Johan Galtung, dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies,

President, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network

     Finn Tschudi, PhD, Professor of Psychology,

Member, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network

1.  Introduction: Some basic assumptions

Conflict is ubiquitous, violence is not. Hence the Big Question: how can we approach conflict in a nonviolent way.  Here is one trend of thought, a trail of ideas, suggesting one answer:

     [1]  The root of a conflict is incompatible goals, within an actor (dilemmas), among actors (disputes), or (usually) both. 

Other terms: contradiction, clash, issue, bone of contention.

     [2]  The conflict appears to the parties as a block: something stands in the way of attaining goals; their other goals and/or the goals of other parties.  Other term: knot.

     [3]  Blocked goal-attainment is also known as frustration, but the range of reactions go beyond aggression,/1/ and include:

A: attitudes, cognitive and emotive; ranging from glowing hatred of Self or Other to denial, from inner boiling to inner freezing

B: behavior, physical and verbal; ranging from deliberate efforts to hurt and harm Self or Other to withdrawal, ranging from outer boiling to outer freezing, via wait-and-see, and constructive attempts to overcome the block.

     [4]  What actually happens depends on personal, structural and cultural parameters. The person may have a settled conflict repertory. If another actor is seen as blocking the goal, direct

aggression presupposes a chance to prevail, which depends on the relative power in the structure. There may be blind aggression. And the culture may prescribe or prohibit self-assertiveness.

     [5] The inner and outer reactions are not necessarily at the same temperature (murder in cold blood, "boiling inside").

     [6]  We then add C: contradiction, the root incompatibility of goals, and get the conflict triangle, the three corners being A, B and C, for attitudes, behavior and contradiction.  Causal flows can start anywhere, but generally in C, the contradiction.

     [7]  However, conflict attitudes and behavior are projected on others with whom there is little or no goal incompatibility. But there will be blocked goals somewhere, if we look closely.

     [8]  A contradiction left unresolved leads to accumulation of negative energies in the A and B corners: to violence ("war" for collective actors) sustained by genuine hatred; to mutual

isolation sustained by apathy; to the self-hatred of nations that have suffered major trauma, including being defeated, like Jews, Germans, Japanese after World War II (Serbs?  Iraqis?)

     [9]  From the root conflict the conflict has now spread, metastasized, to the A and B corners as people react to having their needs insulted by hatred and violence.  Parties and media will focus on the meta-conflicts built around being hated and/or hurt and harmed; they are much more, dramatic, newsworthy. Thus, in an unpublished study for his master's thesis Dylan Scudder reports that the International Herald Tribune for July 1998 had 44 reports on violence in Kosovo and 2 on possible solutions. This also plays into a tendency to psychologize the conflict, focusing on A, cognitions/emotions of the actors, and not on C./2/

     [10]  A focus on violence, "troubles", is often accompanied by inability to explore, leaving alone talk, about root problems veiled in taboos.  Efforts to break the taboos are strongly resented.  The discourse permitted is inadequate to dissolve the problem by dialogue (dia=via, logos= word.) Violence, with its

simple winner-looser logic, is promoted by focusing on violence.

     [11]  One basic assumption at this point would be that people are more able to discuss a root problem when they sense a solution somewhere.  A glimmer of light at the end of the

tunnel makes it considerably more easy to admit that we are in a tunnel.  With no light better not mention the tunnel, truth becomes unbearable.  The all-too-human fact that at the end of the tunnel there is another tunnel (all the way, actually) does not make truth easier to bear, except with some light shafts.

     [12]  The second basic assumption is that if we manage to develop a perspective on a transformation of the root conflict, then that opening in the C-corner may drain negative energies in

the A and B corners, normalizing inner and outer relations.

     Our argument is in favor of recovering the primacy of the root conflict, the contradiction, the incompatibility itself.  To soothen hurt egos and teach non-aggressive behavior is good.

But hard, root issues have to be approached, coached in deep emotions, the basic one being hatred of the other side for not "seeing the light", i.e. yielding, and for being violent.

     Three basic, and frequent! mistakes in conflict practice follow from the failure to take into account the whole triangle:

     The A-mistake, the liberal fallacy, focusing on attitudes only, making people more loving (religious), aware of their own mental baggage (psychological).  No contradiction is unravelled.

     The B-mistake, the conservative fallacy, modifying behavior only by putting a lid on aggressive action. No block disappears.

     The C-mistake, the marxist fallacy, focusing only on the contradiction between labor and capital, regardless of costs to mind and body.  We know what happened: the negative energies in A and B caught up with Soviet achievements, and destroyed them.

2.  The TRANSCEND dialogue method for conflict transformation

The method/3/ is based on trained conflict workers meeting the parties in a conflict, singly, not combined, one on one, typically in a conversation style setting.  One experience/4/ is that high level conflict parties are usually intelligent, articulate, charming people, with high capacity for leadership.

There is little doubt that by and large they believe what they say, they are not posturing, at least not after some quiet dialogue disarms their defenses.  Nor are they necessarily longing to use violence regardless of the situation; readiness to do so is something else.  They are wedded to their positions,

but not necessarily inflexible, a characteristic they tend to attribute to the Other.  They should not be psychiatrized, nor criminalized; they are not sicker or more criminal than most.

     The basic point is that they see no way out, are blocked, tied up in knots partly of their own making.  Their persona is often grumpy, inflexible and secretive, bordering on the dumb.

The TRANSCEND method, based on dialogues with all conflict parties one at the time, is an effort to expand their spectrum of acceptable outcomes. The method is not based on arguing positions closer to the other parties, e.g., compromise. That they can do themselves in a process known as negotiation.  But the experience is that direct contact may exacerbate conflicts for several reasons: because of the verbal violence often used in verbal encounters, because compromise means accepting some of

the Other, and because of the absence of creativity when Other is present.  In one-on-one conversation style dialogues the task is to stimulate creativity, developing new perspectives. The task is to make the conflict parties "ready for the table".

