Conflict

In my English class at school we've been reading some rather iconic/philosophical literature lately. These include Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance", Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and "The Indispensable Opposition" by W. Lippman. I recommend them all, especially those last two. These works got me thinking about conflict, communication, and their role in human life. I'm going to have to warn you: Today, we go deep.

There's so much to talk about with all of this, I'm not sure where to start. Let's begin, I guess, by talking about ideas.

To begin, we'd better have a workable definition of an idea. Let's just say that an idea is an abstract mental conception of something. Some people might argue that memories are ideas, or that an idea should be defined as something new that nobody else has previously thought of. But this will do for me.

One of the really stupendous things about the human race is our ability to have these - to think about things that we can't physically sense. We, homo sapiens, are very gifted among life on Earth with our ability to contemplate the future. The world is full of consequences, immediate and long-term, physical, mental and spiritual. Humankind has grown to what I would consider rather impressive heights because we can anticipate something that might occur, and make decisions based on that anticipation. That's not to say that other animals are unintelligent - chimpanzees and dolphins, for instance, have proven remarkably adept learners and tool users. My point is that in the capacity to introspect, reflect on intangible possibilities, and come to conscious decision, man is alone on our planet. We can believe something and choose to act in a different way because of it, but we can also choose to act contrary to our beliefs and feelings.

What really propels us forward is that once we have allowed our complex - unimaginably complex - minds to grunt and fizz and whirl and compute and create an original thought, we have devised ways of communicating that thing with others. An idea isn't tied to one person; it doesn't even spread through imitation, or subconsciously, necessarily. One person can think of something - potentially something that cannot be seen, touched, heard, or in any concrete way sensed - and then, through speaking, writing, pantomiming, playing music, allow another person to comprehend that same spectral thought!

The hallmarks of human progress I've discussed to this point are introspection, abstract thought, cognizance of the future, and communication. They're all incredible. One of the things that fascinates me the most is communication, because it allows for efficient interaction between two minds. Considering the unique situation and experiences and tendencies of each person, the potential of one individual in so many directions is astounding. And then to put all of those conglomerations of information, decision and feeling together in match after match, situation after situation (each different from the last) together and apart again and again over thousands of years... that could go almost anywhere. That's really powerful stuff, and fascinating. What happens in just such a circumstance? Everything on earth at this moment is unique. Things will never be this way again. Things have never been just this way before.

In a way, the only definition of a thing is its relationship and response to another thing. Would a twig be the same thing if one could not snap it, swish it, and make fire with it? What is something but its interaction with other things?

In a similar vein, the only way to know something is to compare it with something else. One classic example is, or course, color and sight. What is blindness? Is it not the inability to differentiate the distinctions in light from one place and time to the next, functionally? Blindness is portrayed as uniform black, because black is the absence of light. But wouldn't uniform yellow be just as blind? Wouldn't a person, able to see only a beautiful shade of blue across their whole vision wherever they looked, be just as unable to see as one in complete darkness?

It is in the face of difference and variety that sameness, or indeed anything, has meaning. The significance of even good and evil is that we, as creatures with the capacity to differentiate the two, can choose one as opposed to the other. Someone who does not know pain cannot find any meaning in joy.

That is, in part, why differing ideas and opinions are so crucial. Another is the need for progress.

Change is hard. It is a fact of life that it is easier to do what has already been done. Follow the same road. Follow the same process. Do the same activities. Act in habit. Think the same thoughs. Repeat the same grammatical pattern. Go along with the established norm...
Yet progress, by its very nature, demands change. That is why progress is hard. And sameness is so easy that when we group together and communicate, instead of growing closer to the truth through contrasting our differing experiences, instead of being enriched by the complementary but different things each of us brings to a discussion, we just allow the momentum of the group to carry us wherever they are going. Society values order more than it values originality. It values inertia more than it values justice; so when the system and the right thing are at odds, or when a new idea or rising improvement to some aspect of life occurs, society fights it. We would rather accept a safely flawed existence than uncertainty.

The real value of communication and freedom of speech is when two people or groups have different perspectives - which we all do, being different people - and then both sides listen to the other. I don't mean that one viewpoint passively accepts the other. I also don't mean that both sides listen to the other only to the extent that they can carry on a conversation and criticize their partner in discussion. What I do mean is that two opposing, or at least differing, ideas are first listened to with sincere intent to understand. If necessary, through calm, even if opposed, discussion they then resolve or address points of contention.

The point of communication is the transference of information. This information could be explicit - "I got a dog yesterday." Usually, though, communication gives us deeper knowledge - about how a person acts, about their feelings and mannerisms, their tendencies. The way someone communicates, and when and why, are just as relevant as what they say.
Therefore, sometimes all that is necessary in effective, fulfilling communication is listening. By listening to your words, I learn things about you. If you disagree with me, I learn about another way of thinking. That's a good thing. It can inform my decisions and educate my own point of view. Disagreement, in the right context, is a very helpful thing. One of the best ways to improve an argument or plan is to have someone else try to tear it down. It's like running a truck over a bridge to test its stability.

So to sum up:
What is new is not always wrong;
What is accepted is not always best;
Contrast is meaning;
Disagreement is the root progress;
And listening is not only polite, it's fulfilling and very informative.

I could probably write all day about this, but for now, that will have to do.
To you, ladies and gentlemen, and to life. Thank you for your time.

Ian