Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek

In this special recap episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek reflects on seven thinkers and seven peace warriors who challenge our assumptions about political loyalty. From Socrates to Thoreau, from Sophie Scholl to Desmond Tutu, we explore the personal, political, and moral tensions of obedience in a world that often demands conformity. In this episode: A guided overview of Wolff’...

In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Robert Paul Wolff’s personal contribution to his 1966 anthology with the essay An Analysis of the Concept of Political Loyalty. Rather than obedience, Wolff suggests that loyalty is a kind of identification with the state—one that might even lead to principled resistance. Paired with Wolff is Pauli Murray—civil rights lawyer,...

In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores the story of Paul Le Meur, a French teacher who faced an impossible moral decision during Nazi occupation—and chose not to comply. His story is paired with the extraordinary resistance of the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, who sheltered thousands of Jews during the Holocaust without fanfare or credit. Both remind us that...

From the U.S. Supreme Court to the streets of Cape Town: this episode of Wolff Peace examines what it means to protect conscience in law and in life. Host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Robert H. Jackson’s stirring opinion in Barnette, which rejected forced patriotism in favor of moral independence, and pairs it with the radical compassion of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led a nation toward justice witho...

In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek examines the tension between obedience and conscience by pairing Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter with Palestinian philosopher and peacebuilder Sari Nusseibeh. Frankfurter’s ruling in Minersville v. Gobitis prioritized national unity over religious freedom, sparking backlash and violence. In contrast, Nusseibeh’s life work offer...

When loyalty becomes betrayal—and betrayal becomes peace. In this episode of Wolff Peace, host Avis Kalfsbeek examines the quiet power of disobedience. Political theorist Richard Schaar challenges the psychology of loyalty—and Sophie Scholl, executed at 21 for resisting Hitler, shows what it means to shift allegiance from nation to conscience. In this episode: What makes us loyal—and what breaks t...

Two centuries. Two refusals. One call to conscience. In this episode of Wolff Peace, host Avis Kalfsbeek reflects on the power of peaceful disobedience—from Thoreau’s refusal to fund slavery and war, to Greta Thunberg’s school strike for the climate. When systems harm the vulnerable, is breaking the law the most peaceful choice? In this episode: Thoreau’s legacy of moral refusal Greta’s unapologet...

Obedience. Resistance. The inner cost of doing what’s right. In this episode of Wolff Peace, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores the tension between obeying unjust laws and standing for justice. From Plato’s Crito, where Socrates chooses death over escape, to the early years of Aung San Suu Kyi’s nonviolent struggle in Myanmar, we reflect on what it means to remain true to your conscience—even when the c...

  Missed an episode? This special recap journeys from John Locke to Friedrich Engels, linking each classic thinker to a peace warrior of our time. Perfect for catching up or diving in. We take a reflective pause in our Wolff Peace series to look back on Part One of Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man: “The Individual and the State.” Host Avis Kalfsbeek revisits the questions of politi...

What if class struggle met nonviolence? In this bold pairing, Friedrich Engels goes head-to-head with civil rights strategist Bayard Rustin to ask: Can we build a just world without bloodshed? What is the origin of the state, and can it be peaceful? In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek examines Friedrich Engels’ theory that the state was born from class antagonism and is...

Can philosophy plant a forest? This episode pairs Scottish skeptic David Hume with Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai to explore reason, action, and environmental peace. Can we question the stories governments tell—and plant better ones ourselves? David Hume challenged the myth of the social contract and Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai’s reforestation movement helped grow peace from the ground up. Tog...

What happens when Western property theory meets Indigenous eco-wisdom? This Wolff Peace episode pairs John Locke with Vandana Shiva in a radical rethink of ownership, land, and peace. In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek contrasts the legacy of John Locke—whose ideas about liberty and property helped justify land enclosures and colonial expansion—with the work of Vandana...

Wolff Peace – V. I. Lenin & Leo Tolstoy Two Russians. Two revolutions. Two visions of peace. In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores a striking contrast between two towering Russian figures: Vladimir Lenin, revolutionary and architect of the Soviet state, and Leo Tolstoy, novelist turned pacifist who rejected all violence in the name of love and spiritual truth....

Wolff Peace – Max Weber & Abdul Ghaffar Khan Power, legitimacy, and the courage of nonviolence. In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores political philosopher Max Weber’s stark definition of the modern state as the “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force,” and pairs it with the bold life of Abdul Ghaffar Khan—the Muslim pacifist known as the “Frontier G...

Wolff Peace – John Austin & Audre Lorde Power, obedience, and the poetry of resistance. In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores the tension between legal authority and moral justice through the lens of 19th-century legal theorist John Austin and radical poet and activist Audre Lorde. Austin’s theory of legal positivism defines law as the command of a sovereign b...

Wolff Peace – Richard Hooker & Dorothy Day A new series on political philosophy, power, and the pursuit of peace. In this opening episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek introduces the legacy of political philosopher Robert Paul Wolff and his influential book Political Man and Social Man. Each episode in this special series pairs a classic thinker from Wolff’s anthology with a m...

In this episode of Peace Is Here, host Avis Kalfsbeek reflects on The Birth of the Khalsa by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh—a groundbreaking work that reimagines Sikh identity through a feminist, peace-centered lens. Drawing from her own journey through compassionate Kundalini yoga and a growing curiosity about women’s roles in spiritual traditions, Avis explores how Singh’s writing invites us to see t...

Avis Kalfsbeek discusses falling off the vegan wagon with a pepperoni pizza and finishes reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 10  Vegetarianism and Social Reform. In this chapter, Henry is bold as usual. He states that vegetarianism can’t save the nation without a societal redistribution of wealth, but that doesn’t make it any less important.  “In the first place, I think...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 9 The Philosophy of Cannibilism (and the Carnivore)  “It is indisputable that there have been, and indeed are, savage tribes who deliberately prefer human flesh to other food ; and it should not escape our notice that these people, in defence of their dietetic peculiarities might use, and probably have used, arguments si...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 8 Sport (killing animals for fun) “The essence of so-called sport " consists in the excitement derived from the pursuit and killing of animals. It seems that there are two warring instincts in men's minds—one, the brutal passion, which prompts them to pursue and slaughter innocent and helpless creatures, a passion which...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 7 On Certain Fallacies (Myth-busing carnivore attacks on vegetarianism)  “The absurd assertion so often made, that animals were ‘sent' us as food may be classed under this same head. The mere fact that we ​have been accustomed to eat flesh-food, no more proves that animals were created for this purpose than the existence...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 6 Sir Henry Thompson on “Diet” (Surgeon Sir Henry Thompson: “It is a vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary to life.”  Thompson also wrote (1879) “…it is a fair computation that every acre of land devoted to the production of meat is capable of becoming the source at three or four times the amount of produ...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 5 Medical Men and Food Reform (Are Doctors prejudiced against vegetarians?)   “The commonest obstacle to Food Reform, as indeed to every other Reform, is prejudice…The influence of medical men, both on public and private opinion, is unquestionably very great, and at present nearly the whole weight of this influence is thr...

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 4 Some Results in Food Reform (or does vegetarianism keep you sober? “…of most pressing interest at the present day, is the remarkable fact that abstinence from animal food almost invariably brings with it abstinence from all alcoholic drinks.” (H.S. Salt 1886) Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez....

Avis continues reading Henry Stephen Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism – Chapter 3 Good Taste in Diet. “How foolish and inconsistent it is to be vastly fastidious about the manner in which one's food is served up, and at the same time to be totally indifferent as regards the quality, from an aesthetic view, of the food itself! ” (H.S. Salt 1886)   Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rod...