this is a pattern that we can more fully see happening in ways that are going to be significantly sustained. But at the same time, we seem to be far more fragmented in our societies…I think we live in an age of fragmentation, and far too often I think fragmentation breeds dehumanization. This, for me, has led to some reflection about my own field and some exploration around what it is that is both the purpose and the deeper motivation for why we do the kind of work we do in conflict and peacebuilding…