The Root Cause of Conflict and the Ultimate Resolution of It
By Cliff Havener and Margaret Thorpe
Both the root cause of conflict and the ultimate resolution of it are revealed by looking at our “human condition” in the context of General Systems, also called Complexity Theory. First, let’s establish a common reference point—systems.
Systems
A great metaphor for a human social system is throwing a stone into a pond. We see ripples emanating out from a central, originating event. That event is the system’s originating cause, its purpose, its intent. Whatever you call it, it defines the system—what it is, what it will produce, how it will produce it, what its component parts will be, how they will be organized, and the nature of their relationship to each other.
Human social systems begin as an intent, a purpose, something someone wants to accomplish. The original intent of governments, educational systems, religions, businesses, entire societies, was to increase human well-being in some way. Remember this, because the disease of social systems that makes things meaningless and causes conflict comes from disregarding original intent.
The metaphor of a stone thrown into a pond works, not only because it describes the structure of a system and places the appropriate emphasis on its origin, but because it also accurately represents the original nature of any system. When a stone hits water, it transfers energy to the water which emanates out from the source as waves—ripples. This is also true of human social systems. They begin as energy. They materialize “out of nothing.” A concept, an idea, an “Aha!,” a new philosophy, are all psychic energy. A successful social system is manifested psychic energy, that is, an intent given material form.
Open and Closed Systems
Systems that acknowledge their interdependence with their environment are open systems. Systems that don’t are closed.
Machines are closed systems. They can only do what they were built to do the way they were built to do it. When some change in their environment occurs, they have no innate ability to adjust to it.
Most living things are open systems. They adjust what they do and how they do it in relation to the conditions they face, minute by minute, day by day, to optimize their chances of survival and well-being. We call them “adaptive” because they work to sustain their relevance, their connection with their environment.
At the core of any human social system is the unification of two principal complements through a common purpose or intent that is mutually beneficial.
Figuring out the two principal complements of any human social system is very straightforward. In personal relationships, it’s the two people. In education, it’s the provider of information and those who use it. Typically, that’s the teacher and the students. In business, the two principal complements are the producer of the product or service and its user. In organized religion, it’s the source of theological doctrine and the receivers of that doctrine. That’s typically the church and its parishioners.
Human social systems can be either open or closed. In an open social system, each principal complement recognizes the other and the intent that unifies them. In a closed social system, each recognizes only itself—not the other, not the unifying intent.
The Root Cause of Conflict
The root cause of human conflict is closed systems. Rather than pursuing an intent of mutual benefit, one “partner” pursues only what it perceives to be its own best interests, at the expense of the other. Think about interpersonal relationships. Think about businesses. Think about education—and all the kids dropping out of school. Think about governments—and revolutions. Try to find any situation of conflict where this is not true. It may sound like a simple problem to solve, but it isn’t. This basic condition is indigenous to the way human social systems age.
Any social system—a new relationship, a new business, a new form of government, a new means of education—begins as an idea, a “possibility.” Initially, all efforts go to “materialize that spirit,” that is, to creating the forms and processes that accomplish the originating intent. This is the system’s “formative” phase. To survive and prosper, the system must provide value to a larger system that constitutes its environment. In other words, consciously or not, systems that survive are originally “open.” Most new social systems don’t survive because they are originally closed. But once the forms and processes are defined, and the system becomes “established,” it then shifts into its “normative” phase. This is the beginning of the end.
All systems in their normative phase have the same purpose, which has nothing to do with their originating purpose. The goal of a normative system is to maximize predictability—the efficiency and reproducibility of its forms and processes. Its focus is entirely on itself—its own best interests. Regardless of its origin, any system in its normative phase is a closed system.
Operating rules are established to maximize efficiency—”here’s how we do things around here!”. Primary effort goes to enforcing conformity to these norms—unquestioning, unchallenging, obedience. This eliminates diversity and variance. It eliminates creativity. It forces attention to be placed exclusively on tangible issues and eliminates concern with and comprehension of “the intangibles”—the “immaterial” causes of material effects. Effectively, it prohibits “critical thinking.”
As the system grows, it becomes more complex. Its functions become more developed. They specialize. Nature also specializes, but it doesn’t normalize. Living things—open, adaptive systems—go directly from their formative phase to an integrative phase. They refine their operating subsystems in accord with their original open, integrative purpose—their relationship with their environment. Thus, their subsystems evolve interdependently. One does not develop in isolation from or in conflict with another because that would weaken the larger system’s chances of survival.
In contrast, closed social systems evolve in isolation from their environment and, at some point, in conflict with it. Their subsystems and components specialize independently from each other, unaware of any open, integrative intent that both connects the system with its environment and unifies its internal subsystems. Bonds between interdependent functions dissolve. The system’s component’s isolate from each other and become adversaries. This is “Dualism”—the practice of viewing the principal complements of any system or sub-system as enemies rather than as partners in a larger whole. It progressively divides systems into smaller, isolated, antagonistic pieces until they become battlefields of tiny soldiers, each fighting for himself.
