– Winter List of Contributors

– By the Editor We offer you, our valued readers, the inaugural issue of The Irenaut, a magazine devoted to understanding peace as an active principle, an energy, rather than a state to be defined in contradistinction to conflict or war…

– By Mark-Alec Mellor Among cultures that feature chaos in their creation stories, the primordial disorder is not violent, but formless, with all its energy undirected. When order emerges, it comes at the price of conflict: a chaoskampf of rival forces fighting for ascendency…

– By Mark-Alec Mellor Dans les cultures qui mettent en scène le chaos dans leurs récits fondateurs, le désordre primordial n’est pas violent, mais dénué de forme, son énergie ne suivant aucune trajectoire. Lorsque l’ordre émerge, c’est au prix d’un conflit : un chaoskampf de forces rivales qui luttent pour avoir l’ascendant.

– By Douglas P. Fry Anthropology, the study of humankind, offers an important set of perspectives on human violence and peace. The discipline looks across cultures—it is culturally comparative..

– Lawrence Rosenwald & Mark-Alec Mellor Many thinkers, from Pascal to Marx to Foucault, have called the idea of human nature into question. Is the concept of any use to us in our efforts to create a more peaceful world?…

– By David Barash In one of his most famous lines, Captain Ahab urged: “Strike, strike through the mask!” Admittedly, said captain isn’t the finest role model one can imagine, but I’ve long thought that his demand is precisely what good skeptics are called to do…

– By N. S. Thompson Poem: Narcissus bellicosus…

– By María Cristina Peñuela Mora  For me, peace is like happiness: we all want it and it is made up of simple things; it is the desire for good things to happen to all of us. One of the things that I enjoy very much is reading, because it allows me to study, know, and understand this world a little better…

– By Sophie Cherel Is there a will and a way to peace? What exactly is that will, and how shall we find our way? What work shall we engage in to make humans less murderous creatures and advance a civilizing process?…

– By Gary G. Nelson The structure and dynamics of the ecology instruct us on how the forms of complexity exist and persist and how their parts fit the forms…

– Ever Giraldo Kuiru (Nóinui Jitóma) & Mark-Alec Mellor Muchos pensadores, desde Pascal a Marx a Foucault, han puesto en duda la idea de la naturaleza humana. ¿Tiene el concepto alguna utilidad para ayudar nuestros esfuerzos en la tarea de crear un mundo más pacífico?…

– By Struan Mackenzie Hi, I’m Jentzen Sarcofogi-Twayman, a neurodivergent project manager from the Sarcofogi School for the Terminally Gifted, and I’d like to talk to you today about what’s happened and why we did what we did….

– By Jerl Surratt Poem: Telenovela – El camino no tomado…

– By Juan Pablo Aranguren Romero This article analyzes the experiences of seven forensic anthropologists working on exhumations in cases related to political violence and armed conflict in Colombia and Peru…

– By DM Fletcher I woke up at around three. I lay for a while listening to the deep thrum of the ship’s engines. I suddenly thought that I could be lying in my own bed back in Carnassu: the vessel was slipping through the water with hardly a tremor…

– By Jack Parvid Legs scissoring among spires of algae and mollusc-bedizened boulders, Sarah weaves, lithe and powerful, ahead of me…

– By Mark-Alec Mellor Perhaps it’s too contrived, or even disingenuous, to announce at the beginning of an essay—in the very title—the pursuit of something, as if the outcome were in doubt, as if every sentence were a step of discovery or a new clue…

– By Al Sweeny Poem: Violent Couplets…

– ChatGPT & Mark-Alec Mellor Many thinkers, from Pascal to Marx to Foucault, have called the idea of human nature into question. Is the concept of any use to us in our efforts to create a more peaceful world?…