     The First Round.  There are five processes involved:

-  a first process will have to probe the negative goals (fears) and positive goals (hopes), exploring beyond public posturing. Thus, in Northern Ireland Protestant fears may be less about religion and more about "being absorbed in tear-dripping Irish sentimentality and emotionalism", mirrored by Catholic fears of "cold English so-called rationality"; not to mention the fears of unemployment (Catholic) and of being killed (both).  The positive goal is to be surrounded (and confirmed!) by one's own kind, in a setting of economic and physical security.

-  a second process will in no way try to dissuade the party from their goals, but probe more deeply into the nature of the goals.  Goals are many-dimensional.  Thus, the "Korean conflict" is not only over political-military, but also over cultural- economic issues.  The broader the vision of the goal, the more

likely that some perspective can be developed, ceteris paribus.

-  a third process, the kernel, will open cognitive space to new outcomes not envisioned by the parties.  These outcomes will relate to the range of goals seen by the parties, allaying the fears, satisfying the hopes, but from another angle.  At this stage much creativity is needed.

     For example, in the conflict in and over Korea (including the USA and neighbors) it might be useful to put the complex and incompatible political-military goals on the sideline, and proceed from a cultural-economic angle.  There is the rich, shared Korean culture and history.  Opening rail and road lines would unleash enormous economic potentials, connecting  North Korea-China-Viˆt Nam with South Korea-Japan-Taiwan.  Military- political issues can come later, or even better: wither away.

     In another example, Northern Ireland, there is the possible Ulsterite identity built on the richness of both cultures, being an enclave of high tech, owned by neither one nor the other, relating positively to both Ireland and England, to Wales and Scotland, in a process of devolution that ultimately may lead to

a Confederation of the British Isles.  Again, the point is not so much to be for or against any formula as to know that there are formulas further down the road, not uncharted wilderness.

-  a fourth process will have conflict party and conflict worker together construct a new cognitive space, seeing the old goals as sub-optimal, formulating broader goals.  "Don't be so modest, go in for something better than what you used to demand!"

-  a fifth process will explore whether all parties embrace the same points in the new cognitive space.  If they do in Korea, there are still conflicts. NAFTA/EU will fear East Asian markets with free flow of goods and services. The Koreas will fear free flow of persons and ideas. There will be quarrels over costs and benefits.  But all of this can be handled without violence.

     The dialogue between conflict party and conflict worker ends when they have successfully completed the last two processes: discourse/Gestalt enrichment, complexification; and a change in cathexis toward new points in the cognitive space.

     The conflict worker goes on to the next conflict party, or shares the findings with team members who dialogued with other parties.  The latter may be preferable lest conflict party #2 sees the conflict worker as an envoy for conflict party #1.  In either case the process with #2 has to start from the beginning, not using the outcome from #1 as a starting point for #2.  The process is new for #2 even if it is not for the conflict worker.

     At the end of this first round the dialogue processes have to be compared, which is simplest with only one conflict worker.  Not only the outcomes, but also the processes leading to those outcomes have to be "processed" for new and shared perspectives.

     The second round.  The new cognitive space is handed back to the parties.  The space should be complex, having more than one point, but the points should not be spelt out in too much detail.  The second round should not be a copy of what conflict parties often do: this is the position, take it or leave it.

     If the first round has been done well, mutual acceptability has already been built into the new cognitive space by taking into account all kinds of objections.  The task of the second round is to probe for sustainability, together with the parties.  What could make outcomes of these types stick?  What are the vulnerabilities, the weak points?  The five processes will be about the same as those employed in the first round.

     The third round.  The parties now meet to negotiate the details of a transcending outcome, not a compromise, now presumably being "ready for the table", equipped with expanded cognitive spaces.  Or, even better, one of them makes an opening move and the other follows. For this process they may not even have to meet, the conflict may simply have "evaporated" like what happened to the Cold War with its countless dialogues.

     To open the cognitive space forgotten parties and goals may have to be included so as to have more cognitive complexity to work with.  A common goal can then be identified--transcending, going beyond, the original goals--expressed in short, evocative formulations, preferably only 1-4 words, difficult to reject./5/ Concrete steps will then have to be identified for all parties.

     Obviously, this work is difficult, requiring experience, sheer intelligence in the IQ sense, the capacity to internalize vast amounts of emotional/cognitive material and to make that quantum jump to a new image/perspective with sufficient clarity, combined with the word-smith's ability to find the right words.

     A crucial requirement for the dialogue is that the conflict worker has no conflicts with the parties, often phrased in terms of "objectivity/neutrality" (meaningless in conflicts over, say, abolition of slavery or decolonization.)  The inter-state system is filled with conflicts and alliances so it is highly unlikely

that countries/people with strong allegiances in that system can function as conflict workers (an example would be the absurd assumption that the USA is an "honest broker" in the Middle East

"peace process").  An ex-President like Jimmy Carter might function well, having a stand, yet at peace with the parties.

     A comment on the setting.  Generally those who are in the room call the tune.  The TRANSCEND method is based on stripping that room: one conflict worker, one conflict party, two chairs, a table for drinks and snacks.  The conflict worker is non-threatening/punishing and non-rewarding, having neither sticks, nor carrots, only knowledge and skills.  She or he may become a Significant Other, and even a Generalized Other.  Evict him/her, introduce the Antagonist, the Mediator and the Public, and the

negotiation easily degenerates to a shouting match/verbal duel with mediator/public as umpire, it is highly unlikely that creativity/quantum jumps will emerge.  This is often blamed on "lack of trust" when "lack of creativity" would be more accurate.  The parties are not "ready for the table". The TRANSCEND method is designed to make them ready.

