Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival (SUNY series, Global Conflict and Peace Education)

This may be one of the most important books to come out in this transition to the twenty-first century. It opens up a way of thinking that can lead to social design and behavior changes at every level from the family to the international system, moving away from current trends of increasing violence. Fellman's skillful analytic blend of social psychology and sociology in explaining the interrelationship of social institutions and human behavior offers a new way out of classic sociological impasses. This book suggests that the assumption that human life is based on conflicts of interest, wars, and the opposition of people to each other and to nature exists as a paradigm that supplies meaning and orientation to the world. An alternative paradigm sees cooperation, caring, nurturing, and loving as equally viable ways of organizing relationships of humans to each other and to nature. Fellman sees this shifting emphasis from adversarialism to mutuality as essential to the survival of our species and nature itself.