Kyung Hee Foundation Seeks a ‘Civilizational Aesthetics’ Between Peace and Collapse

Forty-five years after Kyung Hee Foundation founder Cho Young-sik called for a United Nations World Peace Day, the foundation is returning to his warning that peace matters more than victory.

The foundation will hold its 45th Peace BAR Festival and the second Miwon Peace Prize ceremony on Sept. 21 under the theme “Peace or Collapse: Toward a Civilizational Aesthetics of Planetary Society.” It says the message behind the event has become more urgent as wars continue, nuclear threats rise again and political claims of national priority push humanity's shared survival into the background.

The foundation also points to climate-driven extreme weather, ecological destruction, food and resource problems, rapid technological development, social division and alienation as threats to the future. In June, California's state Senate unanimously adopted a World Peace Day resolution that recognized Cho's historical contribution to the day’s creation. The foundation has named the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as the second Miwon Peace Prize recipient for its work highlighting existential risks, including through its annual Doomsday Clock.

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The great imperative: Peace is more precious than triumph.

The main events will take place at Kyung Hee University from Sept. 17 to 22 during World Peace Week. The Sept. 21 program will include a commemorative ceremony, the prize ceremony, a roundtable and a peace concert. Kyung Hee Foundation Chairman Cho In-won will deliver an address on “New Conditions for Peace and the Future of Holistic Politics.”

The ceremony will be followed by a discussion with Daniel Holz, chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board and a University of Chicago physics professor. The roundtable will bring together representatives from the Bulletin, the Elders, the Club of Rome, Earth Charter International and Okayama University, along with Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb and Princeton international relations scholar G. John Ikenberry. The evening concert will combine classical music, popera, theater, dance, choral performance, orchestra and large-scale video under the title “Lovers in Paris in Kyung Hee: Love at 1.5 Degrees.”

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There are neither winners nor losers in a nuclear war. There is only annihilation.