3.  Psychological processes in the TRANSCEND approach

     There seem to be two  psychological processes involved, one more cognitive, cognitive expansion and reframing, and one more emotive, a shift in cathexis toward new goal-states.

     A.  Cognitive expansion and reframing happens when a simple two- points discourse, like status quo! vs. independence!, with totally incompatible goals, yields to a more complex discourse with goals at the time held by nobody; like giving the disputed object away (res nullius) or sharing it (res communis). The original positions are still on the map, but in a context of new positions that at a first glance may look strange, but worth exploring.  As cognitive reframing breaks open a simple Gestalt,

providing building blocks for another and more complex Gestalt, emotive suffering and cognitive pain may be high.

     A shift in the viewing angle or perspective on the conflict is a part of the process known as reframing in psychotherapy./6/ The terms disembedding/re-embedding are more evocative, however.

The conflict, and the accompanying discourse, have come to rest, been "embedded", usually in a dualistic framework.  One way of disembedding brings in more goal-dimensions with or without

clashes, more actors more concerns. Sexual infidelity looks different when four other ways of being unfaithful are also considered: of the mind  (the secret love), the spirit (no concern for the partner's life project), socially (no social support), economically (having a secret account, "just in case"). Options like separation/divorce look different when children, grand-parents, friends, neighbors enter the cognitive

space, not only the couple defining themselves as the center of the universe, wrapped around their fight over sexual monopoly.

     The word Gestalt invites using drawings in the dialogue.

     Level I.  Draw two boxes next to each other, write the word "status quo" in the box to the right and the word "independence" in the box to the left.  The Gestalt is "boxed",  opening for no possibilities whatsoever. It is closed, inviting no creativity.

     Level II. Instead, draw a line, the political "spectrum" people are used to, from left to right.  On the extreme right circle a point, call it "status quo"; on the extreme left circle a point, or counter-point, call it "independence".  This time in-between positions, compromises like "independence, but not

now", can be accommodated. This Gestalt invites some creativity, crying for those with good hearing, eyesight, imagination.

     Level III. Then, draw two lines, one perpendicular to the other, that old intellectual tool known as a Cartesian space. Put Party A on one and Party B on the other, put "status quo" at one extreme ("all to A, nothing to B") and "independence" on the other ("all to B, nothing to A".).  With two dimensions to play with there is little constraint on creativity.  Three points can easily be added to the two already given: "nothing to A, nothing to B" (the territory reverts to the indigenous or becomes League

or UN trust territory); "something to A, something to B" (the compromises mentioned) and then transcendence, "going beyond": "all to A, and all to B" (the territory becomes a condominium,

bi-national).  These were the options missing when the Eastern Greenland case was adjudicated in 1933 by an International Court of Justice with a legalistic cognitive space at Level I only.

     Level IV.  No reason to stop here. However, going beyond two dimensions, introducing more actors and/or more goals makes the Gestalts less compelling, given limited spatial imagination.

     The basic point is the low level of awareness of one's own conflict philosophy.  Thus, most lawyers would tend not to reflect upon the sad circumstance that they operate at Level I, the most primitive, both in criminal cases (The State vs. X) or civil cases (A vs. B).  Justice tends to be delivered to one or

the other; moreover, the parties themselves define to whom.  Justice cannot be meted out in percentages, 50-50 or 25-75; that would relativize justice.  X is found guilty and sentenced, or

found innocent and acquitted.  True, there is the third possibility of dismissing the case, for instance because the case does not fit the Level I formula.  As a special case, A and B, and S and X, may have reached a settlement "out of court", a formula which actually is no compliment to the court system.

     Violence/war and the courts share the same Level I logic: "either you or me", "win or be defeated".  In rare cases wars are undecided.  There is no experimentum crucis, that final battle naming the victor.  Put in other terms: the war as a conflict decision mechanism "dismisses the case", which may then

open for a settlement (like the Treaty of Westphalia 1648).

     Cognitive expansion to Level II brings in compromises; and Level III adds two more possible classes of outcomes./7/ We need Piaget type studies relating cognitive complexity in conflict outcomes to age, gender and other factors.  One hypothesis might be that girls enter Level II earlier than boys staying at Level I, reinforced by competitive sports built around the same military/legal dualist model.  But if boys manage to graduate from Level I, presumably later in life, they may perhaps make the jump to Level III more easily than girls feeling comfortable with the Level II idea of being reasonable,  accommodating.

     B.  Creating cognitive dissonances and new consonances.  The point of departure is usually a two-point, dualist discourse reflecting a polarized conflict formation.  There is cognitive consonance: Other and his position are both viewed negatively, Self and own position are glorified, the positive identification of each party with their positions is highlighted.  To move from this ultra-stable position, dissonances have to be introduced.

     One approach is to move the dialogue from a concern with the present (diagnosis) to the future (prognosis).  Ask what the positions taken will lead to. The answer "only by being firm can we find a solution" can be followed up by the question "what if Other thinks he also has to be firm?". A silence in the dialogue may indicate a recognition of the possibility of endless revenge cycles that may spell disaster to Self.  The assumption would be that "peace by peaceful means" has some attraction. And that is where the expanded cognitive space and the new angles may enter: "what would happen if we proceeded along the following lines?" "How would life be for your children, grandchildren?"

