ABSTRACT
Johan Galtung has written extensively in the fields of peace research and conflict studies, and he has repeatedly advanced these fields with his innovative perspectives, reflected, for instance, in his formulation of the concepts of structural violence (1969) and cultural violence (1990). In this chapter, Galtung explores the world views or cosmologies of the Eastern and Western megacivilizations in relation to conflict. He points out how conflicts are indidualized in the West and viewed socially–collectively in the East, and how different time cosmologies in the West and East result in contrasting views of conflict The chapter concludes with a consideration of how these divergent cosmologies are related to international conflicts. As examples, Galtung applies the cosmological precepts of East and West to derive alternative interpretations of the Vietnam and Gulf wars.
