Why conflict. Face to face between Simmel and Galtung: convergences and quarrels
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58508/cultpaz.v8.220Keywords:
Conflict, Dialectics, Conflict Network, Transcend Method, Hybrid Positive PeaceAbstract
Introduction: The article aims at a new conceptualization of conflict by comparing the positions of its pioneers, Georg Simmel and Johan Galtung. After both we have learned that violence is an ungoverned conflict. And conflict, by its physiological and inextirpable nature, is both destructive-and-constructive, qualities that form a never-inseparable unity in which one exalts its function in exercise along with the other. Peace therefore depends on how we understand this “contradictory unity”. Henceforth, conflict is not the expression of an irreconcilable antithesis between different agents, but the announcement of the possibility that opponents perceive each other as complementary (within the unity), so that separate and conflicting interests are transformed into common goals of a higher order (peace, social coexistence). The “power of opposites” is the turning point of Peace Studies: there is neither absolute nor pure peace. It implies emphasizing the need to tolerate and govern conflict and discord, that in order to achieve positive peace it is possible to accept a quota of light violence (negative noviolence) and sacrifice a quota of good in view of achieving higher desired values.
Method: The methodology used is a comparative analysis of the concept of conflict in Simmel and Galtung and of respective conceptions of the human being and of the associated life, Simmel's installed in Western culture (Kant, Hegel) and Galtung's in Eastern culture (Japanese Buddhism and Chinese Taoism).
Results: The new perspective opens the way to the search for the general “laws” of stability and change in everyday life and society as a whole. It hypothesizes a Third Way, also called Hybrid Positive Peace, which is based on humanizing conflict, in the sense of conjecturing what kind of conflict between values we should foster in order to achieve peace and generate an alternative society possibly.
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