     This process is not a Socratic "dialogue" where the conflict worker knows in advance what s/he wants as a conclusion.  The process is mutual, also taking place inside the conflict worker.  For her or him the negative goal, fear, is the violence and the positive goal, hope, some constructive outcome

for all parties, that history moves on. If the conflict worker is hardened, refusing to budge, closed to new facts, theories and values, s/he may have to yield that position to somebody else. The task is to elicit, suggest, propose, not to impose. Sentences end with the question mark typical of a dialogue, not

with the exclamation signs typical of a debate./8/

     A dialogue should be between equals.  They meet away from the power paraphernalia of the conflict party (seals, titles, flags) or of the conflict worker (books, titles, awards). The conflict worker knows more about general conflict theory, the conflict party more about this specific conflict.  The conflict worker not to be too well prepared on the specific conflict lest s/he becomes too overwhelming, looming too high, well above the conflict party, both on generalities and specifics. Exchanging general and specific knowledge is not a bad basis for equality.

     But there is another inequality lurking. Conflict party and conflict worker are both exploring new outcome spaces for exits. The conflict worker is bound to the principle of hope: somewhere there is some exit. The conflict party may share that hope but also be convinced, in head-brain or gut-brain, that there is no such point, thereby vindicating the position taken. Violence is legitimated negatively: there is no alternative! Hopes for confirmation makes for blindness to transcendence.

     A way out is to use the diagnosis-prognosis-therapy formula creatively.  Each of them defines a  dialogue mode, a discourse. Diagnosis and prognosis are both descriptive, of past and future respectively (past because facts that have become data reflect the past).  Therapy is prescriptive, of the future. That map reveals an unexplored spot: the therapy of the past.

     The question, "what went wrong, when, where, and what could have been done at the time?" is designed to make the party reflect on the past to the point of owning the past, coming on top of history rather than permitting history to come on top of Self; giving in to fate, to destiny.  Counterfactual history, in the subjunctive rather than the indicative, has to be elicited.

     In our experience, after some reluctance, conflict parties are willing to engage in history "as if".  History is distant, or they can make it distant, pointing to events that occurred a long time ago, far beyond their current responsibility horizons.  Suggestions usually emerge, creating a discourse that is more creative, less filled with terrible "facts" that lead us nowhere.  "Maybe at that point in history we should have - -".

     The conflict worker would elicit maximum creativity, and then move across both dimensions, from past to future, and from the prescriptive to the descriptive: "What do you think is going to happen now?"  Obviously, this would be an effort to provide a positive anchoring in some hope, some perspective emerging from the "therapy of the past" (with the great advantage that it cannot be subjected to the test of reality), and a negative anchoring in the fear, of a dark prognosis come true.  But what if they say, we want only one thing, to win?  Extend the time horizon by asking: "what if they take revenge, in twenty years"?

     Let us try a cognitive consonance/dissonance model of what may happen, but also may not.  The point of departure is Self, Other and their positions P, P(Self) and P(Other), and the well-known polarized, balanced, dualist configuration:

               Self - - - - - - Other

               P(Self) - - - - P(Other)

The Gestalt is symmetric, with aesthetic beauty even if it leads but to death, with both killing for their position to prevail. They are both strongly committed to their positions; they hate each other and what the other stands for.  How would positive and negative anchoring break down this cognitive/emotive prison?

     The positive anchor, Pos(Anchor), would be a position acceptable to both by including the positions to which they are committed as special cases.  In other words, that transcending outcome would relate positively to all four points in the above diagram.  For example, Kosovo/a as a "Third Republic" in the

Yugoslav Federation, in addition to Serbia and Montenegro, would give high level of independence to the Albanians, and high level of status quo to the Serbs.  Both of them might be skeptical of the long term sustainability of any such formula.  But even given that ambivalence the all-over relation of the positive anchor to all four points in the figure above could be positive.

     The negative anchor, Neg(Anchor), is a dark prognosis that relates positively to P(Self) and to P(Other), flowing from the enactment of the positions taken (we then presuppose symmetry, that Self and Other in the dialogues have developed the same images of the configurations.)  Neg(Anchor) would also spell something negative for Self and Other, the dark consequences.

     The anchors have now been added, with lines to the four original points for each, and one line  between the anchors.   How do Self and Other react to this more complex configuration?

     By simplifying it.  The cognitive overload of six elements with fifteen relations is considerable; in addition there are the numerous imbalances.  In other words, two approaches are postulated, based on the assumption that human beings, including diplomats, statesmen, and conflict workers, would try to

organize their cognitive fields so as to minimize both overload and dissonances.  Work will go on until a comfortable equilibrium is obtained, simple and balanced.  In the meantime there will be inner pain, even with aggressive manifestations.

     The first approach would be to return to the original configuration of two hostile camps pitted against each other,

[1] by denying acceptability/sustainability of positive anchor;

[2] by denying the dark prognosis of the negative anchor.

With both anchors eliminated, or surviving as detached memories only, the old configuration is restored.  One denial alone would probably be sufficient to make the original configuration prevail, resurrected, even strengthened by the attack.

     The second approach leaves the original dualist structure. There is no longer any call for a decision, by war or by law, producing one victor, and one vanquished. A new configuration emerges, and one triangle, Self-Other-Pos(Anchor), has all lines positive.  Not only do both parties embrace the positive anchor, they even embrace each other, like in the early days of the Oslo Israel-PLO accords (before suicide bombs and the assassination of a prime minister made it clear that major parties had been

excluded from the process.)  The positive triangle is a long jump.  How would we arrive at such a positive configuration?

     By the logic of cognitive triangles: if there are two positive lines and one negative line, then there is cognitive dissonance. Consonance can then be obtained by changing the negative line to positive, or by changing one of the positive lines to negative.  Let us look at it from Self's angle.

