Recent comments by presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann have stirred up the discussion about gay marriage once again. While speaking to a group of high school…
12
Oct
2012
Glenn Hager
The Author
Glenn Hager
I love people who feel like outsiders because I believe they are the key to moving forward. Outsiders are often just visionaries under pressure who are on their way to becoming entrepreneurs. So, I encourage them, invite them into community and conversation, get them in touch with other insightful people, and walk beside them as they move from complaining to dreaming to changing the world.
One look at the news lately tells me that human beings are drawn to conflict.
- Iran wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
- Israel demands a red line from the United States, so it can bomb Iran.
- Militants execute a 9-11 anniversary attack and kill our ambassador to Lybia.
- Muslims around the world use an idiotic and inflammatory film as an excuse to attack U.S diplomatic institutions in their countries.
- Obama and Romney get ready to duke it out for the best zinger of the debates..
- The Republican House passes bills that the Democrat Senate rejects out of hand.
- A couple of days ago, I witnessed two men nearly come to blows in the local Walmart parking lot because one walked in front of the other’s vehicle.
Why do we seem to love conflict?
- It makes us feel alive. There seems to be something almost therapeutic about getting riled up.
- It makes us feel principled. We love to fight for what we believe.
- It gives us a simple framework for understanding things. It’s black and white. “I am right. You are wrong. I am standing up for what I believe. You are an idiot.”
But, consider the downside of conflict.
- It makes enemies out of potential friends because it is possible to be friends with someone, while still disagreeing.
- It keeps us in our camps of “us” and “them,” as long as we never get to know one of “them” in an interpersonal way.
- It deprives us of the best solutions. When half of the people are shut out of the discussion, you will seldom, if ever, arrive at the best possible conclusions.
- It fuels hate and keeps us apart. It spreads like a wildfire, sparked by repeatedly focusing on the very worse of “them,” as it drags more and more people into the conflict.
- It keeps us from understanding each other and our personal and ethnic history and culture.
- It sustains tribalism. The group that has the power seeks to enrage and do damage to the other. So they shove their legislation down the throats of their opponents, demonize those who disagree, treat some people as less human that others, and sometimes even go to war.
Can you add to the list? Is there ever a place for conflict?
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Author, your filters were exposed in the selection of those “drawn to conflict.:.” And all of us have these things to excite and inhibit.
The thing about being an unreasonable person, no cause or excuse is lost; there is, no matter how formidable, a way in logic to exonerate that is supported by what we commonly refer to as decency. It is better labeled naivete.
All so-called “conflict” is within ourselves; there is no outside source. Nothing happens to me or for me; it all happens within me.
All your reasons for why we seem to love conflict never mentions the essential: fear. It is the threat to control. It is te threat to certainity. It is the threat of waking up that is most threatening.
Jerry – I’m not sure that I understand your second paragraph, but the rest makes perfect sense to me. Anger is internal in its source. The external is merely the trigger. I think I agree with fear being the source. Perhaps, it disguises itself as other things, like a sense of superiority.
I woke up this morning thinking about the hate for our president and wondering why this is voiced by the so-called “Christian Right” and how to my way of thinking, everything I know of Christ would lean more to the left.
Much of the hate I see is aimed at our President, whom we should, as Americans respect, even if we didn’t vote for him or don’t agree with his policies. When he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, we as Americans should have been so proud and yet folks were angered and said he didn’t deserve it. When Osoma Bin Laden was killed, what should have been considered an American victory became outrage and my Facebook newsfeed was filled with angry conservatives claiming that that Obama deserved no credit for this, that it was the Navy Seals who got him. From President Obama’s Inauguration Celebration forward, his Republican majority congress vowed to make him a one term president and have voted against every thing he has proposed, even things they were for during the Republican Administration. They put their goal of making one man fail above what is good for our nation and have caused their fellow countrymen to suffer for their own party goals. I’d say that is a whole heap of hate, and this is just the surface. I’ve seen pictures of black male mannequins made to resemble our president being both hung in effigy which looks so reminiscent to the KKK lynching’s of the past, and one being beheaded at a Tea Party gathering. I’ve seen the “Don’t Re-Nig” bumper stickers. There’s the whole “birther” thing, and the rumor that our president is actually a Muslim, even though during his campaign there were complaints about his church leader, Reverend Wright. It is hateful and shameful the way some people love to hate a good man, and I can’t help but think that there is some racism there. In my opinion, the Tea Party is based purely on hate and has set our country back at least 50 years, yet these same people claim to be all for Christian values. Maybe some people need to ask themselves “Who Would Jesus Hate?”
