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.

 

1 Comment

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  Linda89 November 11, 2012 at 8:24 am

  Mahatma Gandhi said that “Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” I believe that a non-violent conflict can clarify many aspects of an debatable problem; if a conflict is proper managed, it can be beneficial for both opponents,

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