Why We Can't 'Just All Get Along,' : Dysfunction in the Polity and Conflict Resolution and What We Might Do About it
In these politically divided times discourse is at a new low, affecting the polity and all everyday relations. This essay reviews some of the sources of the dysfunction (affinity bubbles, “moral tribes,” “politically correct” limits on acceptable speech) and offers some guidance on what might be done to improve learning and communication across value divides, focusing on modern behavioral social science research, some political and conflict resolution theory, and examples taken from the arts and theatre. While many offer ideas for more “rational” reason based engagement, based on more conventional political and deliberative democracy theory and practice, this essay suggests that rationality and “more facts” will not work alone. Attention must be paid in political discourse and everyday conversation and decision making to instrumentally bargained for common and tradable interests, value-based ethical, religious and moral concerns, and emotional issues and feelings that are often at the source of deeply held views. Conflict resolution practice focused on empathy development and human engagement through storytelling is one often effective tool in smaller group encounters. The challenge is to be able to “scale up” what works in one context to more complex macro forces of conflicts over basic values that divide us. The essay attempts a (pessimistically) honest assessment of our current situation and them makes a few (more optimistic) suggestions for how to combine the rational, instrumental and affective (emotional and experiential) dimensions of conflict into more productive engagements, even if such engagements do not necessarily produce conflict “resolution” or “agreement.” Conflict “handling” may be all we can hope for in the present moment, but the essay also suggests that sometimes when conflict is based on essential and strongly held values (of equity, equality and social justice) conflict may be necessary, functional and unresolvable
Year of publication: |
2018
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Authors: | Menkel-Meadow, Carrie |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (22 p) |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Notes: | In: Journal of Dispute Resolution, 2018 Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments January 4, 2018 erstellt |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014117274
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