—Princess Diana
The etymology of the word “conflict” comes from the latin confligure meaning “to strike together.” It results directly from “con-” to bring together, and “fligure” to strike. Anywhere with diversity, with equity, has conflict. I won’t say that conflict is not “the enemy”--because it's so integrated as such. No one likes it, and so many bad things are “conflicts”. No where is without conflict because no where is completely monolithic and devoid of any differences in background, personality, race. To “bring together” people with any sort of difference requires acceptance that conflict is part of that reality.
“We are a community…” a lot follows that sentence, a lot of our values, a lot of our ambitions. One of the words following that statement is “diverse”. Yet there is no mention of conflict. That’s because no one likes conflict. No one wants to put conflict in the heart, in the ideals of any community, institution, or personal understanding. I believe though, that to deny conflict, to ignore it, is much worse— even if less comfortable — because with the acceptance of the people of a community, with the acceptance of their differences, with “ honoring each individual” means an acceptance of conflict. Conflict defines a community just as much as harmony does. That’s not necessarily a scar, conflict is not necessarily a stain. Taoism believes strongly in the idea of balance. Yin and Yang are never shown devoid of each other. A community cannot be truly embodied without the conflicts that too define them. The scars of the conflict on a person's life are a part of them. It doesn’t define their entire whole, but it is a part of them that must be accepted and loved. To love our community, entirely and completely, we must love the marks of conflict that are part of it — we must love it authentically.
What is topia?
topia a world without conflict.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? No war. No fighting. Just… peace.
Yet what is peace?
Are we qualified to define peace when we ourselves have proven we are devoid of it? Now, I know I said that I would not challenge that conflict is the “bad guy” yet would a world without conflict really be so great? If conflict is the fruition of the diversity of thought, character, perspective; would a world “without conflict” be perfect?
topia: omeplace perfect
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Nothing is wrong, nothing is corrupt, nothing is out of place. Just… flawless.
Is that possible? Is a flawless, “perfect” world really as ideal as we make it out to be?
What are we looking when we say we want ?
topia: Someplace that can deal with conflict.
There it is—conflict has made it into the heart of the ideal of utopia.
The presence of conflict is evident in both the world and C. The effects of current world conflicts are reflected across the multiple levels of community we exist in. The way that CA has handled the recent surge of emotions and realities has been dubious and disappointing. I will not deny that the assemblies were not challenging, surprising—they did not address conflict, they avoided it. Instead of introducing conflict, skirt around it. Instead of showing how to actually deal with hard things like conflict, we listened to speechs about “togetherness” “empathetic.” But, as earlier established, conflict is hard to accept.
The recent “Peacebuilding through Dialogue” assembly has been one of many. Another of the many assemblies that have left sums the community unsatisfied. What’s terrible about the most poignant of conflicts, of war, is that it’s difficult and it’s complex. The nature of conflict is hard to encapsulate because it is simply not simple.
Yet with sugar-coated words, we often just hear uncontroversial, scarily not difficult conversation. No one argues against empathy, no one dislikes peace. It’s easier, so that is the direction we take.
When your trying to build something, you start with the pieces and you end with the structure. We see the pieces—we’ve all done an excellent job identifying the problem, a key piece in this puzzle. there is a thin line in criticism. It’s a constant battle against yourself, not to be unconstructively righteous. While identifying the problem is always the first step, we cannot progress if we keep reveling in the looping ideas that make us feel right. Once we go beyond that, it gets hard. Lines blur, and it’s harder to see who is in the right or wrong. Our greatest fear as a species, to not understand, to be unsure, is realized. Especially when we are further divided into groups, especially in these hard discussions, that won’t help us overcome this. As a community we are a whole: we cannot build up the structure of our future if we are divided.
The goal of building anything, whether that be a stronger community or not, is to get to the result. We are often so hung up on the start and the finish that we fail to see the in-between. The most tragic thing about that is the in-between is most valuable part. instructions, the path, to that goal. We see the pieces—and now we want to see the result. n the fixation on the result, we shun the path we are talking towards it. Yes, the recent handling of events have been unsatisfactory to many—but we are moving. There is an effort that is fueling a movement, however slow or fast it may seem to the individual, that is going towards the results we want to see. The failures along the way are the only way to get where we want to go. Why have these recent assemblies been so unsatisfactory? I believe it’s because they are all too focused on the end-goal. No one’s against compassion and empathy. These are easy, likable concepts—are useless. We have to go through the actual motions of handling something as difficult as this, not just skip to the happy ending where all those nice sounding values come true.
ith the horrors of war, how can we satisfy ourselves with just “effort.” I can understand how in the wake of something as unimaginable as war, something so intangible seems lacking. We are trekking through something so terrible it is hard to tolerate failure, yet we do fail. We fail because conflict is complex, we fail because conflict isn’t easy. It is an unavoidable truth, and incredibly frustrating.
Yet while the effort within itself displays little bounty, the fruition of it is what will help us meet the ultimate goal with conflict: to face it with candor, and yes, with love.