Conflict and Peace

In this video, actually filmed in a dog park, Tim shows how dogs can turn other dogs – strangers and members of other packs – into friends. Then making the dog park into a metaphor, he shows how we humans can go beyond our own identities and packs to find common ground with those we may disagree with on social and political grounds.

Timothy Fort returns to continue a series reflecting the intersection between culture, peace and business. In his latest contribution to Business Fights Poverty, Tim talks about the life of Nelson Mandela in the award-winning film, Invictus. ​

About ten years ago, I hosted a conference on religion, business and peace.  It was held shortly after Yale University Press released my book, Prophets, Profits and Peace, which dealt with the same topic and I wanted to see if we could further engage representatives from religion and business to see how each could separately and together foster peace. The conference proved fruitful, but one of the more interesting aspects was the reaction of invitees. 

In the third edition of a series exploring the relationship between culture, film, and business, Timothy Fort shines a light on how “ping-pong diplomacy” helped countries participating in World Table Tennis Tournaments along a path of more peaceful, open interaction.

Readers of Business Fights Poverty have been exposed to the arguments for how business might contribute to peace. They have also seen examples of how music can do the same. Many studies have shown corollaries of how gender equity promotes peace. If you want a film that shows all three of these factors in action, one can’t do any better than Sweet Dreams.

This is the first of an ongoing set of columns commenting on how movies feature cultural foundations. Film itself, of course, is one of those cultural artifacts. It also can capture contributions from sports, music, and business. Once a month, I’d like to share the experience of the film and invite your thoughts about it.