ABSTRACT
Complete peace represents the logical endpoint of the progression. A world at complete peace would be a world in which all relationships were like the West European and US-Canadian relationships now: A general atmosphere of good will prevails; people feel a sense of unity with one another; and conflicts can be solved by institutions for peacekeeping and nonviolent conflict resolution. An illustration that shows both the relevance and the limitations of the psychological/consciousness approach is provided by Stanley Hoffman's 1985 presidential address to the International Society of Political Psychology. In commenting on the application of this approach to the problem of war, Hoffman used the example of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The most basic form of the idea, stripped of astrological and other particularistic interpretations, is probably the best. That form says simply that human civilization is now on the threshold of a great transformation comparable to several in the past.
