The Seeds and Roots of Conflict

Conflict is often viewed as a disruption of a balance between two antithetical forces that leads to an attempt to restore balance in the favor of the parties involved. I would never disagree with that assessment.

However, like most things in reality, the seeds and roots of conflict run much deeper than a simple description like the one above can completely summarize. To break into the depths of the philosophy of conflict, we must ask the simple, yet incredibly important question that breaks the ground that will lead to the depths of the problem: What is the core cause of conflict?

It is a dynamic question, and probably the most important one to ask if you want to address problems like war, crime, abuse, political instability and social unrest. However, it is not an easy one to answer entirely because of the complexity of reality and the human condition.

Even so, simplifying conflict to its base form and arrangement always leads to duality and opposites. Even though existence is multifaceted, dynamic, and possibly infinite in its scope, you can reduce existence in all its complexity into a simple dichotomy: the dichotomy of what exists and what doesn't. This very simple and direct dualism, I believe, forms one of the core foundations of why conflict exists.

Examples of the fruition and operations of this dualism include the dichotomy of light and darkness, the dichotomy of yes and no, the dichotomy of for and against, the dichotomy of hot and cold, the dichotomy of creation and destruction, and many others. All these are presence-and-absence dichotomies. Another extremely important one that forms the foundation of all conflicts from the beginning of time on into eternity is the dichotomy of truth and deception.

Deception is a weird paradox. A deception does exist, but it exists only as a deception. What it is based on does not exist, hence as to why it is a deception to begin with. Deception is both a result of, and contributes heavily to, the uncertainty of reality. Without uncertainty in regards to humanity as a whole that results from limited awareness capabilities and flawed memory and information storage that decays and breaks down because of entropy, deception would not be possible. Eradicating uncertainty would naturally eradicate deception, but this is impossible for the human race.

Deception is a darkness, and it is a clever darkness. It gives the appearance of existence, but at its core, deception has no foundation in reality. Deception can convince you that something exists that does not, and when it is successful in deceiving you it is only so because of uncertainty and the consequences of the limitations of human consciousness and awareness.

An all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful being is incapable of being blinded by uncertainty, and as a result it is incapable of being deceived. As far as I know, no human has that kind of power or flawless awareness. Which makes all of us capable of being deceived and led astray. Combine the finite limitations of the human mind with the complexity of an extremely, possibly infinitely, complex existence, and there is an automatic and inevitable degree of significant uncertainty in our reality.

The seeds and roots of conflict lie in these dichotomies, and the complexity of reality simply "mix in" the dichotomies of our lives where an absolute morality and ethical code becomes almost impossible for humans to decipher and formulate. Even though the dichotomies are mixed in very well to where what you would call "grey areas" of morality and ethics become difficult to reason through and process, this does not negate the dichotomies and their legitimacy as a driving force of existence and conflict. In fact it reinforces the statement of how the extreme complexity of reality is very difficult to sort through for a finite human mind.

The "what exists" part of the dichotomy we mentioned above is extremely complex and sophisticated. Mix that with deception that is convincing at presenting itself as a legitimate truth when it is not, and the degree of complexity of reality goes even higher. This situation is exactly why "grey areas" exist to begin with; this interweaving of deception, complexity of truth, and uncertainty that have a complicated relationship at the core of conscious experience in reality.

       I believe that if you reduce conflict down to its roots, you always get some sort of relationship between "presence and absence" dichotomies that are made more complicated and dynamic by the complexities of humans and our reality. War and fighting is fueled by lack and absence. I've written about this extensively in my post "Why Do We Fight?" This post can be found on my blog. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Good Night!