By Cees J. Hamelink* – Article sent to Other News by the author
Whatever one may think about the US president it would seem that most people could agree on the classification of Donald Trump in the category of “bullies”. Bullies are the figures who from classrooms to family dinners and from workfloors to political assemblies manage to provoke their fellow-human beings with a level of self-confidence and intimidating authority, putting themselves always first and blaming everyone else for things that went wrong. The classical image of the bully is someone whose behaviour is unpredictable (even by himself) and often borders on recklessness and irresponsibility. Yet, the bully may be for some the perfect role-model while others grade the bully as a seriously deranged personality. The bully has loyal followers and equally loyal opponents. The bully divides the word in those who love him and those who hate him.
In human evolutionary history the bully has a special place. As a free-rider the bully was considered a danger to the fitness of the group. In hunter-gatherer egalitarian societies alpha-male social predators were policed by their own communities. Usually a family member would be asked to kill the unruly bully as the way to neutralize the risk to the group’s survival. In early 21st century humanity faces the existential risk of extinction. Whereas neo-liberal globalisation and global connectivity may suggest global togetherness, polarized fragmentation continues to be the crucial characteristic of contemporary human life around the globe. A deeply polarized human species is unable to provide protection against the existential risk it faces to-day. We cannot afford bullies that recklessly contribute to global polarization thus speeding up human extinction.
Expecting that bullies could solve deep conflicts that threaten human existence is based in a number of common misconceptions.
Intractabilty. The ‘deep’ conflicts that threaten our co-existence like the Israeli/Palestine confrontation are different from the shallow conflicts we all know from daily life that are usually easily resolved by addressing misunderstandings. Intractable problems are resistant to conflict resolution. Not "Every conflict can be resolved" as 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martii Ahtisaari once stated in a press interview (International Herald Tribune, October 11-12, 2008). Some deep conflicts cannot be resolved due to the radical disagreement of parties to the dispute. Actually, in most of Ahtisaari's mediation successes, conflicts were not fundamentally resolved but instead hostilities were temporarily suspended and did recur with a vengeance. Hostilities may be over, but parties are ready to resume fighting if final settlements are not achieved or not implemented.
There is a growing cottage industry of conflict resolution gurus, coaches, and trainers. Their approach is often based on the mistaken assumption that once people know more each other they will be less inclined to behave violentyle toward each other. However one could equally well propound the view that social harmony is largely due to the degree of ignorance that people have about each other. A misleading element in conflict resolution is also the belief that conflicts disappear when people have forgiven each other. The apparent ending of conflicts may lead to new conflicts when the negotiated solutions do not fundamentally address the core emotional issues that divide parties.
In deep conflicts emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, grief, greed, shame, sadness, panic, humiliation, or vengeance play a crucial role. As deep conflicts are never merely about objective conditions but instead involve subjective feelings, focusing on mere substance is insufficient because there is both content and context and the latter is often loaded with emotions. The emotional context may even hinder people from being able to see the rational content of their conflict. When rational viewpoints clash, it is difficult enough to come to an agreement, but when viewpoints are based on “gut feelings”, the human predisposition to group righteousness may seriously if not basically hamper resolving the conflict.
Deep conflicts are often group conflicts. These are strongly resistant to conflict resolution. Groups are led by the social morality of collective egoism and not by individual moral considerations of empathy and altruism. Collective aims tend to be more selfish than individual aims and have no place for the moral considerations that individual persons may have.
Deep conflicts are also resistant to de-escalation which is often seen as defeat and as serving the advantage of opponents. On the other hand, conflicting parties are often open to escalating the confict to dangerous levels Escalation is steered by a mode of communication which is judgmental, monological, absolutist, noisy, and thoughtless. This communication lacks patience and the capacity or willingness to really listen to the other. Escalation implies that incompatible positions move from disputes to violent hostilities—even to genocidal warfare. In the process, lighter tools are replaced by heavier tools: shouting progresses to throwing rocks and then to using firearms. While disputes are escalating, parties go from arguing to win to the deliberate hurting of the other. Escalating spirals are often hard to stop once they get started because each side feels that failing to retaliate will be seen as a sign of weakness and may invite unacceptable behavior from the other side. In escalatory processes, people's environments may provide strong forms of physiological and emotional arousal which make people vulnerable to inflammatory encouragements to use violence.
To avoid escalation in deep conflicts we should convince the conflicting parties to accept the challenge to accept divisions –however fundamental and explor coexistence as opponents not as enemies. Existence is co-existence and the challenge is to live with others while in deep disagreement.
Better than inviting negotiators, mediators or conflict resolution experts – who are often too focussed on finding a solution where there is none- we should invite ‘midwives’. This is the ‘maieutic’ approach that Plato describes in his book on the dialogue between Socrates and Theaetetus. The philosophical midwife (from the Greek μαία) induces the delivery of superior understanding in the other person, because the knowledge was already present in that person’s mind . As Plato writes “The mid-wife seeks to elicit knowledge from within a person, and elicit new ideas from the conflicting parties through dialogue and questioning, rather than through direct instruction. The mid-wife does not bring new ideas or solutions. The parties are suffering the pains of childbirth. The midwife cannot herself give birth to wisdom.The many admirable truths which they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves from within. The ‘maieutic’approach emphasizes the importance of dialogue and active participation in the learning process. It prioritizes collaborative inquiry.Midwives also provide aftercare for the post-conflict situation.
Midwives master the arts of genuine listening, of asking real questions, of suspending prior judgments and beliefs and the art of silence. Bullies sorely miss these skills. Deep conflicts ‘resolved’ by bullies will be recurrent and lead humanity into the abyss. Deep conflicts need midwives to prevent their escalation into apocalyptic evil. While we cannot overcome evil permanently, we can learn through ‘midwivery’ to tame the spiral ofescalation.
*Cees J. Hamelink, emeritus professor Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam.