Many Of The Unsolved Conflicts End Up Being Enquered

Conflicts begin when there is a disagreement or opposition in terms of values, beliefs, or interests between two or more people. The lack of agreement is not the conflict itself, but its cause. The conflict as such arises when that disagreement leads us to take actions to eliminate, neutralize or minimize the opponent.

Sometimes the confrontation occurs in verbal terms. The objective there is to persuade or impose one’s own reasons on the other. At other times, conflicts lead to direct action. These can be of bare or covert violence. In all cases the purpose is always the same: that one of the two positions expires and prevails over the other.

However, there are circumstances in which neither side manages to beat the other. In those cases, three paths remain. The first of them is to “turn the page”, ignoring the contradiction and strengthening everything on which there is agreement; A variant of this would be to solve the problem by constructing new agreements that take part of each position.

The second way is to set a limit and seek distance: the conflict puts an end to a bond. The third way is to persist in disagreement and maintain it, despite everything. It is in the latter case when a conflict ends up enraging itself.

The entrenched conflicts

There is talk of entrenched conflicts when a situation occurs in which none of the parties involved in the contest manages to defeat the other. There is, so to speak, a balance of forces. However, instead of ending the confrontation, seeing that no one can win, the contradiction is perpetuated. You learn to keep that situation there, without solving it and without ending it.

These types of scenarios only take place when, parallel to the conflict, there are also strong ties that unite the parties. If not, each of those involved would simply walk away from the difficulty or take forceful actions to keep the other at arm’s length.

On the other hand, in entrenched conflicts there is a whole context of agreements, values, beliefs and interests in common. On the other hand, there is also some aspect or element in which a fierce confrontation takes place. These types of problems are very common among couples, close friends or family.

It is clear that where there are human beings, there is conflict. In fact, many of those conflicts are unsolvable. Despite this, we learn to cope. We know that so and so does not agree with us on some issue, but instead of adding fuel to the fire, we minimize the importance of that contradiction. It is an adaptive and healthy way of dealing with these kinds of difficulties. What is unhealthy is nurturing disagreement and always pushing it to the limit.

Is there a solution for entrenched conflicts?

There is always a solution for all human conflicts. Sometimes it just takes a little good will. Without it, even the smallest disagreements end up eating away at a relationship. What happens with entrenched conflicts is precisely that the parties involved value not giving in more than finding a way out. They assume as a serious loss the possibility of not imposing themselves against the other.

A group of researchers from the universities of Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Herzliya, discovered several interesting aspects. One of them is that when someone is viscerally involved in one or more conflicts with another, he assumes the reasons that he uses as threats. In other words, it feels as if giving the other some reason is acting against himself. He fears that this will end up diluting or sacrificing him.

Based on this, the researchers ran a test. A group of Israeli fans were presented with a series of videos. The content of these was related to their beliefs. The material gave full credence to such beliefs about the Palestinians, but it also took them to utter extremes. For example, the total disappearance of Muslims, their complete degradation and stoning by all the countries of the world. In this way, the beliefs of those investigated were not contradicted, but on the contrary, they were taken to their maximum expression.

The result was that those who watched those videos were later more willing to re-evaluate their beliefs. In other words, they opened a place for self-criticism. The best thing was that later it was found that this change in attitude was sustained over time. They call this “paradoxical thinking” and it consists of the ability to admit that two opposite positions can coexist. Do you think this would be applicable to personal life?