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This is a copy of the press release sent out for the currrent round of the Project. It will be updated for the rescheduled meetings.
World Leaders Project
Greg Bennick
PO Box 31012 Seattle WA 98103
USA
CONTACT: GREG BENNICK
PRESS RELEASE
SEATTLE RESIDENT TO MEET WITH WORLD LEADERS TO DISCUSS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VIOLENCE
Seattle, Washington, May 21th, 2002: Local Seattle area activist and professional juggler Greg Bennick along with Dr. Sheldon Solomon from the psychology department of Brooklyn College of City University of New York and Skidmore College in New York have been invited by President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana to discuss on May 29th, 2002 in Guyana how examining human motivations might be used to promote peace and diminish violence worldwide.
The trip is the culmination of an effort launched in May 2001 by Bennick and Solomon entitled The World Leaders Project (WLP). The World Leaders Project is an initiative aimed at understanding human behavior in order to promote world peace. The two men wrote a letter to every world leader on the planet requesting a meeting with the leaders, to discuss the psychology of the human attraction towards violence.
The WLP is drawing on the work of the late Dr. Ernest Becker. Dr. Becker, a renowned cultural anthropologist and social psychologist, theorized that aggression was inspired largely by an innately human fear of our own mortality. His theory suggests that violence, hierarchy, submission, dominance, and control are all extensions of that primal fear. Building on the foundation of Becker’s ideas, Bennick and Solomon theorize that these attributes are amenable to the sway of reason. They feel that discussion of these concepts at the highest levels of government will create a trickle down effect will have a substantial impact on life on the planet. Thus far, leaders from Belize, Israel, and Croatia have expressed interest in meeting with the two.
Greg Bennick is a professional juggler and entertainer with a passion for social justice (see more information on Greg at either www.gregbennick.com which is his business site, or www.wordsasweapons.com which is his social justice site). He has worked on human rights issues worldwide since 1993. As a member of the political rock band Trial, he spoke publicly throughout the USA and Europe from 1994 to 1999 about human rights abuses. He has also worked extensively with the Western Shoshone Defense Project on native rights issues in Nevada, was the co-author of Seattle's proposed "All Ages Dance Ordinance", and has also served as a counselor, supporting survivors of sexual assault. He directs www.wordsasweapons.com and is a regular speaker on the college circuit around the country on the topic of personal empowerment as it relates to politics.
Dr. Sheldon Solomon is one of the world’s foremost researchers of Terror Management Theory, a means of examining, in controlled settings, human response to mortality anxiety and then drawing conclusions about culture as a whole from this information. He has published numerous papers on his lab work confirming these concepts over the last twenty years.