| Even in the best case scenario, where we are able to avoid Resource Wars and Climate Refugee Wars and Economic Dominance Wars.....
We will have massive amounts of conflict with the Status Quo-rriors and The Old Guards over transforming enough of world society...and enough of ourselves...to the new paradigm that is the only real hope of avoiding a tragedy unlike the world has ever seen.
There will be conflict.
That means that we cannot approach conflict as a "Bad Thing," as something to be avoided. It means in fact that we have to embrace the conflicts to come as part of the process. WHILE finding a way to make our part of the conflict fit in with the new paradigm of cooperation of competition.
In other words, we have to find ways to engage in conflict...in an "excellent" way.
Or as Hunter S. Thompson put it..."When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
The going IS weird. And we need to turn pro.
A scenario: The future of the planet is at risk. (In addition to the wars and torture and bigotry and intolerance and injustice and just plain ignorance/stupidity that already beset us) and a WHOLE bunch of people...the current critical mass are just plain wrong, and just plain in denial. Their hearts and minds must be changed. There is no Ghandi or MLK to lead this effort to change hearts and minds. WE have to be the leaders. WE have to be the ones who engage in conflict.
The sort of critical mass we are talking about simply cannot be the result of One Person leading us out of the wilderness, that just produces a "follower mentality."
So EACH OF US has to not only make a change within us (conflict) but also change those we have contact with (conflict) and urge them to help us to work to change The System (big time conflict!) It simply cannot be done, the planet simply cannot be changed, without conflict.
So....shying away from, or trying to gloss over, or trying to quash or repress conflict is either pointless or, more likely, counterproductive.
It will take conflict to change the status quo. And if we DON"T change the status quo, billions are likely to die. But if we fight in the way that humans have always fought...we are just preserving the status quo by acting within it.
The Internet can be considered (among other things) a laboratory for this change. Time is compressed on the Internet. The average person can easily go through a day in our conflict adverse society without ever encountering any meaningful contact, even counting rude barristas. The Internet on the other hand is practically MADE for conflict. In fact conflict is one of the, if not THE most attractive features of the Internet. (Besides porn of course.) Here, we can compress our learning time as to how to "wage conflict" in a new and more productive way, in order to do our part in changing the world.
We CAN, if we so CHOOSE, be the vanguard for constructive change through conflict. Using the compressed and concentrated lessons of human interaction we learn on line.
At this point I feel that it is only fair to point out that I pretty much suck at this.
But in the effort to learn from our "mistakes" in human interaction, (as I recently mentioned in another essay) this is the place that I have come to. And that place is essentially a question: How do we engage in the conflict that is absolutely needed to change the world....excellently?
Human Nature is geared for conflict, the time and task we have been presented with requires conflict, avoiding or glossing over or trying to prevent conflict is counter productive.
So....how do we engage in the conflict that must occur to change the world...while not perpetuating the same cycles and dynamic that make it necessary to change the world in the first place?
This question is one of the key things we have to confront and solve as we move forward. Perhaps THE key thing, as the basic problem we face in absolutely everything we are trying to accomplish is changing ENOUGH OF human nature to save the planet and move forward.
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There will be a pop-quiz in fifteen minutes.
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March on Washington
