Questions to be Investigated in the Following Chapters

Chapter Two: Navigating Identity Differences

Part One: Identity Conflicts

Readings:

Cleaver, E., & Geismar, Maxwell. (1967). Soul on ice (First ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Questions:

1. Who am I?
2. Who am I, as one who wishes to work positively with conflicts?
3. Who are others, whose identities are different by virtue of their histories, aspirations, and identities? 4. How do we distinguish between individualism, tribalism, and hybridism?
4. How are identities based on truths than can be doubted?
5. What is the “radical equality of belief and value presuppositions”?
6. How are identities, bonding, and loyalties fixed and fluid?
7. How is conflict processes biased toward self-interest, individualism, and maximization (win-win) of self-interests?
8. Do indigenous people know who they are through traditional rites of passage?
9. Have civilized people lost rites of passage, or have they become rites of identity group membership?
10. Are today’s identity groups different that traditional tribes, villages, communities, and neighborhoods?
11. Do identity groups enforce strict standards of conformity, even as they embrace some diversity?
12. Do identity groups behave as mobs or echo chambers online?
13. Can political correctness be used to suppress nonconformity?
14. How do identity groups behave at colleges and universities, inside and outside of the classroom?
15. Does one discover their identity in an identity group, or is one assigned an identity in an identity group?
16. When one strives for a higher status, is one trying to become part of another more superior identity group?
17. Do people compete to become part of a high-status identity group: a group of winners, cool, smart, competent, fun, etc.?
18. Do people seeking power try to join privileged identity groups, and move away from lesser identity groups, even while they maintain membership in a nostalgic identity group?
19. How is liberation from oppression complicated by identity group membership of both oppressor and oppressed?
20. How do identity group membership play roles in almost every conflict?
21. How do the roles of “mediator” and “facilitator” bring problematic identity problems into conflict processes?
22. How does internalized oppression play a role in conflict processes?
23. Can anyone escape internalized oppression of some type?

Part Two: Paradoxical Identity

Readings:

“The Conflict Resolver’s (workers) Paradoxical Identity: From Conflicted to Hybrid” by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. Should conflict workers develop mixed identities, so that they can internalize different cultural sensibilities?
2. When conflict workers develop mixed identities, do they become hybrids or can they still maintain a singular identity?
3. Are conflict workers translators between cultural identities?
4. Are bicultural or multicultural particularly adept at being cultural translators?
5. Alternatively, should conflict workers focus on helping disputants communicate their differences and uniqueness’s, without the conflict worker needing to hybridize?
6. How do our histories make each of us unique, even identical twins?
7. Should conflict workers help disputants develop positive identities, so that they can escape the dynamic of dysfunctionally acting out their negative identities?

Chapter Three: Navigating Connection/Disconnection; Full Range of Emotions and Emotional Abuse

Part One: Connection and Disconnection

Readings:

• Clinchy, B. M. (1994). On Critical Thinking and Connected Knowing. In Walters, K. (ed.). Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking (Teacher empowerment and school reform). Albany: State University of New York Press
• Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufman, Trans.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Questions:

1. What does it mean to authentically connect across difference?
2. What is the distinction between connection and disconnection?
3. Is disconnection and alienation becoming a widespread cultural experience in the USA?
4. Do we feel stuck inside our brain and our bodies, unable to reach others?
5. Are individualism and a focus on self-interest at the root of disconnection and alienation?
6. Do we market ourselves to others?
7. Is self-promotion a way of life in the USA?
8. Have we created a persona for ourselves that will help us have friends and a career?
9. Do we have different personas for different interactions?
10. What does it mean to be a professional?
11. Do we have a conflict professional persona, and does that get in the way of conflict work?
12. What does it mean to listen for understanding?
13. What is the interplay of experience, emotions, and thoughts?
14. How do we distinguish between intuition, cognition, emotional intelligence, culture, and transcendence?
15. What does it mean to be working positively with conflict?

Part Two: Full range of emotions and emotional abuse

Readings:

Thich Nhat Hanh on Dealing with Anger

“Demonizing the Hater” by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. How do with distinguish the terms: anger, outrage, hostility, frustration, contempt, disrespect?
2. What is the upside and downside of our emotional suppression bias against potentially disruptive emotions?
3. How can we more easily express and manage difficult emotions, such as:

–impulsivity;

–triggered annoyance;

–cultural triggers;

–trauma triggers;

–grumpiness;

–self-disappointments;

–loneliness;

–low self-esteem?

4. How are emotions used to dominate others?
5. How can emotions be abusive?
6. How can expressing emotions trigger retraumatization in others?
7. How does conflict work frequently engage strong emotions, and what is the best way to help disputants express their emotions, without domination, abuse or retraumatization?
8. Do conflict processes have a bias against strong emotions; and how is that problematic?
9. Sometimes anger expresses deep hate; how can that be handled in conflict work?
10. What is the upside and downside of demonizing the hater?
11. Why is there a hate crime bias in our thinking about haters?
12. How do we navigating hate, free, true speech?
13. How does righteous hate against haters add more hate to the world, and is this always the case?

