Suwanbundit, A., & Bunchua, K. (2014). Knowledge Based Society and Peace: an Analysis, Appreciative and Applicative. In Proceeding of the 5th National and International Academic Conference and Research Presentation, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University 2014 (pp. 288-295). Bangkok: Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University.

Abstract
The objective of the research was to discuss the question “will the competitive data collecting in KBS assure the world peace?” in the philosophical way which is dialectic and discursive. The answer was “peace will not depend on the more knowledge collecting” which might be opposed by 3 reasons: 1) there are behaviors that collecting data collecting will assure peace 2) there are affirmations to assure peace and 3) there are actions as peace maker. But the researcher could not accept because all the arguments of the opposite party are only fallacies with criticized as 1) there are new social problems. 2) Socrates proposed “knowledge is virtue” shouldn’t be “virtue is knowledge”. The researcher’s position was supported by the following reasons: 1) new generation had new lifestyle. 2) Postmodern paradigm has promoted to KBS. The result of the research can be used to make peace in postmodernized KBS.

Keywords: knowledge based society; peace; postmodern

Introduction
Knowledge Based Society (KBS) is a concept of the new quality society in this contemporary era called postmodern. After WWII, the world has been directed forward in peace and humanness. KBS is presented as a alternative for a success of information and communication technology for a better society for any country of the globalization and internationalization. KBS is the society which humankind needs and is available for peace and freedom to develop the quality of life. On the other hand, in the history of thought, pros and cons regarding war can be found and the pros are much more frequent, so I could claim that history of mankind is the history of wars. At present the war and other various of violences are generally encoded. Peace in this context is not just absence of war, so if you want peace you have to make peace.

KBS is an alternative for the state to enhance the public to the quality of citizenship of society. Quality citizens would forward the culture of peace by their good education and competency to live normally in this modernized society. Francis Bacon (1561-1625) the pioneer of the modern paradigm proposed “Knowledge is power” as the key to success of the modernizing period from Middle Ages. Nowadays the new generation with technology in hand, looks for more and more information at the quicker rate to get advantage.

KBS is expected to fulill the gap of poverty, inequality and illiteracy, leding society to become wealthy society. Human rights and freedom of self-expression and life-long education is to be promoted as a necessary factor to the quality society: middle class population is empowered and technocrats forward the world with power in their hand.

I doubt why humans would believe that knowledge could assure peace. Philosophers of the ancient Greece, such as Socrates, used the form “virtue is knowledge” to teach more knowledge for more choice to do good conduct. I saw within the Greek grammar that virtue is knowledge is grammatically equal to knowledge is virtue, so someone could imply that more knowledge means more virtue too. Then competitive data collecting is the strategy of victory. Thence arises the question could KBS with this strategy really assure the world peace?

Research Question
Will the competitive data collecting in KBS assure the world peace?

Question status
Competitive data collecting strategy of people in KBS seems to lead the competency of creating and depositing moreover knowledge. “Knowledge is virtue” seem to give the key to confidence and the enlarging data bank will ensure more virtue which could imply that peace will be more strengthened.
Anyhow “knowledge is power” of Bacon was critiqued by Foucault that it was the power of the politicians to lure the public within their right to govern. Thus the data collecting is seen as the weapon collecting which history had showed more than once, will lead the power to threaten the people and bring war. With this prospective in view, the thinkers have done some speech of warning about the data bank that it would be the cause of revolution and conflict in the near future.

Objective
To show peace does not depend on KBS but on the paradigm of the data user.

Scope of Research
Postmodern Philosophical discussion with datas and documents up to 30 April 2012

Analysis of Main Ideas

1. Paradigm Philosophy
2. Relationship among Knowledge, Education and Peace
3. Review of Knowledge based Society

Research Methodology

Discursive and dialectic method

Hypothetical Answer
The assurance of peace will not depend on the more knowledge collecting, because the history shown that wars occurred between any parties in conflicts, regardless of the level of knowledge. So the assurance of world peace would be the paradigm of administration of knowledge rather than on the collecting of knowledge and KBS. However I believe the postmodern paradigm will assure the peace according to reality.

