" The Origins of Human Conflict "

Welcome Back Fellow Tolerance Troops,

In this edition we'll examine more thoroughly the origins of human conflict. How conflict is born, how it grows, what it feeds on, and we will also examine the possible outcomes of conflict.

Some conflict is born out of unmet or unrealized expectations from one party towards another. 

Imagine if you can, the moment of birth when you are released out of a warm, dark, comfortable, and nurturing environment and then you are suddenly falling onto a cold table in a blindingly bright room, with unfamiliar sights, smells, and sounds. There is a pain you feel almost immediately in your belly from someone cutting a perfectly fine chord attached to your body.  This is your first experience with unmet expectations and internal conflict.

When one person verbalizes a demand for a product or a service to another and the reciprocating party does not carry out that demand, or a person does not verbalize a demand, but instead relies on past behavior patterns that indicate that another will fulfill a demand, can also be a basis for conflict. This is one of the most important factors in the breakup of married and unmarried couples.

Other conflict is born of fear, and or a lack of accurate information. In it's most insidieous and destructive form, large numbers of people are injured, displaced, and lives are lost. As we all know, this is the most likely culprit in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Darfur, Gaza, and in many other places all over the world.

But let's start at the more benign individual level.  When you are young and impressionable, the first information you receive on other ethnic or religious groups outside your own are from your parents and or older siblings. You may or may not be exposed to any of these groups in your immediate neighborhood. If you have no exposure or personal experience with another ethnic or religious group then you are almost completely dependent on your closest relatives and neighbors for any information you receive on these groups. On the other hand if you live in a highly diverse neighborhood any information you receive from your relatives and neighbors is tempered by personal experiences and interactions with these different groups.

Your information on other groups is also received by external media. As you grow and gain more understanding and awarness of your surroundings, you begin to develop internal conclusions based on your own homogenous or culturally diverse environment. The older you get, and the more internal and external stimuli you receive regarding other ethnic or religious groups, the more you develop neural pathways that connect with the logic centers in your brain. The logic center then starts to perceive all this accumillated stimuli as fact.  It will remain this way and affect all of your decision making until new external and internal stimuli is received and new neural pathways are formed to replace the existing pathways. 

Conflict can result in either a positive or negative outcome. It is never static in that the parties involved are always moving to either a positive or a negative conclusion.

Conflict among individuals and nations alike move along a sliding scale, descending downward to physical confrontation, displacement, injury, and even loss of life. based on all of the factors previously stated.  The more homogeneous an individual or society is, the greater the risk is of conflict with a differing ethnic or religious group.

Conversely, I believe that all conflict can have a positive outcome based on this same sliding scale know matter where the parties are positioned on that scale. The best method being to receive unfiltered information. All individuals and nations alike have propaganda mechanisms that are used to shape the truth to their point of view.  We must use as much unedited and uncontrolled external stimuli as possible to get to the unfiltered truth, so that each party can begin to internalize this information and form new neural pathways that lead to mutual understanding. This is why when individuals, married or unmarried couples, groups, corporations, and nations have summits to achieve a modest or a grand objective. And these summits are free of unneccessary external stimuli. These summits are more often than not successful. 

In the next edition we will discuss global immigration strategies.

Your in Humanity,

Phillip Sr.