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Conflict Dissolution



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Brief Introduction


The false dichotomy that definitively makes us believe in the absolute separation of ‘something’ from ‘nothing’, and hence of ‘one’ from ‘other’, engenders deep human conflict within our selves, between our selves and with the natural neighbourhood that includes our selves. The ‘other’ that the possessive Sovereign Individual or State makes believe is not ‘us’, and who may in turn make believe that ‘we’ are not ‘them’, acquires the potential to become our ‘opposition’ and even our ‘enemy’, whether from within or outside our bodily and territorial boundaries. We begin to draw border and battle lines in order to protect and expand our realm of power, and project onto others, including non-human life, the expectation that they will do likewise. We become deeply addicted to conflict and view this state of perpetual opposition to other as an inevitable and even desirable ‘fact of life’. We accept conflict as necessary to the assertion of our independent individual and corporate ‘identity’, whilst ironically conforming with make-believe labels that belie our intrinsic uniqueness and commonality as inclusions of a diverse community where we find our complex, dynamic relational place with other. We embed this make believe in our social, academic, commercial, professional, legalistic, political and sporting rivalries, and take it to extremes in our declarations and practice of ‘War’ upon ‘Other’.


Essential to the propaganda of conflict is the depiction of enemies as ‘bad’ for the interests of or by comparison with our ‘good’ selves. This justifies whatever nasty ‘means’ can procure the good ‘end’ that we call ‘victory’. Correspondingly, the desire to define ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ in terms of Absolute Knowledge and Moral Choice has always been a powerful ally of conflict. Inwardly, it can lead us to demonise and seek to eliminate or subjugate ‘impure’ natural impulses, which have been called ‘id’ and ‘Shadow’. Outwardly, we may psychologically project our own despised attributes onto ‘scapegoats’ that carry the weight of our collective and individual guilt, shame and blame.


Inclusionally, however, conflict is not a necessary feature of human or non-human Nature, but an artefact of definitive make-believe. Natural aggression need not be viewed as an expression of enmity, but can be understood in terms of the sustenance and differentiation of distinctive fluid flows through phase interference of the kind evident between adjacent river basins and oceanic currents. In other words diversity is sustained, not eliminated by aggression, which in non-human nature rarely if ever is expressed to the extent of objectively identifying and killing neighbouring individuals or groups as rivals.


So, to resolve human conflict it is not necessary to remove rivals but only to remove the philosophical grounds for objectifying others as rivals. Human conflict can be dissolved through suspending make-believe and being natural - where ‘being natural’ means being unforced.



Contacts

Relevant Writings
  • Gina Raihani. (2007) Conflict in Context. PhD thesis, University of Bath.


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