[Sethomas]

Well, first thing to point out is that you CAN actually define something as the lack of something else. It works in some examples but not all, hence the difficulty of overly binary logic and terminology. Augustine, for example, defined evil as the privation of good. One of my professors demonstrated that a strong argument against the actual utility of Platonic Forms as an ideal is the fact of relative qualities. Namely, think of "cold". Both heat and coldness have negative connotations in some senses and positive ones in the other. You can't even set up an arbitrary definition between the two; an internal body temperature of 108° F is deathly hot, a core temperature of 800° F in a forge kiln is uselessly cold. Furthermore, darkness has no other definition than the absence of light. To refer back to Plato, how could hot and cold possibly have conceptual embodiments? That you can have one for darkness but not for temperature kind of underlines the weirdness of waxing philosophical on abstractions, even those we want and perhaps seek.

If we can agree that "peace" can indeed be the absence of something, it falls to us to determine what. In man's tabula rasa, there is no political war. But, Hobbes argued that in the absence of the Body Politic life is inevitably "nasty, brutish and short" (like your mom!), and to entertain that idea maybe peace does require something more substantive than a definition of what it isn't. I don't, however, that it's really pertinent at the moment because again, peace is a matter of subjectivity. That's why I mentioned the Pax Romana in my initial post; obviously it fulfilled some requirement of "peace" that it could get that appellation, but I doubt it was really a worthwhile peace. I mean, those Israelis were sure pissed off about SOMETHING in 70 AD or whatever, and I don't think it was the Palestinians at that time. Two million dead (if we're to believe Caesar's numbers) in the Gallic Wars that established this Roman Peace doesn't speak well for its intrinsic value very much at all, in my opinion.

So, maybe the best step is to set up some kind of tier system for peace. Off-hand, I'm thinking international, domestic, and personal. Those obviously can fall into different stratifications. International, for instance, would have the objective of as little foreign military involvement as possible, and beyond that you would look at the amicability of different trade relations. I do believe that a worthwhile peace would incorporate personal peace into the international one, hence you wouldn't have exploitation of foreign workers by an exterior State because the interior one can't set up a viable safeguard for its workers.

Since teleology SHOULD manifest into action, it should set up priorities. Firstly, to end war. Secondly, to resolve domestic disputes. Thirdly, to best accomodate the reality of "the pursuit of happiness". Does that give us a definition?

Maybe. I guess we're left with "the relative absence of discord, primarily at the interpersonal level." Shit, have I exceeded my name-dropping quota? If not, here's some Plautus for you: Homo homini lupis est. (I've seen syntactical variations, don't bother telling me I got it wrong.) "Man is a wolf to [other] men", or more succinctly, "people will always be assholes".

I bring up dead Romans for the same reason I brought up hot and cold. I think itt's a rule of thermodynamics that you can't reach absolute zero in a closed system, so there is no such thing as 0° Kelvin. If you define "cold" as the absolute lack of heat, you make the equivocation that cold is impossible. Same goes for peace. Peace as an absolute is a worthless destination because it won't be reached, ever. Peace as a direction is essential because it's the only way we can stay alive.