By Gabriel Chua
As part of the Lecture+ initiative, a group of 10 undergraduate and postgraduate students participated in two seminars related to Philippe Roman Chair Professor Ian Morris’ public lecture “Each Age Gets the Bloodshed It Needs: 20,000 Years of Violence”. These seminar were meant to further augment the student experience of public lectures by providing an informal platform for discussion.
The first was a pre-lecture seminar that helped participants familiarise themselves with the topic, and to get them thinking about the issues at hand before the public lecture. The seminar was facilitated by students from the LSE SU United Nations Society, and readings were provided to frame the discussion. The discussion centred around the applicability of Professor Morris’ thesis (that across the span of history war itself has been the main driver of reducing violent deaths) and the implications of such a thesis in today’s context. For example, one question raised was whether such a conception of war still holds with the rise of non-state actors, such as ISIS or NGOs. The participants also discussed about the possibility and consequences of the end of Pax Americana, a point that Professor Morris raise in his paper and the comparison he drew with the decline of the British Empire. However, the participants also noted that Professor Morris’ arguments leaned more towards the reduction of inter-state conflicts, and are perhaps less congruent with the many intra-state conflicts that are happening across the globe today. At the end of the pre-lecture seminar, the participants produced a list of questions that were then sent to Professor Morris for his consideration.
In addition to a seminar before the public lecture, there was also a seminar after the public lecture, that Professor Morris himself joined in. This post-lecture seminar provided the participants the exclusive opportunity to chat with Professor Morris about points raised during the pre-lecture seminar and the public lecture itself. The participants not only used the opportunity to clarify certain concepts in his book but also to continue the conversation of the Q&A session from the previous night. The seminar groups discussed extensively on the role of technology is changing the nature of war, and what were the defining characteristics of weaponry that determined whether it would reinforce peace and stability or threaten it. The small group setting was useful in providing ample opportunities for all as Professor Morris shared about his experiences talking to members of the US military while a PhD student shared about his research and how it related to Professor Morris’ thesis.
Storify