     Self dislikes the consequences of the prognosis and likes Self's position; the problem being that the prognosis follows from that position, when enacted.  Now there are three choices:

[1] deny that the prognosis follows from that position;

[2] welcome the dark prognosis, wanting a trauma; or

[3] give up the position.

     The second position is important in explaining Iraq/Saddam Hussein, and Yugoslavia/Slobodan Milosevic, political behavior.  Glory is the best, but trauma is a good number 2, deposited in the world trauma bank at a high interest and drawn upon, "think of how I have suffered".  The worst is the grey zone in-between.

     What would influence the choice of [1], [2] or [3]?  Above all the positive anchoring, the over-arching, transcending goal, seeing one's own position as compatible, even if far from identical with it.  If cathexis is transferred to the positive anchor, then the link to the original position would weaken.  An

ambivalence emerges: the positive anchor is compatible with old positions, but then there is something new.  This ambivalence has made the transfer of cathexis to the new position possible;

that transfer now being on track, time has come to loosen, even cut the link to the original position.  This is alternative [3] above, not the non-starters [1] and [2].  A very good beginning, as when Ecuador and Peru embraced the idea of a binational, natural park in October 1998 as a solution to a border conflict.

     But the real test is what now happens in the whole triangle of Self-Other-Pos(Anchor).  Imagine Self and Other have both come to accept Pos(Anchor) in favor of their old positions. Will they also come to accept each other?  Clinton's stance as a father figure behind the old antagonists Rabin and Arafat, in

the White House Garden 13 September 1993, was not so much to tie them together as to prevent Arafat from embracing Rabin. The counter-example would be Reagan-Gorbachev when the former

understood that real change had taken place in Soviet Cold War positions, both over Eastern Europe, arms and basic ideology. There was a shared anchor, and changed relationship.

     The key may be in the negative anchor, the dark prognosis. It was and is bad enough for Israel/Palestine: never-ending fighting, insecure positions with high population pressure on a

limited territory, Palestine in addition without the protection of a state.  For the Cold War parties mutual nuclear holocaust.

     The acceptance by both parties of a positive anchor, using the instrument of a Joint Declaration, would have an integrative impact. Or, at a very minimum, it could change the relation from

negative to neutral, meaning a non-relation.  However, if we now introduce the negative anchor, so negative to both of them, then there is more raw material for a positive Self-Other relation.

The enemy is no longer the Other, but the joint fear of a highly undesirable state of affairs: a devastating war. A common enemy.

     In other words, the stable, balanced, non-polarized and at the same time simple configuration to aim for as a goal is:

                    Pos(Anchor)

               Self             Other

                    Neg(Anchor)

In the configuration the positive triangle wanted as outcome is solidified by shared negative relations to a negative anchor.

     This assumes a universal tendency to prefer and strive for cognitive balance/consonance; in other words a high level of intolerance of ambiguity/contradiction.  Given the importance of aristotelian/cartesian logic in the West as opposed to yin/yang logic (much) further East this may be limited to the West (and maybe to men more than to women?)  Empirical studies of the relation between deep culture (and other factors) and the validity of the cognitive balance hypothesis might clarify to what extent this tendency holds across human divides.

     To repeat, the conflict worker has two major tasks.

     The positive task is, through dialogue, to elicit a new conflict perspective and a positive anchor, learning from the parties, contributing own ideas, till something creative and solid emerges.  The general method is to expand the cognitive space so that the old conflict positions are still identifiable,

yet a new transcending position has emerged. The conflict is disembedded from its old "bed", and re-embedded at a new place.

     The negative task is to open for the full spectrum of invisible consequences of violence, the "externalities"./9/ Just as in the "science" of economics keeping major effects invisible as "side-effects" or "externalities" makes it easier to engage in exploitative economic practices, the military HQ approach in terms of numbers killed, wounded and material damage only, nothing about side-effects such side effects as structural and cultural damage, glorification of violence and urge for revenge makes it easier to engage in violent conflict practices.

     An important question is where this approach places the conflict worker on the dialogue-debate axis.  Conflict workers have a double goal, and an agenda to arrive at the positive and negative anchors: starting with the therapy of the past, then moving to the prognosis, then risking a joint exploration to

arrive at a diagnosis, then making an effort to identify therapies of the future.  And then, the same process again.  And again.  Till something fruitful emerges; if necessary by replacing both the conflict parties and the conflict workers.

     But having an agenda does not define the content of the two anchors in advance, and there may be substantial surprises down the road even for the most seasoned conflict worker.

     The process is only meaningful if the dialogue is a genuinely mutual brain-storming process, looking like a cross between a good conversation in a saloon and a lively university seminar. If the conflict worker in fact is pushing a specific position, then she/he is ripe for replacement.

     It should be noted that the peace-building function of the positive anchor is not limited to the case when it leads to a joint declaration of principles, or agreement.  The existence of a conflict perspective that looks reasonable to reasonable men and women everywhere may already serve as a war-blocker.  But that existence has to be known in public space, well publicized so that a sufficient number of elites and people in general will say, not only think, "but why this talk about war, a reasonable perspective is already before us; all we need is a process turning that perspective into an agreement.  Hurry up!"

     The crisis over UNSCOM inspection in Iraq February 1998 may serve as an example.  That the US/UK wanted to bomb Iraq "to the table", or punish Iraq for non-compliance, was clear.  But Kofi

Annan, the UN Secretary General, went to Baghdad and came back with a perspective that looked "reasonable to reasonable men and women".  The basic idea was to attach a diplomat to every team

so that verbal encounters could be more according to diplomatic protocol.  An important point was the difference between plain, colloquial American English and an Arabic richly endowed with honorifics; literal translation would sound even more insulting and "undiplomatic" to Arabs.  The perspective became a shared point of reference and built a consensus which in the end was joined also by US/UK. The positive anchor had prevailed for some time, the final outcome being hidden in the future.

