Patterns and dynamics of conflict
Conflict is the means of evolution. Without it existence would have been meaningless and stagnation would have stopped the wheel of history. Friction is a must for motion and so is conflict for that of life. The Universe is bound together by conflicting forces and the great drama of life rides on it. As conflict is the basis of creation, the conflicting mind is the philosophers’ true haven to brood over its potential, pattern and dynamics.
Conflict occurs when there is a difference. One may pass the blame on the ways of the world but the fact remains that each and everything is different from the other and nothing could be truer than a study of human nature. Hence the maximum collision occurs in the human world in every domain of life from personal to professional. As DeVito (2004) said: “conflict is a part of every interpersonal relationship between parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends, lovers, co-workers.”(p.310). However a difference may not always mean a conflict or else the world would have been destroyed by now. It is when two parties with a difference of opinion or belief or culture or nature try to assert his own point over the other that there occurs a conflict. One can say that conflict has more to do with a person’s superego than any real difference. So preoccupied are individuals with their own mode of justification that they shut themselves from the other’s point of view. As a result “No corner of our world is immune” (Klein, 2001, p.321). As healthy or constructive conflict leads to progression violent or destructive conflict calls for retrogression. In the recent past the world has witnessed more of the bitter struggle than a healthy one thereby putting at stake human life both physically and mentally. This has been cause of much worry among the thinkers and ever since there has been a constant effort to identify a pattern in the nature of conflict and how it works.