Swords to ploughshares

Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection

Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications. The plowshare is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit mankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword, a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The common expression "beat swords into plowshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups. The phrase originates from a biblical quote:

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3

One of the greatest efforts in this vein has been various peace movement goals. An example might be the destruction of nuclear weapons and the use of that technology in the development of power sources. Nuclear fission has been applied to many civilian purposes since its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nuclear fusion requires further research before it can become practical to the same degree.

References in popular culture

• In his Farewell address, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, when speaking about the military-industrial complex stated:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

• The popular anti-war song "The Vine and Fig Tree" repeats the verse

"And everyone neath their vine and fig tree

shall live in peace and unafraid,

Everyone neath their vine and fig tree

shall live in peace and unafraid.

And into ploughshares beat their swords

Nations shall learn war no more.

And into ploughshares beat their swords

Nations shall learn war no more."

• Create a world with no fear

Together we'll cry happy tears

See the nations turn

Their swords into plowshares — Heal The World by Michael Jackson (1991)

• They will live again in freedom

In the garden of the Lord.

They will walk behind the ploughshare,

They will put away the sword.

The chain will be broken

And all men will have their reward. — Finale of the musical Les Misérables

• You took your sacrifice to the gods of war

Traded your children's lives for a mess of gold

And beat your ploughshares into swords

Breathing free. — "Protect and Survive" by Runrig

• The Don Henley song The End of the Innocence contains the line: They're beating plowshares into swords, for the tired old man that we elected king (a reference to then-President Ronald Reagan).
• The Stephen Stills song Feed the People includes the line: Turn your swords to ploughshares everywhere, and feed the people.
• The phrase Pax Arva Colat meaning Let Peace Cultivate the Fields is the motto of the World Ploughing Organization.
• In the song What Good are Plowshares if we use them like Swords? Hoots and Hellmouth ask:

What good are plowshares if we use them like swords?

Don't spoil the harvest, we ain't got much more.

• The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering features a card named Swords to Plowshares.

Quotes

• "Those who beat their swords into plowshares will end up plowing for those who did not." -Anonymous
• And they'll beat swords into ploughshares and ploughshares into swords, and so on and so on, and back and forth. 'Sort of An Apocalypse', Yehuda Amichai, 1958

List of notable cases

Main article: Dual-use technology The following examples do not actually express the idea of the phrase, which stresses the destruction of weapons of war and recycling the materials for peaceful purposes. Although interesting and somewhat related to the concept, these show the dual-use nature of technology, which does not clearly convey the intention of the phrase nor how it is used today.

File:UN Swords into Plowshares Statue.JPG

The Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares statue at United Nations headquarters, New York.

• Radar was initially developed for detection of incoming bombers, now used in commercial airliners. The microwave oven is also a consequence of this technology
• Jet engines were developed for fighter craft by Britain and Germany during the Second World War
• The Space Race was based on technology, in particular rockets, designed for nuclear warfare
• The first computers, Colossus and ENIAC were developed for codebreaking or the calculation of ballistic trajectories; many of their predecessors were designed to assist in military codebreaking
• Roman roads were designed for the rapid transport of troops, but were used by civilians for millennia afterwards
• The Global Positioning System (GPS) was developed under the United States Department of Defense for military navigational purposes. The system has been released for free civilian use, e.g. in land, sea and air navigation, cartography and land surveying.
• Cyanoacrylate was developed in an attempt to produce synthetic gunsights for airplanes during World War II, but was too sticky to be useful. It is now commonly sold as super glue.
• Active sonar was developed during World War I to facilitate the discovery of enemy submarines, which led to medical ultrasonography.
• Facial tissues such as Kleenex were originally created while attempting to develop better gas mask filter membranes.
• In several former Soviet republics, large stocks of a rocket fuel component, mélange, (a mixture of nitric acid and nitrogen oxides that would have otherwise posed significant a environmental hazard) were recycled into fertilizer by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. [1][2].
• Old M20 recoilless rifles are being used as part of an avalanche control system used by the U.S. National Park Service.

See also

• Canadian Bacon
• Operation Plowshare
• Plowshares Movement
• United Nations Art Collection

External links

• Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares statue at the U.N. or [3]