     But why not leave the processes to the parties in a direct encounter?  Fine, if they manage.  The experience is that in a hard conflict they do not.  They are emotionally overwhelmed by their hatred for each other and fear of what may happen if they can be seen as yielding on some point.  And they are cognitively blinded by their efforts to defend untenable positions rather than searching for something new.  Creativity is at a minimum.  Having the "enemy" three feet away does not serve to open up cognitive spaces or to let dissonances in, let alone permit them to start dismantling their entrenched configurations.

     Anger may well be a dominant emotion if the conflicting parties are prematurely brought together. No emotion is likely to be more contagious.  Trying to create a dialogue when anger prevails is like trying to erect a tent in a tornado./10/  The storm has to settle down before the tent can be made to stay up. That is where the conflict worker, or "specialist" if "worker" sounds too low, enters: calming them down by talking with them one at the time.  There may be no time to lose before violence.

     With only negative affects towards each other the parties are likely to stick to their positions, and real listening will be minimal.  What they hear will sound like well known tape- recordings and only serve to elicit defenses of their own position.  At best it leads to debates that quickly degenerate

into quarrels, but not to real dialogue. Real dialogue requires emphatic listening, not so much concern for the other as concern for the total, inclusive "system" (like "Europe" in a broad sense during the Cold War, "the subcontinent" in any Indo-Pak encounter), and willingness to take a fresh look instead of

running up and down fixed grooves of thought.

     Access to prominent niches in public space is essential.  That access will probably be controlled or attempted controlled by State (censorship) or Capital (corporate media) lest a perspective should serve as a war-blocker when that war is wanted for some reason.  The more a war seems to be imminent,

and the higher the status of the country in the international community, the more closed are major mass media to perspectives on conflict transformation by peaceful means.  To break this invariance is no doubt a major task in this field.  The Internet does not quite solve the problem: it is publicly accessible, but it is not public knowledge who possess that public knowledge.  Big powers prefer perspectives developed behind closed doors, producing a heavy pluralistic ignorance (ignorance about where the plurality stands) and a wait-and-see attitude in the public.

     A meta-script seems to be at work here, driving not only the media but also the diplomats. A good story starts up softly, then builds up to a dramatic peak, builds down, and flattens out, to quiet, the End.  Let in early violence, let it escalate, let it peak; then time is ripe/mature.  People are begging for

"peace", handed down to victims and bad (violent) boys, by the intervention of big (powerful) boys, putting an end to conflict.

       The idea of an ending already spells disaster.  Violence may end, but a conflict always has residues.  Violence will be reproduced if they fester, and the causes are not sufficiently uprooted. Was the agreement really accepted by all parties? Is it really self-sustainable or does it have to be propped up from the outside?  In case, for how long?  Has there been any reconciliation?  Any professional would know this.  Inter-state or -nation conflicts are not handled with much professionalism.

4.  A note on the deeper psychology of the TRANSCEND approach

Of course what has been said above, essentially some Gestalt theory and cognitive dissonance theory, taking note of the emotions accompanying complex cognitive processes, is heavily biased in favor of conscious and cognitive processes.  If we try a division of psychology, individual as well as collective, into four fields, then so far e have favored the Northwestern corner:

Table 1.  A division of the field of psychology

---------------------------------------------------------------

                    Cognitive           Emotive

                    processes           processes

---------------------------------------------------------------

Conscious           IDEOLOGY            LOVE/HATE

processes           True vs False       Good/Right vs Bad/Wrong

---------------------------------------------------------------

Subconscious        COSMOLOGY           GLORY/TRAUMA

processes           Deep cognitions     Deep emotions

---------------------------------------------------------------

At the conscious level there is awareness or easy retrieval, a test being ability to verbalize.  At the subconscious level there is no awareness, retrieval is difficult/painful, and not possible under normal circumstances.  Professional help may be needed to construct a map of the subconscious from manifest

indicators.  Psychoanalysis in the Freudian tradition has had a tendency to focus on the individual, the subconscious, the emotive and the traumatic; a needed, but also narrow approach.

     The Southeast corner is needed to correct for the Northwest corner bias. Dialogues have been explored in order to rearrange cognitive structures, using emotionally positive and negative anchors.  But that is only part of the story.  We may enter the deep personality of conflict parties and conflict workers, but it should be noted that in political and particularly geo-political conflicts the conflict party is a representative, a diplomat.  Consequently, the table above has to be read as reflecting collective, meaning shared, psychological processes.

     The terms in the table are already adjusted to fit also the collective level of analysis./11/ The two subconscious categories add up to the deep culture of that collectivity; which could be a colletivity shared by the representatives/diplomats.

     Corresponding to glory/trauma at the collective level would be pride/shame.  These deep emotions, especially shame, have been neglected in the literature.  An exception is Tomkins:/12/

"While terror and distress hurt, they are wounds inflicted from outside, but shame is felt as an inner torment, a sickness of the soul. The humiliated one who has been shamed feels naked, defeated, lacking in dignity and worth".

No wonder that shame, perhaps more than sexual and aggressive feelings, has been ignored both in everyday life, and in the literature. The more a society is based on exploitation and oppression, the more intolerable shame will be for the oppressor. Shame and fear are instilled in the oppressed, while

anger and contempt dominate for the oppressor.

     Scheff/13/ has drawn attention to how unacknowledged shame may lead to anger, and how spirals of shame-anger figure prominently, not only in quarrels but also in international relations, and how war may be a way to reduce chronic shame. Nathanson has a broader perspective on shame, and one powerful strategy to evade the experience of shame is to "attack others".

