Home
Doors
Essays2007
Essays2008
Essays2009
Essays2010
Wisdom
Gallery
Links
Bios
Contact
|
..:: Conflict I ::..
"The Origin of
Conflict"
By
Alan Schneider
Perhaps no area of human experience is as
difficult to come to terms with as the occurrence of conflict,
either among individuals or groups. The field of communication studies
has seen many volumes of material devoted to this single theme – its
origins, development, and (hopefully) constructive resolution. This
essay will be the first of three
devoted to the examination of the human conflict process – the
origins of conflict in human affairs.
Taken from one possible perspective, conflict among
individuals, groups, and nations can be seen as the inevitable
consequence of our biological condition in the flesh, confronted with
the frustrating combination of an eternally demanding ego and physical
sensory perception existing in concert with the customarily limited
base of environmental resources nonetheless needed to appease the
requirements of our biological condition. There is always an imbalance
of distribution in the resource network that is bound to breed fear,
resentment, and hostility on both sides of the notably bimodal
prosperity curve – the fortunate and unfortunate alike are challenged
with the same perception of this inequality, albeit from very different
perspectives. The very nature of human perception is characterized by
the temporary quality of gratification – homeostasis does not
persist as a condition, but requires constant adjustment as the price of
its maintenance. In its absence, we tend to fall back into the
significantly less pleasant background conditions of basal
consciousness. This
is a recipe for HELL in human affairs, and it is no wonder that this is
what we so often experience!
The root causes of conflict can be described as an
interactive behavioral trinity: fear, resentment, and desire. They all
are directly related to human sensory isolation, and all figure into the
eventual development of conflict in specific proportions. Fear is a
background condition of consciousness that we learn to disregard in all
but the most strident cases, but is still present unconsciously.
Resentment may be felt openly or covertly, occasionally manifesting as
open or concealed hostility and anger, and is linked to the condition of
dislike of something or someone. Desire may be as simple as the
wish to be removed from the disliked condition, or as demanding as the
wish to possess what is perceived to be another’s – property, partner,
capacity, or achievement. We may simultaneously fear another’s social
power, resent that person for wielding the power, and desire the power
for ourselves. Under such circumstances, conflict is inevitable. The
trinity is driven by the basest elements of consciousness, thus
establishing the extremely negative, primitive character of conflict as
a social phenomenon. The occurrence of conflict is directly related to,
and proportionate to, the absence of communication.
The only corrective measures that are effective in dispelling
the root conditions of human fear and frustration are those that teach
methods of non-emphasis and detachment from sensory motivation –
meditation, yoga, the practice of austerity, and focusing on love and
compassion. The senses have evolved to be addictive to the
organism and the ego, and any attempt to restrain their action is bound
to be met with a high level of natural resistance until the positive
effects of the detachment process have been noticed, and this can take a
substantial length of time. Although some – a very few –
people will attain the level of perception required to note that the
human organism is itself responsible for human suffering by its
very nature, most of us will not successfully see beyond the dust of
daily battle far enough to achieve that insight. For the masses of
humanity, some externally experienced understanding of conflict
resolution is necessary, beginning with the recognition of the processes
of fear, resentment, and desire as the foundations of discord.
We have all heard the old saying “The grass is always
greener on the other side of the fence!”, and a wise observation this
is, for it strikes to the heart of human conflict. We tend to become so
involved in our personal struggles in this life that it becomes a
natural consequence of perception to literally perceive others as having
a substantially better lot in life than we do. This perception is
inevitably followed by resentment of those “others” for their real or
(more frequently) imagined advantages that we suppose they have
enjoyed. Because we are all isolated in a vulnerable personal
body of flesh, we cannot directly know what another’s experience
of their life and condition might be, even in the case of otherwise
close personal relationships (where more insight is normally the case),
and this condition of isolated perception is exaggerated in the
case of the strangers who nonetheless constitute the bulk of our daily
social encounters, even if only momentarily. The ego is always at work
in our perception, constantly screening every experience for relative
indications of benevolence or malevolence, most of which goes on more or
less unconsciously as we progress through our day, leaving the
psychological doors open to a developing groundswell of fear,
resentment, and avarice that may never really dissipate. It is these
underlying conditions that form the motivational basis for all conflict.
