The Moral imagination

I appreciate Lederach's opinion on pessimism, and its role in peace building. He writes that pessimism can serve to represent "grounded realism" (55). When people are closely involved in a conflict over a long period of time, they become acutely aware of the gravity of the situation around them. They experience the complexity of the conflict, and often believe that there will be no quick-fix peace solution. This perspective of the pessimist is important to acknowledge, because it can be most rooted in reality. As the word pessimism generally has connotations of cynicism, Lederach's different interpretation (which he calls "constructive pessimism") is thought-provoking and important. Lederach writes: "This pessimism is a gift, not a bad attitude, lack of engagement, or bitterness gone wickedly off track. It is a terrain-based understanding of the social setting" (55).

I also want to touch on this sentence: "How can we transcend destructive rational patterns and cycles of violence while still living in the context that produced them" (Lederach 61)? Although this was written in a  complex and broad context, I clearly see that question popping up often in my own life. I often wonder how I can make positive changes in particular relationships, without being able to change the environment that breeds conflict in the relationships. I don't have much more to say on this, but I needed to voice that this question is poignant for me, and (with further thought and exploration) will hopefully give rise to some sort of breakthrough.