Beverly,
Thank you for your very thoughtful comment. I apologize for taking a while to reply. It was a busy weekend around here. I also apologize that my response is longer than your original comment.
I am struck by how divided the people of our nations are. When I hear their response to the debates, it sounds like they were watching different things. That’s because their personality, their friends, and their brand of faith has formed a very specific filter through which they view the world. Of course, we would be better off to throw out the filters; except for “the Jesus one” that considers his example.
He didn’t seem to care about government and the one he lived with was exponentially worse than ours, being a nasty blend of a cruel occupying militaristic empire and a corrupt theocracy. Jesus did encourage people of his day to pay their taxes with his “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” comment, but I can’t imagine him aligning with any political movement.
I understand why you believe he would lean to the left, since the left claims to be more compassion toward the poor and more accepting of people of various ethnicities. I have found that reasonable people agree upon the problems facing our nation, but they disagree upon the best way to address them and the role of government in that process. That’s a worthy discussion since so many government programs have evoked the law of unintended consequences and are no longer sustainable in these hard economic times.
Concerning President Obama, some people thought the Nobel Peace Prize was undeserved for no other reason than the fact that he had been president for less than a year and had no major accomplishments to show for it other than toning down the nationalistic rhetoric.
Probably any president would have taken out Bin Laden given the opportunity he had. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratic Party kept “spiking the football,” something he earlier said was inappropriate.
These days Democrats and Republicans vehemently oppose anything coming from the other side. It’s a kind of semi-civilized tribalism that does a great disservice to the people of our nation.
There are no excuses for racism. Period! However, people who have sincerely challenged President Obama’s policies have been branded as “racists” and that is just as wrong. Both devalue individuals.
President Obama’s associates should be called into question as should those of any candidate.
Personally, I believe there was more hatred directed toward the last President Bush than there has been toward President Obama. This is largely because the media was complicit in the critical attitude toward Bush.
Perhaps my biggest concern of the liberal perspective is that it preaches tolerance, but there seems to be very little tolerance and a lot of misrepresentation of people who disagree with them.
Both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party are responses by people who are frustrated with the way things are. They each have the right to organize and be heard as long as they are not infringing upon the rights of others by destroying property or something like that.
Beverly, I love your compassion, but I would encourage you to examine your filter through which you see things. I suggest that people get their news from various sources and avoid becoming die hard adherents of either party. That way you have the flexibility to accept or reject whatever parts that don’t line up with what we know about Jesus and then you can merge the best parts of various perspectives.
“Probably any president would have taken out Bin Laden given the opportunity he had. ”
From previous statements made criticizing the president prior to killing bin Laden, Romney said he would not enter Pakistan without their approval. Also, the risk was very high and took a great deal of courage. To suggest any president would have done so is, I feel, a stretch. If this went wrong, like Carter, he was done.
“Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratic Party kept “spiking the football,” something he earlier said was inappropriate.”
“These days Democrats and Republicans vehemently oppose anything coming from the other side.”
“However, people who have sincerely challenged President Obama’s policies have been branded as “racists” and that is just as wrong.”
“I believe there was more hatred directed toward the last President Bush than there has been toward President Obama. This is largely because the media was complicit in the critical attitude toward Bush.”
“Perhaps my biggest concern of the liberal perspective is that it preaches tolerance, but there seems to be very little tolerance and a lot of misrepresentation of people who disagree with them.”
“Both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party are responses by people who are frustrated with the way things are. They each have the right to organize and be heard as long as they are not infringing upon the rights of others by destroying property or something like that.”
“…and avoid becoming die hard adherents of either party.” If you carefully and open-mindedly re-read your statements above, I feel you may need to question yourself on this advice.
I had written a reply of some lengths to each sentence I cited in your reply to Beverly. I decided to just leave an abbreviated answer to the first statement. The Right wing filtering needed to produce the other cites is self-evident.
In a hopefully better-thought out commentary on your thread than my first, most of the conflict, to me, arises from the subconscious, the Shadow Self, land of “unaccepted things.”
Lacking a sense of genuineness–in effect being perpetually underwhelmed–I needed conflict to feel alive, the contrasts giving me a sense of identity. At least this is my experience in recovering through the Twelve Steps.From that place, perception is cause. The dark aspects of myself are projected, old wounds seek succor or revenge, past failures look to succeed, mistakes want a fall guy.
AA has a spiritual axiom, which in my life I have seen to be absolutely true time and time again: Whenever I am disturbed, the problem is in me. Nothing happens to me or for me; it all happens within me. Reality is of the heart, the life I get and share is there.