Even when the application of another well-known saying – “Walk a mile in
another’s shoes before criticizing them” – is applied, they may well
linger on.
I have frequently heard the process of living expressed as
an ongoing choice between fear and love. There is
certainly much to fear in this life of instability, confusion, and
sudden transition, with the question mark of death waiting at the end of
the experience of life. It frequently appears that fear is the constant
companion of the flesh, subject to dissipation, but never really absent.
Yet, we cannot simply live in fear. To do so is to embrace a life of
psychological implosion – always on the defensive against an endless
array of real and imagined threats. Love is the obverse condition of
both fear and resentment. To love is to overcome the barriers of
mistrust and embrace the life that may be problematic, but is still
ultimately the gift of conscious awareness that has miraculously
manifested out of primordial chaos. We must love in order to live
life as fully as possible – to experience the full extent of the gift of
conscious expression that we have been given. That we are challenged by
love to overcome fear seems to be the basic human equation of our
existence amid life’s turbulent flow of experience.
When fear, resentment, and desire do linger on in our
consciousness, the probable next outcome will be the most
pernicious phenomenon of gossip, the unsubstantiated, customarily
malicious, commentary regarding another when they are not present to
speak on their own behalf. Even when there is some basis in fact for the
gossiped remarks, the malicious intent is still the driving force
at work, again compelled by underlying, and more or less irrational,
fear, resentment, and covetousness. The covert quality of gossip
provides a fertile ground for the development of wild rumor campaigns
that may have little or no basis in fact, and rapidly spread like
wildfires through social groups and organizations, wreaking about as
much damage in the process. It would seem that we are predisposed to
believe the worst about each other, imprisoned as we are for life in the
lonely solitary confinement of the flesh! We have nothing but the senses
to connect us to the outside world, and this connection is defined by a
personal perspective that cannot be altered, and mediated by an ego that
stubbornly resists even constructive change. What a dreadful state of
affairs! It’s no wonder that we perform so many atrocities upon each
other. The wonder is that we ever do anything else...
Like the dark trinity, gossip seems to be inevitable in
human affairs. We must express our feelings in some way, whether
they are positive or not – this is the most human of all behaviors –
communication. And we shrink from confrontation because, in the final
analysis, it requires us to confront ourselves in the process of
being confronted by, or confronting, another. If self-knowledge is the
most liberating knowledge possible, it is also the most personally
painful and difficult to come by. Oh, woe is the little human
consciousness trapped in the body of flesh!
At a certain point, gossip matures into malicious public
opinion and open prejudice directed against target persons or groups, up
to and including opposing nations, races, and religions. Presumably,
there is at least some reasoned justification for the process by
this point, but the reality is that it is still being driven by
successively more organized versions of the same basic personal fears
and resentments of those “others” presumed to have an unfair advantage
in the battle of life, and these are no more rational or justified than
they ever were! They simply have become socially acceptable as
politicians and authorities take up the hue and cry. Laws may be
passed, invasions launched, prisons filled, lives lost, and lost
generations created, as this process reaches its logical
conclusion in full scale social conflict. It is a testament to the
persistence of our instinct-driven, fear-ridden animal nature that we
are still every bit as predisposed to react with violence and
condemnation as we were in prehistoric times. When we are confronted
with even as slight a provocation as the unfamiliar along the way
in life, our first response tends to be one of mistrust and hostility.
The unpleasant is another generator of fear,
resentment, and desire. It may take the form of the merely unfamiliar as
noted above, or may literally be significantly painful emotionally or
physically, but it leaves a psychological mark on the mind in its wake,
in any case. As I have tried to describe thus far, life itself is
fundamentally uncomfortable and unstable – we simply have evolved the
capacity to acclimate to the background chaos of existence and
subsequently disregard it. Anyone wishing to resolve any kind of
conflict successfully must come to terms with this reality of our
condition. This by itself can be a harsh awakening to the naïve and
unprepared. Yet, it must be acknowledged as the essential
condition of consciousness by the competent negotiator. Once this
understanding is in place, then the peacemaking process can move forward
with the identification of some more or less neutral ground that
will be at least somewhat acceptable to the conflicted parties as a site
of negotiation. We will continue this discussion in the next essay that will expand on the development of
conflict patterns in social contexts.
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2007, Alan Schneider)
Return to Top
|