Conflict and the Zeitgeist: From Destructive to Constructive, Tom Hastings, PSU

Conflict is an eternal, natural component of life. Our challenge has never been to resolve or eliminate conflict, but rather to transform it from destructive to productive and constructive. The ultimate destructive conflict, of course, is war. Nonviolent people-power can stop war. Kenneth Boulding was a grandfather of Peace and Conflict Studies who asked the rhetorical question, "Can we agree that if something exists, it is possible?" Following that, we ask, "If nonviolent people-power can stop war, show us when it has."

Tom Hastings is Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University and Coördinator of the BA/BS degree and certificate programs. He is Director of PeaceVoice, a co-founder of the Portland Peace Team, author of several books focusing on nonviolence and more than 600 other publications, two-term co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, board member of the International Peace Research Association Foundation, on the Academic Advisory Council of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, founding faculty with the James Lawson Institute, a former Catholic Worker, and a two-time Plowshares resister.

He was born in 1950, began his peace and justice activism in 1968, and never stopped. His jail and prison experience informs him, as does his experience as a father to two African American sons, and several years working to help defend Anishinaabe treaty rights. His first Plowshares act was done on Memorial Day 1985 to commemorate the civilians worldwide who have been sacrificed to war—and to resist any future civilian war deaths. His second one was done on Earth Day 1996 to underscore the intersectional reasons of opposing the true costs of militarism. He averages approximately 300 students each year, teaching classes such as: Nonviolence in History & Campaign Design, Ecology of War & Peace, Consensus Building, Participating in Democracy, Conflict Resolution Psychology, and Peace Studies.