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International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict |
Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA |
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International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict |
Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA |
Paul Wehr
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Balanced sociation would be a conscious effort by a society to make both cooperation and conflict prominent in public consciousness, formal education, and public investment. The assumption would be that a continuing tension between the two is important for stable and productive social relations. Aho (1994) speaks of "tension-wisdom" developing within a society like the United States; its members growing increasingly tolerant of disagreement and difference and learning how to live with it more creatively and productively. An important requisite for a society with its positive and negative relations in balance would be a relatively equitable distribution of wealth and life chances across the social structure. Another guarantor of balanced sociation would be the presence of what Coser (1956) has termed "safety valve" mechanisms, institutions permitting social and interpersonal conflict at minimal cost: nonviolent social movements; institutional third parties such as court systems and mediators; ritualized conflict in sport; training in non-injurious defense and fighting methods such as the martial arts. Balanced sociation could be produced through a society's education process. Skills at opposing constructively would be taught alongside those of cooperating and "getting along." Relations with one's opponent would be understood in both their associative and dissociative dimensions. Both competitive and cooperative conflict resolution would be taught as art forms in the schools. Mediators, arbitrators, national defense specialists and other conflict professionals would learn how to balance sociation in their work.
Use of the integrative system to respond to and end force
Assuming Force is the Only Available Option
Supporting Literature: James Aho, This Thing of Darkness , Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994; Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict , New York: The Free Press, 1956;
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