Basic HTML Version
by
John Ross Schroeder
London
P
OLICE,
du ring this past
win ter, were forced t o
separate t wo Br iti sh
neighbors. They were sling–
ing snow on to one another's
property.
As fast as one man shoveled
the snow one way, h is next-door
neighbor threw it back.
T his somewhat humorous inci–
dent serves as a microcosm of the
tragedy of contlict and confrontation
plaguing the whole civilized world .
Nations as well as prívate individuals
have more or less settled into a per–
manent
state of conjlict!
An Era of Negotiation?
At the beginning of his first term,
former U .S. President R ichard
Nixon stated that he felt the
nations were entering an era of
negotiation as opposed to an era of
confrontation. But what kind of
negotiation? Negotiation based on
a spirit of cooperation, sharing and
a willingness to see the other fel –
low's point of view? Or negotiation
in a spirit of intransigence, selfish–
ness and stubbornness?
All too often our daily newspa–
pers tell us it is the latter rather
than the former.
As an example one needs to look
no further than the regular round
of British disputes involving man–
agement and trade unions. "We
Cannot Budge" are the headlined
words of one transport boss. " Rail
34
CONFLICTS
R ead, here, a f resh way that would
r~
Battle Lines Are Drawn Up" reads
another daily tabloid headline.
Another title tells us "Labour–
Management R e lat ions Have
Turned Sour." Still another cap–
tion informs us that a famous
trade-union leader is " T he Archi–
tect of Defiance."
Such emotive phrases are hardly
made of the stuff that will equita–
bly resolve bitter labor disputes.
Perhaps frustration with such
intractable attitudes was what
caused Britain's former Employ–
ment Secretary J ames P rior to say,
"The time has cometo break out of
the trench warfare menta/ity
which has wrought such havoc in
ou r industry."
As time goes on it seems that
society is forced to endure more
and more public airings of various
disputes involving not only individ–
uals but organized groups of indi–
viduals. Many of these conflicts
are, of course, intensified out of all
proportion by 20th-century media
exposure. Disputants are usually
not left to get on with solving their
personal and corporate conflicts.
Third parties often report news–
catching disputes
not
in the spirit
of the Sermon on the Mount, but
with a view to selling more newspa–
pers and magazines. And when var–
ious disputants are interviewed by
the media, they are often "egged
on" by loaded questions, such as
"Are you going to settle for such a
paltry amount?"
Why?
The Danger of Conflic t
It
is in the nature of things that
contlict is often senseless and irra–
tional. Emotional outbursts that
heighten tension are usually not
even central to the dispute at hand.
Valuable time is wasted by arguing
out emotive nonissues. Damaging
strikes are sometimes started
because the participants do not
interpret a single sentence in the
contract in quite the same way.
Make no mistake about it. Unre–
solved conAict ultimately leads to
hear tache and bitter strife. Bitter–
ness and hate produce the unwanted
economic fruit of dissatisfying life–
styles and a lower standard of living,
not to mention divorce and war. As
the proverb says: "Surely the churn–
ing of milk bringeth forth butter,
and the wringing of the nose bring–
eth forth blood: so tbe forcing of
wrath bringeth forth strife" (Prov.
30:33).
We throw up our hands in the
face of unresolved human behavior–
al problems and conflicts. ,As one
psychology professor remarked:
"Yet with respect to its own [hu–
man] behaviour
something always
seems to go wrong.
lt is easy to
understand why people ask: 'When
shall we have the behavioural
science and technology we need to
solve our [human] problems?'"
T hat appears to be a very good
question, but hear the professor
out. He continues: "I believe that is
the wrong question and that we
should be asking: 'Why do we not
use the behavioural science we
a!ready have?'" ( B.F. Skinner,
Human Nature,
March, 1978, page
86.) That's an even better ques–
tion!
The PLAIN TRUTH