4.9K
Downloads
253
Episodes
Peace Is Here explores global peace light-hearted touch and a scholar’s heart. Join Avis Kalfsbeek, writer of environmental fiction, for a layperson's curriculum of peace. She explores peace treaties, nature’s quiet wisdom, and the down-to-earth creativity required for #TheGreatDisarmament. From deep-dive series on peace heroes to fiction stories and personal riffs, Avis looks beneath the surface to see the peace that is already here.
Episodes
Wednesday Aug 13, 2025
Wednesday Aug 13, 2025
When do people stand up—and when do they go along?
In this episode of Peace Is Here, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores the insights of sociologist George Homans and humanitarian leader Sophie Delaunay. From factory floors to war zones, we examine how human behavior is shaped by groups—and how peacebuilders can model new forms of belonging.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
In this special recap episode of the Wolff Peace Series, we explore Section V of Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man—a powerful turn from systems to souls. What kind of people make a society? And what kind of society shapes a person? We revisit four key thinkers—Plato, Durkheim, Riesman, and Erikson—who each reveal how politics lives inside us, not just around us.
Paired with peace warriors like bell hooks, Jean Vanier, Etty Hillesum, and Nimco Ali, this episode invites us to reflect on what it means to build peace not only through policy, but through personality, presence, and care. The political is personal—and that might be where transformation begins.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Monday Aug 11, 2025
Monday Aug 11, 2025
In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores the psychological terrain of identity and violence. Through Erik Erikson’s The Legend of Hitler’s Youth, we confront how early emotional wounds, when left unaddressed, can become the foundation for radical, destructive movements.
Paired with the activism of Nimko Ali—a survivor, feminist, and political changemaker—we see how reclaiming identity can become an act of peace. Her fight to end FGM and empower girls challenges systems of control at their core.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Friday Aug 08, 2025
Friday Aug 08, 2025
What happens when we lose our inner compass? In this episode, host Avis Kalfsbeek pairs the sociological insight of David Riesman with the spiritual brilliance of Etty Hillesum. While Riesman outlines the emergence of the “other-directed” self—shaped by peers and media—Hillesum offers a luminous example of peace found in the quiet center of the soul, even in the darkest of times.
Together, they ask what it means to be fully human in an age of distraction and despair.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please:Follow here
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Wednesday Aug 06, 2025
Wednesday Aug 06, 2025
Host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Émile Durkheim’s groundbreaking essay Three Types of Suicide—a sociological diagnosis of disconnection—and pairs it with the gentle, revolutionary work of Jean Vanier, who created inclusive communities of belonging for the intellectually disabled.
Together, they reveal the profound relationship between society, suffering, and the peace that comes from being held.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please:Follow here
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Monday Aug 04, 2025
Monday Aug 04, 2025
In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek contrasts Plato’s vision of a collapsing ideal state with bell hooks’ call for love as a revolutionary ethic. Together, they invite us to rebuild public life with care, justice, and soul.
In this episode:
- Plato’s “The Fall of the Ideal State”
- bell hooks’ philosophy of love as a practice of freedom
- Reflection questions on inner order and public peace
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please:aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Saturday Aug 02, 2025
Saturday Aug 02, 2025
In this recap episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Part Two of Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man—The Individual and Society: Classical Images of Man. Through thinkers like Aristotle, Hobbes, Bentham, and Marx, we explore philosophical portraits of human nature that undergird political theory. Paired with peace warriors like Malala Yousafzai, Satish Kumar, Leymah Gbowee, and Arundhati Roy, we reflect on how our assumptions about “what people are like” shape everything from law to revolution.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Friday Aug 01, 2025
Friday Aug 01, 2025
In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek pairs Marx and Engels’ theory of human production with Arundhati Roy’s lived resistance. Together, they challenge us to see peace not just as the absence of war—but the presence of dignity in how we live, work, and create.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Wednesday Jul 30, 2025
Wednesday Jul 30, 2025
In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Karl Marx’s concept of alienated labor and pairs it with the real-life work of Ella Baker, civil rights organizer and community-based changemaker.
Together, they help us understand the importance of meaningful work, grassroots power, and reclaiming our full humanity in the face of dehumanizing systems.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)
Monday Jul 28, 2025
Monday Jul 28, 2025
In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek contrasts Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of “the greatest good” with Leymah Gbowee’s people-powered fight for peace in Liberia. From theoretical utility to street-level courage, this episode asks us to rethink what really sustains peace—and whose happiness we’re measuring.
Robert Paul Wolff’s Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I’m not an affiliate)
Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com
Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter
Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.
Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)