Steve Tobias (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nakedmen) wrote,@ 2009-06-21 11:21:00 |
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"avoiding conflict."
I was talking to one of my friends the other day, who said that their personality type was that they liked to "avoid conflict." And they gave examples that this personality type is recognized by a certain author/doctor/philosopher or whatever, and that there are benefits to avoiding conflict. So I had certain opinions about it or against it and sort of debated it out.
If your goal is to avoid conflict, that's okay. But can you do it?
There are two basic situations: 1) there is a future conflict, 2) there is a present conflict.
If you foresee a conflict before it arises, then you can take the measures to prevent it. That's pretty simple: if you're perceptive enough, or have the insight to do so, then you are able to prevent the conflict.
However, most of the time conflict just happens, it arises out of your control. So when conflict is already present, what does "avoiding the conflict" do? Does it actually help? When a conflict already exists and you avoid it, that is not avoiding conflict, that is avoiding confronting the conflict, which in the end can create multiple other conflicts. The conflict is there whether you deal with it or not. Therefore, that is the fundamental confusion behind this theory: when a conflict already exists and you avoid it, you are not avoiding the conflict, you are avoiding confronting the conflict. The result is that it gets worse.
So if your goal is to avoid conflict, and "avoiding conflict" creates more conflicts, then really you aren't avoiding conflict. Therefore it is not a worthy philosophy. We try to prevent conflict whether we have the philosophy of "avoiding conflict" in our minds or not. So if that particular element is present without that philosophy, and it is the only worthy thing about that philosophy, and other components of that philosophy actually do not work but are troublesome, then what is the point of holding that way of thinking?
I was talking to one of my friends the other day, who said that their personality type was that they liked to "avoid conflict." And they gave examples that this personality type is recognized by a certain author/doctor/philosopher or whatever, and that there are benefits to avoiding conflict. So I had certain opinions about it or against it and sort of debated it out.
If your goal is to avoid conflict, that's okay. But can you do it?
There are two basic situations: 1) there is a future conflict, 2) there is a present conflict.
If you foresee a conflict before it arises, then you can take the measures to prevent it. That's pretty simple: if you're perceptive enough, or have the insight to do so, then you are able to prevent the conflict.
However, most of the time conflict just happens, it arises out of your control. So when conflict is already present, what does "avoiding the conflict" do? Does it actually help? When a conflict already exists and you avoid it, that is not avoiding conflict, that is avoiding confronting the conflict, which in the end can create multiple other conflicts. The conflict is there whether you deal with it or not. Therefore, that is the fundamental confusion behind this theory: when a conflict already exists and you avoid it, you are not avoiding the conflict, you are avoiding confronting the conflict. The result is that it gets worse.
So if your goal is to avoid conflict, and "avoiding conflict" creates more conflicts, then really you aren't avoiding conflict. Therefore it is not a worthy philosophy. We try to prevent conflict whether we have the philosophy of "avoiding conflict" in our minds or not. So if that particular element is present without that philosophy, and it is the only worthy thing about that philosophy, and other components of that philosophy actually do not work but are troublesome, then what is the point of holding that way of thinking?
