The fundamental reason things are crazy on Spaceship Earth

Ill defined words!  To bad NASA or the National Academy of Sciences hasn't been given the task of engineering a sustainable global governing system for maximizing humankind's need to balance 'freedoms and security' - these being the only legitimate purpose of government. This is in Thomas Paine's pamphlet title "Common Sense".

Three words come immediately to mind in our era.  Peace, Terrorism, Independence. The first two are ambiguous and cannot be universally defined.  The second is an illusion that exists nowhere in the known universe. It only resides as a word in our mind. One that powerful human entitles used in 1776 and in 1945 in drafting the UN Charter. So both national and global governance systems are founded on an illusion - a flawed mental construct now likely to end our species dominance on our gifted planet -- unless we quickly wise up to our earthly galactic (dare I write universal) reality. 

"The battle for the world is the battle for definitions."  -- Thomas Szasz  (1920-2012) Hungarian-American Professor of Psychiatry, Author, Libertarian

Terrorism, Terror, and Peace — Shared Ambiguities and Human Constants

The words terrorism and peace occupy opposite moral poles, yet both are deeply ambiguous, politically elastic, and frequently misused. Each is often spoken as if self-evident, while lacking a universally accepted definition.

Terrorism is commonly defined by the identity of the actor rather than the nature of the act. Similar violence may be labeled terrorism, counterterrorism, or security depending on who commits it. This malleability allows the term to be weaponized rhetorically, transforming political narratives into moral absolutes.

There is, however, a truer and older definition of terror—one that predates politics and ideology. Terror is a hardwired human emotion, embedded in our DNA: the visceral fear triggered by the imminent sickness or death of a child. It is instantaneous, universal, and requires no explanation. This form of terror is not debated, rebranded, or justified; it simply exists as a survival alarm.

Peace shares a parallel ambiguity. Peace may mean the absence of violence, the presence of justice, enforced order, or merely the silence of those without power. Like terrorism, peace is often declared from above, even while structural violence persists below.

For peacebuilders, including Rotary, the task is not to abandon these words, but to anchor them in lived human experience rather than political convenience. When language reconnects to biology and empathy, peace becomes measurable—and terror unmistakable.

Confucius said: “If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”

"If the president can demonize those whom he hates and fears, and then kill them in defiance of law and get away with it, of what value are our laws?"  – Andrew P. Napolitano, "Kill Them All" [2025]