Some Philosophical Reflections on Conflict

By George Payne

*Devoid of a deeply conscious appreciation for human individuality empathy morphs into a subtle form of psychological totalitarianism. Empathy is beneficial only when it acts as a signal that someone is having a genuinely unique experience. Approaching human conflict empathically is, therefore, about establishing connections with people’s distinctiveness rather than their similitude. In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, “only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible, and without limit.” Everything else is bound by our hopes, fears, and misunderstandings.

*There is a clear distinction between the organic process of discovering how people persist through periods of turmoil and the misaligned supposition that others can be ontologically known as conflicted individuals.

*It is not helpful to conceive of conflict in terms of eradication, resolution, or even transformation. Conflict is an existential predicament that originates from our primordial condition as physically sovereign, spiritually numinous, and psychologically emergent beings.

*According to the Roman philosopher Seneca “wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.” The supreme hope that fuels restorative justice is that meaningful connections between people in conflict can still be made in spite of their prevailing estrangement from one another.

*The primary goal of working with conflict is not to prevent or resolve interpersonal discord but to introduce a communication process that offers people the freedom to be themselves and to choose how they will persist with a conflict (always in unknown ways) with other free people.

from the backseat of a honda civic on its way to Rochester from Attica Prison, after day one of a conflict transformation workshop…

by Shannon Richmond

I started going to Groveland Correctional Facility as a volunteer my first year of college when I was 19 years old. What I experienced changed my life in many ways and drew me back to become a facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). Now, I am one of the outside coordinators for AVP at Groveland, and as of June, became a volunteer at Attica as well.

The workshop at Attica was quite different than the experience I was used to at Groveland, which is a medium-security men’s facility. Attica’s atmosphere, history, heightened level of security, and the people I met inside created an intense experience over those three days which has caused much reflection since then. This poem came out of that reflection, after the first day of the workshop:

from the backseat of a honda civic on its way to Rochester from Attica Prison, after day one of a conflict transformation workshop…

groundless. tired. emotionally raw.

needing space and air and trees and to touch the earth.

feeling the weight of our sorrow—our collective grief. how huge it is.

wanting to break down.

sitting in the circle and wanting to cry for all the pain. all the regret and oppression and trauma and pain. seeing that it isn’t just one of us who is sick—it is all of us. and it is because of our choices and it is because of the system and how it has failed us.

how it is failing us.

how is it that the sky is so immense and the clouds are strewn across it and there’s just not enough air in this car or in my lungs?

my throat is closing and I’m back walking that corridor looking out on D-yard and knowing how many died there.

are there enough tears for all the blood that soaked into the earth that day in September?

and it isn’t that long ago, 1971, and it all continues—

the violence and suffering and dehumanization and the fact that they don’t have cameras inside because they don’t want us to know.

it is all connected—this pain of the past is our inheritance.

the monument out front only mentions the guards that died, 10 of them.

and who is remembering the others?…29 of us.

how is it that we are so disconnected and so separate that 6×10 cells [1] are acceptable and beatings and camera-less corridors and constant humiliation?

with this endless sky above us all and this earth that supports every one of us—have we forgotten?

it is calling us back.

it is calling me to breathe with the pain.

the streaks of clouds now orange and pink, this endless sky holding us.

still holding us.

[1] this is a guess at how large the cells are, as I have only observed them in a short documentary film and not personally seen or measured them.

If you’re interested in learning more about AVP, you can check out AVP New York’s website here.  Or, I love talking about the work and my journey over the years as a participant and now as a facilitator of the workshops. Feel free to get in touch with me via email: srichmond@ur.rochester.edu. I can also support you to become a volunteer at Groveland, if you’d like to come inside and experience it for yourself.