Opposing the Thesis
Knowledge Based Society development seems to assure the world peace, showing by 3 reasons: 1) there are widespread behaviors that competitive data collecting will assure peace 2) there are affirmations that competitive data collecting will assure peace and 3) there are actions of data collecting
as peace maker. The reasons are expressed as follow,

The first reason. A man of any paradigm normally has confidence in his intellectual accomplishment and shows competency of analysis, synthesis, intuition, and take profit from his human nature to do what the need commands. Analysis of the philosophical paradigm (Kirti, 2003) shows that
Man in primitive paradigm wants to know how to satisfy the supernaturals, the ancient paradigm wants to know about the principle and the rule to get happiness in the world, the medieval paradigm has to know the religious belief and do accordingly for the heaven, for the modern paradigm the scientific knowledge is significant for happiness by conquering nature, however Man in postmodern paradigm turns back and gives importance to all knowledge: rereading all and rejecting none is the key and critical thinking is the tool to leverage the knowledge. The civilization of any continent is the consequence of this process along the time. Man uses technology to collect the knowledge in archive for the next generation. Any man is courage to learn and transfer knowledge to anyone in the group and society. In place of violence and war is encoded the education and knowing is the significant tools to reduce the amount of unneeded evidences. Tolstoy (1828-1910), a Russian writer, was enhanced with the value of education in his novel pointing out that high education makes man reject violence. So that state was responsible for the public in collecting more and more data and forced to make data bank to which the people can access for their own knowledge and for the process of enhancing the quality of life. Many country and international organizations were toward and continue this mission too.

The second reason. “Virtue is knowledge” of Socrates (470-399 B.C.) means that for a man to have a good conduct, he has to develop his intellect, because knowing more is to have more choice to do good in any condition. “Knowledge is power” of Francis Bacon (1561-1625) is supposed to induce Man in the early modern paradigm to lead humankind out of the Dark Age to be civilized. So that state and the people of today had to have more data and information to understand the change of the world in globalization and internationalization such as social, economic, politic, science and technology (Melnikas, 2010). The knower is the better to be negotiator in the peace dialogue in any conflict due to his open mind to listen to all parties, because the key social problem such as poverty, class gap, could be solved with education that gives the opportunity to the people for the better life. However the technology now is advanced and available for the collecting of the data created by humankind from the past to the present, which those who do not want people to have high education are the politicians who aim at preserving their power over people and taking advantage in politic issues as Foucault indicted.

The third reason. There are people who want peace and can not accept the conflicts. They determine that the world war must not occur again, so it is the duty of the peace maker countries to collect more data and information in their best way to be prompt to stop any violence and conflict in a peaceful
mean. The victory of liberal democracy in cold war is the key to spread the concept of technologically aided competitive data collecting which aims to stabilize the country strength and knowledge as weapon, claiming the principle that if we have better and more weapon, the opposite party will avoid the strategy and fear to have conflict with us. However the 9/11 in USA is the event that accelerates the competitive data collecting as the useful strategy to protect peace from the violent. In KBS the peace makers have to
be victor in this competition by the more advanced education, knowledge management, network and strategy than opposite and develop the quality of life of the people to promote peace.

Criticizing the opposite opinion
However I see that all the arguments of the opposite party are only fallacies.
The first reason. I against by the fact that nowadays with the competitive data collecting behavior, it make us face with the new social problems (Morkuniene, 2004). The new and better data collection tool such as digital technology has major responsibility in the problems such as social isolation,
a lost sense of community, virtualisation of hyper-reality that still had no solution to correct. Heidegger (1977) was concerned about the technology embed and the pure relation between human and technology while Marcuse (1964) and Habermas (1968) asked for the value concerning to humanity in the technology idealism. And there are illusion of hyper-reality of KBS as Baudrillard (1929-2007) critiqued to the late of the 20th century, which is more than just new technologies or new information and communication networks. Changes brought about by information technologies are not yet fully perceived and measured evident in all spheres of the life of the world community. More data is floating in the ocean of data with no direction. Man created data bank just only for collect and store the data as archives, as
much as it had in no limit, so the KBS would be the grand narrative as Lyotard (1924-1998) coded to science. The state politicians are simultaneously collecting much more knowledge to keep their power in secure as Foucault (1926-1984) critiqued to all politician in the past. Policies are forward in the direction same as the cold war period and support by the state scholars that hidden agenda and hidden problem were kept under the carpet until now.