In Western history, for example, sectarianism first split the human race into the God-fearing versus the Heathen. The God-fearing created more antagonistic dualities: God against Satan, Heaven against Hell, Good against Evil, Man against Woman, spiritual against material. The God-fearing then split into Christians and Jews. Then the Christians split into Protestants and Catholics. Then the Protestants divided into Lutherans, Congregationalists, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists and other denominations. See how it works? It, literally, is de-struction. Think of Dualism as a slow fission reaction in human social systems.
Dualism gives normative systems their “either-or” character: “Either you’re with us or against us.” Because they focus on form and process, normative systems say, “Either you look like us, you do things the way we do, or you don’t. If you do, you’re in. If you don’t, you’re out.” When the system’s objective is to increase predictability, deviance and diversity in both processes and people are “out”—very, very out.
Therefore, as normative systems age, adversity, antagonism and conflict increase. Eventually, the system tears apart—marriages fail, businesses fail, governments fall, once powerful societies recede. Mindless conformity to “norms” is lethal—eventually. But this can take decades or even centuries.
The Ultimate Resolution of Conflict
There is an option to the historical pattern of birth (formative), growth (early normative), maturity (middle normative) and decline (late normative) into death. It’s re-birth, the creation of an open, adaptive, integrative phase that replaces the normative phase.
This requires recognizing the system’s “spirit”—the intent that founded it. An originating purpose must meet one very strict qualification. It must be equally beneficial to both principal complements. Therefore, discovering a system’s “open,” original intent means discovering the reason it survived and became established in the first place.
Transforming from a normative to an integrative view of any situation boils down to answering the question, “How (on what basis) are these antagonists actually complementary and interdependent? This can be tricky, as the following example of the social system we call “business,” illustrates.
The vast majority of people in business believe its purpose is “to make money” or “accumulate wealth.” That was not the reason “business” came into existence. “To make money” was the originating purpose of English mercantilism. It came about because England found itself at a serious economic disadvantage compared to Spain. England did not have direct access to gold and silver, so it created mercantilism. Mercantilism is the practice of giving more goods than received, so the difference can be claimed in gold or silver. It was, literally, the alchemy of textiles. This became the foundation of English economics, which became the foundation of the American view of “business,” through Adam Smith, which is where the erroneous idea that the purpose of business is “to make money” came from. Notice that it’s a “closed” purpose. It is only about the best interests of the provider of goods or services, not the other partner, the users of those goods or services. This is the essential source of the conflict between producers and users, between companies and their customers. The inability to recognize the system’s true purpose, which includes the best interests of its “external” partner, is also the root cause of the antagonism between the internal functions of the business organization. And, of course, it’s the root cause of all business failures, new and established.
The originating purpose of the exchange of goods and services that we call “business,” was “to exchange usefulness for mutual benefit.” In a monetary system, the producer provides usefulness in the form of a specific product or service and the beneficiary, the user, reciprocates with a promissory note of usefulness—money. This is an “open” definition of business. It is “mutual.” It includes both principals—the producer and the user or beneficiary of what is produced who lives in the producer’s “environment.”
Embracing this mutually beneficial definition of originating purpose would, in the case of “business” (or any one business), convert it from a closed, normative system to an open, integrative one. It would not only resolve the conflicts between companies and their customers, it would resolve the internal conflict between the producer’s component parts, its business functions. Why? Because it focuses the entire organization, with all the diverse talent it needs to deliver a useful product or service, on the reason why they all gather together in the first place. It provides the foundation for synergistic integration of diversity. Focus shifts from conforming to form and process to accomplishing the organization’s intent, its purpose, “out there” in its environment. This shows its component functions how they are complementary rather than antagonistic.
Original open, unifying intent is the factor that integrates the component parts of any system. Consciously recognizing it not only resolves conflict, it actually converts all that energy into synergistic integration of diversity. It makes what was once impossible, possible. It transforms human social systems from their conflicted, antagonistic normative states to powerful, harmonious integrative states.
This is the ultimate resolution of conflict.
In principle, it looks simple enough. Doing it is much more difficult. First of all, doing it is more complex than “seeing” it. But the larger obstacle is that the vast majority of people have been raised in normative systems. As such, they have been socially conditioned against being authentic, creative, critical thinkers. Most are externally dependent or “co-dependent” as it is more often called. Moving to an integrative state requires the individual person to reclaim his or her authenticity and resurrect his or her creativity. That means people must first become independent of the societal pressures that have controlled them all their lives. They must free themselves from the myriad of admonitions against trusting their basic nature, their “authentic selves.” This is difficult for anyone and impossible for many.
Normalcy, the “closed” view of reality, is the primary obstacle to becoming open and integrative. We cannot truly resolve conflict until we can unlearn it.
The perspective reflected in this article comes from a book entitled Meaning—The Secret of Being Alive. This book delves deeply into our “human condition” as seen in the context of General Systems. It shows not only the nature of our social systems, but their effect on the individual person. It also shows what the individual can do to resolve the conflicts of being “normal” by moving on to an integrative view of life.