Human-Centricity for Peace

Vinai Kumar

08 Dec 2012 

Peace is an ephemeral phenomenon when viewed in a large time frame. Human history provides numerous instances where peace has been interrupted because of political, economic, environmental, and socio-cultural reasons. Peace can be thought of as a state of equilibrium wherein most of the elements and the relationships between them in a given society are in a state of harmony. However, the societal-system elements and relationships, and goals and intentions are forever changing in complexity and time because of both internal and external forces. The issue is how to identify, monitor, understand and control the systemic changes so that a desirable equilibrium takes place with least possible variations.

In order to understand the issue, we need to focus on the behaviours of the elements and relationships that are most likely to change significantly and unpredictably. There are many such behaviours and relationships that exist in our real-world. For example, some resources may go scarce, and therefore can lead to an unsettling situation. Think of a scenario where water and food become scarce, which then leads to despair and a sense of uncertainty about survival. Such a scenario is most likely to have an impact on the societal equilibrium and harmony. One can look deeper into the past events that led to ‘not-peace’ situations, and discover the multiple causes behind them. However, one element which is the most significant contributor to the not-peace situations is the human factor.

The human being is a thinking creature in the animal kingdom. One aspect of human thinking is rather innocuous which manifests itself in the form of reasoning, analysing, and taking logical and ethical decisions. Another aspect of human thinking is emotion-driven which may be a manifestation of their desires, passion, status consciousness, identity, anger or greed. The challenge for human society and its governance is to judiciously manage the human thinking and resulting actions in order to bring about a harmonious state of a society which can be perceived as ‘peace’.

Extending this thought further, it is imperative that a society that is most likely to experience peace is the one that has educated and encouraged its decision makers to be human-centric. If people in a society are the participants in the societal governance and management in a relevant and appropriate way, that society has a huge potential to be peaceful. Countries like Sweden and Singapore have focused on being people-centric, and the results in terms of the state of peace are evident.

In my view the challenge is to educate and manage the decision-making humans in a society in such a way that they work with and in the interest of the other humans. So we are talking about a peace paradigm where compassion, trust, concern and welfare of all humans become a focal point of human activities.

The design education for students at all levels should be delivered in this direction. The design process is centred around the users of a product or service at various stages of its acquisition, use, maintenance and disposal. The user study disciplines such as ethnography, semiotics, ergonomics, and social sciences are extensively employed to understand users, their contexts and environments. This approach helps in aligning design processes with the objective of achieving appropriate usefulness of the product, its usability, and, very importantly, the desirable emotional connect. Today we have a good example in products and services like iPhone, iPod, and Google’s various services which provide excellent and perceptive connect with users’ needs, expectations, and emotional wellbeing. If this approach is extended further to the development of various public services such as electric supply, public transportation systems, medical services, public distribution systems, and many others, it will surely help in creating a more content society with positive outlook. A design educator I intend to extend its human-centric approach to a much larger ambit of public services and systems. The societies in future will need to be capable to develop and maintain human-centricity for their wellbeing and a sense of the prevalence of peace.

Copyright (C) Vinai Kumar  08 Dec 2012  Ahmedabad