The second reason. I critiqued that Socrates’ virtue is knowledge is not same as knowledge is virtue and Bacon’s knowledge is power was already criticized by Foucault as the power of the politicians. The advance of science and technology withdraw more of limited resources so the problems are still going on and conflicts would take role everywhere. Animal farm and 1984 were the novels of George Orwell (Britain writer) show the doubtfulness of the powers of knowledge usually do the peace uncertainty, quality of life and new social order would be propagandas. No evidence in the humankind history could confirm the consciousness of peace sustainability which the competitive data collecting strategy. And it is the tragedy that more evidences that recent people try hard to have more knowledge to take advantage to the others. Info rich and info poor (Morkuniene, 2004) come to be new state of class gap of people in the world and extend the inequality and danger to the human right. Internet and social network were become the tool of propagandas and hate speeches take place. Conflict and violence are ease to show off anywhere such as Arab spring (2010-present), Occupy Wall Street (2011), Tottenham Riots (2011) in Britain and the political conflict in Thailand (2009-present). The third reason. I critiqued that humankind has to settle for the violence and the competitive data collecting might let the consequence of excessive advantage taking which violence was the easy way to response back to this situation. Western civilization now globalized and employed the competitive data collecting strategy as priority has also the anti group such as global justice movement, ultra righteous movement and terrorism. Those three act against in any activities and social media was the major tool in this fighting. Furthermore, the peace in post cold war period was the consequence of the victory of the new paradigm change of the new generation, as Huntington (1996) claimed in his book, not the victory of the liberal democracy. 9-11 is the milestone to accelerate to collecting more and more data strategies to stop the violence but it could not whereas more violence and war are occurred by the fake data. The peace maker himself seems not ready to dialogue to another for the conflict solving and cooperating to the new state of peace. Beyond this, the competitive data collecting is supported worldwide in the fear emotion.

Supporting the Thesis

After all critiqued reason to the counter, I had philosophical reasons that the competitive data collecting in KBS would not assure the world peace. And I had the reasons support why it to be not, and has the thesis to the new and better KBS in which promote peace.

The first reason was that the concentration of data collecting depended under the change of technology, digital culture forced new generation to be train and able to use it possibilities so the new generation had their new lifestyle due to the technology embed as Heidegger (1976) concerned, nowadays people follow the up to date technology and neglect the old, engage with technology in life spending so after this new generation had to adjust themselves via the 21st century skill and apply them to obtain knowledge for the life in common and took responsibility as quality citizen to the society in diversity
approaches.

The second was knowledge is not mean to virtue but it was took as tool for power of the politicians and the knower tried this power to take advantage to another, so the humankind just look for the knowledge to give them power. I was insight what humankind lack, were the sharing and the responsibility of knowledge using. Postmodern paradigm had domain in these two factors which can promote to be the mean to make peace and new quality of social as Kant (1724-1804) asked science to serve the human. Man with postmodern paradigm would be improve himself to more quality of life and
concerned in humanity.

The third was humankind has to openness to the anti-development movement and led postmodern paradigm to acknowledge people and do good for the quality of life better. Moderate postmodern paradigm applied in the KBS development is the key to support the world peace as distribution of culture variety, human right and civil society. Globalization and internationalization of democracy could be the lance of the peace movement to penetrate the barrier of modern paradigm of anti peace movement and got involve everybody in to the round table and listen together for the good understanding and then go forward together with moderate postmodern paradigm.

Appreciating the Thesis
KBS development with the competitive data collecting strategy is directed to the hyper-reality and not impacted to the mean to make world peace. New generation had their new life style with technology embed and 21st century skills were key to obtain knowledge. Moderate postmodern philosophy would dominance in sharing and responsibility of data using for the quality of life and peace indeed.

Applicating the Thesis
More and more information at an ever-quicker rate is the formula for success (Morkuniene, 2004) of the new generation however the KBS with postmodern paradigm was seamless concept to enhance the quality of life and led us the world to be peace sustainably. people was in the mean to have authentic happiness according to reality that was the heart of postmodernism so the state politician, scholars and quality citizen of any country had to adjust themselves to employ knowledge for the well being of
humankind requires immense the development of new forms of property and new rules of behavior. The accessibility to information enables those who are marginalized and impoverished which eliminated the gap between the info rich and info poor. People all over the world had access to all useful and identified information can give it a critical evaluation to the information turned into knowledge, which can be applied in one’s activities.

Conclusion
The moderate postmodern KBS is accumulation of knowledge and its usage with sharing and responsibility for the enhancing the quality of life. The optimum level of citizen literacy, advance education, life-long study would be promoted and for solving conflicts in a wise and peaceful way.

Reference

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