     Healthy pride, enjoying one's own accomplishments, is a joy to see in children.  But the dangers of extracting undue glory from deeds vicariously earned as in celebrating yesterday's battle victories or "our" team in sports, are ubiquitous.Hubris, false pride, is a well known human affliction.  We hypothesize that the stronger that pride, the more vulnerability to shaming, and shaming will then likely lead to escalating anger. As collectively shared sentiment this cycle may become dangerous.

     Insight in the collective deep culture would seem to be essential for the conflict worker; insight in the deeper layers of the personality of the specific conflict party perhaps less so.  Representatives come and go; the deep culture stays about the same, even for la longue dur‚e (Braudel), the longer run.

     To take an example: imagine a conflict party, a major country, and a representative, a major person.  There is a dialogue with the conflict worker, and a high level of verbal agreement about both the positive and the negative anchors is brought about.  Yet there is no acceptability in the sense of

acting upon that consensus.  There is unarticulated resistance.

     Imagine now that in the collective subconscious of that country, in the deeper recesses of that collective mind, two ideas are lurking:  [1] no perspective on a conflict is valid unless it can be seen as originating with us (written US?), the center  of geopolitics; and [2] no transformation of a conflict

is valid unless military power has played a major role.

     Whether those beliefs are consciously present and the conflict party prefers not to articulate it, or absent from consciousness and unarticulated, may be less important.  The conflict worker has an arrays of choices: bringing such tacit assumptions out in the open as a dialogue theme; taking the assumptions into account without explicitly saying so. The first course of action is preferable, but maybe in a roundabout way: 

"sometimes there are countries that have a tradition of feeling that - - -.  What do you think?" To ask that question, however, the conflict worker must have the ability to hear the inaudible, that which has not been said, and to se the invisible, the (too) well controlled body language.

     This model becomes more complicated if we think in terms of two persons aiming at conflict transformation.  Three cases:

- two conflict parties, known as negotiation;

- one conflict party and one conflict worker, known as dialogue;

- two conflict workers, known as a seminar.

However, whenever two psyches are meeting, four layers interact:

[a]  the collective conscious, meaning the role behavior

[b]  the personal conscious, meaning the personal outlook

[c]  the personal subconscious, meaning the personal baggage

[d]  the collective subconscious, meaning the deep culture

     To start with the conflict worker: no doubt s/he should know more than his role repertory, as spelt out in manuals.  Through experience s/he should develop the personal touch, adding and subtracting from prescribed repertory, like any psychotherapist, social worker, mediator, diplomat would do.

S/he should also have some insight in the deeper forces at work at the personal and collective levels, not pretending to be a tabula rasa.  Any conflict worker, like any other human being, has a biography.  Like a psychoanalyst having psychoanalysis as part of her training, the conflict worker may have conflict transformation at the personal level as hers.

     This knowledge cannot be demanded of any conflict party. The only thing that should be demanded is conflict worker awareness of such factors, as indicated in the example above.

     But the conflict worker might also do well to consider her or his own personality, especially at the subconscious level of deep emotions.  Could there be some shame, some false pride? 

How about compatibility with the conflict party, with regard to the taste for anecdotes, humor, knowledge display, etc.?

     How do two conflict parties participate in a negotiation? Their verbal exchange is a debate, not a dialogue; a verbal duel.  There is winner and loser, according to whose position best survives the battle. There is mobilization of conscious and subconscious energies to fulfill the collective program,

delivering the cultural script intact into the final document.

     A critical and very often neglected point is the role of the collective subconscious in this connection. Consider these four possible outcomes:

--------------------------------------------------------------

                         Identical           Different

                         collective          collective

                         subconscious        subconscious

--------------------------------------------------------------

Verbal agreement              A                   B

--------------------------------------------------------------

Verbal disagreement           C                   D

--------------------------------------------------------------

     In Case A the agreement is unsurprising, assuming that the collective subconscious dictates 90% of the positions, making the agreement pre-programmed.  The European Union Treaties?

     In Case B the agreement is more interesting, bridging gaps in underlying assumptions.  Sustainability of the agreement may be questioned, however.  The US-Japan Security Treaties?

     In Case C the disagreement is interesting, reflecting genuine ideological disagreement, questioning the sustainability of the disagreement under pressure.  France and NATO in 1965-6?

     In Case D the disagreement is unsurprising if we assume that the collective subconscious dictates 90% of the positions taken, making disagreements pre-programmed.  US-China relations?

     An agreement may be little more than a celebration of the collective subconscious, not backed by real dialogue. "Good chemistry" between individuals may bridge gaps.  But be skeptical: such agreements may be based on false assumptions.

5.  Conclusion: Toward a conflict transformation culture

Conflict releases, and builds, human and social, individual and collective, energy; the problem is how to channel that energy in constructive rather than destructive directions. Look at the faces, at people's eyes when in conflict: some show dullness and apathy; others have beaming eyes, ready to go. The question is where, to the battlefield or to scale peaks of human creativity?

     We have not tapped the psychology of creativity,/14/ focusing on the (often lonely) creative individual and how insight comes as a flash, through analogic rather than logic.  An exception is

provided by Edward deBono/15/ and his "lateral thinking" to arrive at fresh perspectives.  We are, however, looking more for how people can be creative together, like in the Somalian shir:/16/

"a traditional conflict resolution structure that brings together all the mature men in the clans involved in a conflict. Women, children and young hot-blooded warriors are excluded.  Men lounge under the thorn trees during the hot, dry day.  They chat and drink tea.  They also spend long hours chewing qat, the mildly euphoric drug grown in the Horn of Africa, smoking, greeting each other, delighting in the pleasure of meeting old friends - or old foes. - At some point, things will jell. The various pieces that make up the main issue for which the shir was called will fall into place because a social climate

conducive to a solution will have slowly emerged.  The result will be proper peace-a peace felt from the inside-a peace that will have nothing in common with the quick-fix conferences in airconditioned hotels in Addis Ababa organized by the UN---"

In short, a conflict market filled to the brim with dialogues!

