Living in Conditional Conflict

Living in Conditional Conflict

Conflict is, or so people tell us, inevitable.  There is no way out of it, this is the cost of having different beliefs, or even attitudes within any relationship.  I am not just talking about couples, these cross cut attitudes are present anywhere that two or more people get involved.

The good news is that this is not a negative.  Opinions at cross angles need not become a conflict area.  They may even be respected as being something that another thinks one that we can respect and that may be OK.  Even if we do not hold that position

As I have suggested conflict is the state of play that exists when two person express their attitude about a subject.  It is not inevitable.  Two people can coincidentally have similar belief systems or in a more open relationship they may recognize that their ideas, while being different, are more important if they each surrender their attitudes, for the common good of the group.

This is the more “adult” relationship and it can be a more productive than living in the modality of conflict being inevitable.

It is easy to “work together” in a time of crisis.  We can accept other people’s attitudes in a time when there is a pressure that has to be resisted.  War and financial instability are just two pressures that have to be stood up to and controlled for the common good. 

Of course when this external threat to our community is eased we can either go back to the situation that existed before we had to join ranks to resist the threat, or we can learn that we managed to work together despite our different attitudes.   Almost inevitably it seems that a large proportion of people resort to the “I” position.  When this happens individuals as a group seemingly forget the common good and let their personal priorities rule their daily agenda; which ushers in the probability of conflict around them.

It is so easy to find ourselves hemmed in by our own attitudes which apparently are so much of a priority to us especially as they are much more pleasing in defining who we are, in a moment of self-awareness.  After all why should we need to recognize that there are more than one position in any particular issue?  After all we have spent so much time working up our position of self-awareness?  Aren’t we entitled after all that work?

So then here we stand with our personal position holding us up against the personal position and the thinking of someone just like us who has arrived at a different “high ground.”  It seems a little, even a lot, self-indulgent to call this “conflict” but there we go and this is the basis of all the wars of history.  “Blow you Jack if you want what we have then you better be prepared to come and take it.” 

It is at this point that we need to take stock and realize that conflict is not inevitable, that we can create a world where the better society is where we can share ideas and accommodate different attitudes to ours.  We may not hold off an armed conflict at an international dimension but we can stand united in a society, which like a diamond has many facets.

It seems a better place to live because we can enjoy the multiplicity of the facetted and strengthening by acceptance of others opinions.  It may not exclude another international but then again perhaps it may: if our strength of solidarity is of such an imposing nature that we reflect that solidarity well enough that our potential enemy thinks about the conflict and changes his mind.