In Memory of Elise Boulding- an art work by T Newfields
In Memory of Elise Boulding (1920 - 2002)
SETTING: Four friends huddled around a small battered wooden table in the corner of a university library, where the late afternoon sun slanted through tall windows in amber shafts, illuminating dust motes that drifted like tiny planets in slow orbit. the light pooled on worn oak and cast long shadows across open notebooks and coffee-stained mugs. On the table sat an old desktop computer–its monitor thick and clunky, a relic from another decade–displaying a mandala in all its quiet radiance. Around them, the library breathed its familiar rhythm: the faint mechanical wheeze of an aging ventilation system overhead, the whisper of turning pages from distant carrels, the muffled scuff of footsteps on threadbare carpet.


   After a brief pause, Sam inhaled slowly, as if drawing courage from the stillness itself, then asked, "Elise Boulding – who was she?"


   Kris leaned back in her chair until it creaked, arms folded across her chest, gaze drifting toward the windows where the light was turning gold. "I have no idea." A half-smile flickered across her face, tinged with a bit of shame. Looking at Sam, added, "That feels... unsettling, doesn't it? It's strange how that works. Not everyone who bends the many arcs of human history gets a bronze statue or a Wikipedia page. Some important voices merely fade into the margins."


   Tim spoke in a steady voice that carried the weight of reverence. Sighing slightly, he added, "Elise Boulding was a voice for peace in an age utterly intoxicated with war. While the world was drowning in the thunder of gunfire and the rhetoric of conquest, she insisted– quietly, persistently–on speaking about something else entirely. Human connection. Shared futures. The fragile, shimmering possibility of harmony." Tim then paused, his fingers tracing an absent pattern on the table's surface. "She refused to let hope be drowned out by the relentless clatter of weapons."


   Kris straightened, curiosity rising as her eyes narrowed. "So... she was a peace activist? Yet another unknown face that history has essentially erased? One of many advocates of nonviolence who labored in the margins, invisible to the textbooks?


   Tim nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and added, "Yes—but so much more than that. She wasn't merely trying to stop wars after they'd already ignited. She wanted to uproot the very habits of thought that make wars seem inevitable in the first place." Tim's voice gathered momentum as he spoke, "She talked about building cultures of peace—not as some empty slogan to plaster on bumper stickers, but as a daily practice. She spoke of things such as education, family life, community norms. She believed peace had to be learned, nurtured, and defended long before overt violence ever appeared."


   Ted shook his head, a dry bitterness seeping into his tone like ink spreading through water. "And yet here we are, centuries later, replaying the same tired script. Too many men—and it is mostly men, let's be honest—still talk about war like it's some grand chess match. Or worse, a thrilling spectator sport. All strategy and dominance and spectacle." His jaw tightened while reflecting on his own military experience. "Some people act as if the world were just one massive playing field and the casualties were nothing but abstract statistics flickering on a distant scoreboard. So many societies still glorify it. Flags waving, drums beating, parades marching: the sort of stuff Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jingping loved."


   Terri leaned forward suddenly, elbows on the table, eyes blazing with restrained fury. "Well, if you're military industrialist raking in billions of dollars from blood, perhaps it is. A very profitable one." Her voice dropped, growing colder. "But if you're a mother crouched in the wreckage of a bombed-out apartment, shielding your children from falling debris... or if you're a terrified kid fleeing across a border with nothing but a tattered backpack and the weight of fear pressing on your chest... then your perspective changes real fast, doesn't it?" She then breathed out slowly, deliberately, the anger softening into something closer to grief. "For them, it's not a game. It's the obliteration of everything they know. It's the end of their world."


   She paused, glancing back at the mandala on the screen, its symmetrical petals still glowing. "That's what people like Boulding understood—perspective matters. If we only look through the lens of profit margins and zero-sum outcomes, if we only count victories and defeats, we miss the human cost entirely. We become numb to it." Her voice then quieted to almost a whisper.


   "Peace begins the moment we decide to see through more than one set of eyes. To listen to more than one story. To hold space for the voices that don't shout the loudest."
POSTLUDE: The group fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. The sunlight continued its slow migration across the table, the golden shafts dimming toward orange as the day aged. On the computer screen, the mandala—that intricate geometry of hope—faded into blackness, replaced by a garish, meaningless screensaver: bouncing geometric shapes in neon colors, empty of symbolism, devoid of soul. But the impression of the mandala lingered in their minds, like an afterimage burned onto the retina—a reminder that beauty, balance, and the promise of peace, however fragile, are worth remembering.