     There is no assumption that the model described in this paper is easy./17/  We would like to emphasize the intellectual effort involved in developing fruitful conflict perspectives.  No attention to the emotive and the subconscious, however warranted, should detract from this intellectual aspect, and

whether conflicts mobilize sufficient numbers of people with the talents needed.  The verdict of this century is a resounding no. We have much to learn, and to do, to handle conflicts better.

NOTES

1.  Dollard and Miller, Frustration and Aggression. New York: Yale University Press, 1939;  Berkowitz, L. "Frustration and aggression", Psychological Bulletin, 1989, 105.

2.  It would be unfair to classify the problem-solving workshops of the Yale learning school, the Harvard interactional school and the London communication/human needs school under the A and B corners,

failing to take C into account, but not too wrong. But their rebuttal might be that the TRANSCEND transformation approach is singlemindedly focused on C, which is true, and is why TRANSCEND

has eleven other programs.  For a fine analysis, see Tarja V„yrynen, "Problem-Solving as a Form of Conflict Resolution", Rutherford College, University of Kent, UK, 1992.

3.  Johan Galtung, Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means, United Nations, 1998, the "mini-version", in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. A "maxi-version" is coming, available on the TRANSCEND home-page, www.transcend.org. For some of the theoretical background, see Johan Galtung Peace By Peaceful Means (London, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 1996), Part II,

particularly Chapter 3. For other works, see:  John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995. "Dialogue" is neither in Contents nor in index.  There is a fine comparison of the prescriptive and Lederach's own famous

elicitive approach TRANSCEND is in-between);      Mari Fitzduff, Community Conflict Skills, Third edition, 1998, analyzes "Third Party Roles - Mediation", but "dialogue" is not found in the detailed Table of Contents (no index); and      Friedrich Glasl, Konflikt-Management, Ein Handbuch fur

Fuhrungskrafte, Beraterinnen und Berater, Bern: Paul Haupt, 1997. "Dialogue is neither in the Contents nor in the Index.

4.  TRANSCEND is today working in and on Chiapas/Guatemala, Colombia,  Peru/Ecuador, Northern Ireland, the Basque situation, Gibraltar-Ceuta-Melilla, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, the Middle East, the Kurdish situation, Caucasus, Afghanistan, Kashmir, China-Tibet-Taiwan, Okinawa, Hawaii and the Pacific in general, to mention some conflict arenas.  See www.transcend.org

5.  Good examples would include "common security" (Palme Commission), "sustainable development" (Brundtland Commission). TRANSCEND has used "Middle East Helsinki Process" for the Israel-Palestine and the Gulf conflicts, "equal right to self-determination" for Yugoslavia, "condominium", or "joint

sovereignty" or "bi-national zone" for the Ecuador-Peru border issue, "Switzerland of East Asia" for Okinawa, "2+3" for Korea (meaning the two Koreas with Japan, China and Viˆt Nam, the mahayana-buddhist countries), etc.

6.  Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. and Fisch, R., Change, New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

7.  This is spelt out in some detail in PBPM, Part II, Ch. 3.

8.  For an excellent exploration of the difference, see Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Moving From Debate to Dialogue, New York: Random House, 1998.

9.  For a presentation of that spectrum, see Johan Galtung, After Violence: 3R, Reconstruction, Reconciliation, Resolution; Geneva: TRANSCEND, 1998; also at www.transcend.org 

10.  We are grateful to Jim Duffy for suggesting this metaphor.

11.  For an exploration of the cognitive collective subconscious, see PBPM, Part IV, particularly p. 213, and for an analysis of the emotive collective subconscious see Johan Galtung, Global Projections of Deep-Rooted U.S. Pathologies, Fairfax: ICAR, George Mason University, 1996.

12.  Silvan S. Tomkins, Affect, Imagery, Consciousness, Vol. 2, p. 118; New York: Springer, 1963.

13.  Thomas J. Scheff, Bloody Revenge.  Emotions, Nationalism, and War, San Francisco: Westview, 1994. Scheff discusses the role played by shame-rage in the origin of World War I and II. Donald, L. Nathanson, Shame and Pride, New York: Norton, 1992. This carries further Tomkins' pathbreaking work on emotions.

14.  James L. Adams, Conceptual Blockbusting, Toronto: McLeod, 1974 may serve as an introduction to creative problem-solving, and since the root of a conflict is an incompatibility we are certainly in

the field of problem-solving.  His references are:     George F. Kneller, The Art and Science of Creativity, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965;      S. J. Parnes and H. F. Harding, A Source Book for Creative Thinking, New York: Scribner's 1962;      Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, New York: Dell,1967;      H. H. Anderson, ed., Creativity and its Cultivation, New York:Harper & Row, 1959;

     Bruner, Goodnow and Austin, A Study of Thinking, (New York: Wiley, 1957);      Sigmund Freud, On Creativity and the Unconscious, New York: Harper & Row, 1958;      Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, New York: Doubleday, 1964;      Lawrence S. Kubie, Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1966;      F. Perls, R. Hefferline, P. Goodman, Gestalt Theory:

Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, N Y: Dell, 1951.

15.  See Serious creativity, London: HarperCollins Business.

16.  See Gerard Prunier, "Somaliland Goes It Alone", Current History, May 1998, pp. 225-28; the quote is from p. 227.

17.  Thus, see James Scott, Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998 (for a review see C. R. Sunstein, "More is Less", The New Republic, May 18 1998, pp. 32-37).