A Better Game Than War with Robert Fuller

Program Description

Formulas for ending war are as old as war itself; yet war continues. What is the missing realization, the breakthrough that will lay to rest, once and for all, humanity’s war-mongering impulse? Perhaps it is the awareness of our own fascination with war, and the creation of “a better game”–some exciting endeavor that is decidedly more benign. So says Bob Fuller, co-founder of the Mo Tzu Project, a small band of private citizens who, like their namesake, a fifth-century B.C. Chinese philosopher, travel to sites of political strife (Poland, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Israel/Lebanon) and attempt, as individuals, to mediate disputes. If you have longed for a day when the end of war is conceivable–and who hasn’t?–you owe it to yourself to listen to this conversation. (For other New Dimensions dialogues with Robert Fuller find programs #1803, #1988, #2044, #2091, #2672, #2869, #2891, #2896, #2983, #3069, #3152)

Fuller is president emeritus of Oberlin College and the founder of the Mo Tzu Project and has traveled extensively in communist countries and troubled spots around the world. He earned a PhD in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia University before becoming the president of Oberlin College. He served for many years as chairman of the global nonprofit media organization, Internews. He is the author of Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (New Society Publishers 2003) and All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (Berrett Koehler 2006). To find out more information about the work of Robert Fuller go to www.breakingranks.net

Program Number: 1803                 Host: Michael Toms                        Interview Date: 7/12/1983