A couple years ago I observed how modifying a term with "regeneration" often gave me new perspectives. I made a somewhat joking reference that therefore we should be talking about
"regenerative defense".
The US attacks on Iran and the Iranian response, including
blowing up a Ukrainian airliner, helped me realize this wasn't a joke. We really should invest in regenerative defense. After all, war is the most zero-sum thinking of all.
What would
positive sum defense look like? Rivera Sun provides one vision in her
Ari Ara book series. She uses the notion of "The Way Between" which is "neither fight nor flight, but everything possible in between. It was a way of changing danger to mutual safety..."
Examples include "students refusing to be conscripted into the army, farmers sending crops to refugee camps instead of military outposts, and merchants refusing to lend money to rulers until peace was established along their trade routes."
The books describe the young protagonist and her allies learning and demonstrating
The Way Between and imagining a new world in the process.
Similar to
Solarpunk, this kind of hopeful vision helps motivate creating a regenerative future.
Let's find our way between.