Chapter Four: Navigating Disengaged and Engaged Thinking and Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking

Part One: Disengaged and Engaged Thinking

Readings:

“Engaged Thinking” by Robert Gould

“Engaged Writing: Mediating Inner and Outer Narratives by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. How do different kinds of thinking help or hinder the process of navigating difference?
2. How do logical and critical thinking help us overcome groupthink, but still pose a hindrance to the process of navigating difference?
3. Why does the field of informal logic have an obsession with fallacies as irrational, when they can often be reasonable?
4. What is connected knowing, as expressed by engaged thinking, and how do they help us navigate engagement and disengagement?
5. How does engaged writing help us with engaged thinking?
6. What is contextual thinking, and how does it assume that we live in a non-reducible world that can be experience through personal and authentic knowledge?
7. How does contextual thinking get us unstuck from abstract thinking, oversimplifications, and overgeneralizations?
8. What is ordinary language thinking, and how does it help us escape the confines of jargon and unnecessary abstraction?
9. What is continuum thinking, and how does it get us unstuck from polar thinking?
10. What is paradoxical thinking, and how can thinking opposites at once help us overcome cognitive dissonance?
11. What is flexible thinking, and how does it help us navigate between liquid and solid knowledge?
12. How can we mediate between inner and outer narratives?
13. How do other human expressions of self, culture, environment, genetics, narrative, and group dynamics help or hinder the process of navigating difference?

Part Two: Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking:

Readings:

“Memorial Address” by Martin Heidegger

“Insights from Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking that Deepens Conflict Processes Practice” by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. What are Heidegger’s four ways to be a meditative thinking?
2. How is meditative thinking useful for conflict workers?

Chapter Five: Navigating Abundance and Scarcity; Class Conflicts and Economic Justice

Part One: Abundance and Scarcity

Readings:

“Abundance, Scarcity, and Violence” by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. Did Adam Smith suggest that capitalism is a win/win exchange?
2. How is money oppressive amorality?
3. What are the alternatives to money (gifts/trade)?
4. What if we only needed money for luxuries; where all necessities are free?
5. What economies are based on renewable cycles and relationships?

Part Two: Class Conflicts and Economic Justice

Readings:

“Shadowy Lines That Still Divide” by Janny Scott and David Leonhardt

Questions:

1. How are class labels both abstract and experiential?
2. How does CR have a middle-class bias?
3. How can navigating difference address the wealth divide?

Chapter Six: Navigating Forgiveness and Atonement:

Part One: Interpersonal Forgiveness and Atonement

Readings:

“Five Forgiveness Assessments Recommended for Conflict Resolution Processes” by Robert Gould

Questions:

1. What is the role of atonement and forgiveness in restorative justice?
2. What are the five forgiveness assessments recommended for conflict resolution processes?
3. What is the mediation bias regarding forgiveness?
4. How do forgiveness and atonement help self-reinvention?
5. How do forgiveness and atonement help with trauma and moral injury recovery?

Part Two: Societal Forgiveness and Atonement

Readings:

“The Necessity of Forgiveness in the Struggle for Freedom from Oppression” by Robert Gould (published: get approval to use)

Questions:

1. How is forgiveness helpful in the struggle for freedom and oppression?
2. Should prisons be abolished?
3. Are shunning, hospitalization, education, and guaranteed annual income workable alternatives to prisons? 

Chapter Seven: Navigating Solid, Liquid, and Mystical Knowledge

Part One: Solid and Liquid Knowledge

Readings:

“Feelings and Perceptions” by Thich Nhat Hanh

“Time is the Flux of Duration” by Henri Bergson

Questions:

1. How is CR biased by its commitment to dogmatic/solid thinking?
2. What are the consequences, when it is assumed that presuppositional beliefs are true, and therefore “solid”?
3. What beliefs can be taken as certain and true?
4. How interrelated are notions of truth, complexity, dogmatism, certainty, and order?
5. How do abstractions and logic become the basis for knowledge?
6. How do experience and context become a basis for knowledge?
7. Is it possible and practical to suppose that paradox, simplicity/elegance, uncertainty, relativism, chaos, mystery, and recognizing the limits of knowledge can become a way of navigating conflict?
8. How does Bergson’s view of time and space create a way to experience timelessness and spacelessness?

Part Two: Mystical Knowledge

Readings:

Huxley, A. (2021). The doors of perception. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing.

Shrader, D. W. (2008, January). Seven characteristics of mystical experiences. In Sixth Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities

Questions:

1. What is an altered state of consciousness?
2. Is ordinary consciousness really an altered state, and is an altered state really true consciousness?
3. Is mysticism an element in many religions?
4. Does mysticism exist in some forms of atheism?
5. Is it possible to reconcile science and mysticism?
6. Do psychedelic drugs engender authentic mysticism?
7. Can three days in the wilderness engender authentic mysticism?
8. Do traditional, pre-civilization, indigenous people live in a mystical reality?
9. How does mysticism alter our experience of time and space?
10. How does mysticism transform conflict practices?

Chapter Eight: Navigating the Difference between Indigenous Societies and Civilization; Different Concepts of Individualism

Part One: Conflict between Indigenous Societies and Civilization

Readings:

Questions:

1. What is the fundamental worldview conflict?
2. How is the fundamental worldview conflict ignored by biases toward civilized and scientific reductionism?
3. In our mainstream culture, how strong is the imperative to seek harmony with nature?

Part Two: Differing Conceptions of Individualism

Readings:                                                                 

Moeller, H. G. (2004). New Confucianism and the semantics of individuality. a Luhmannian analysis. Asian Philosophy, 14(1), 25-39.

Questions:

1. What is the distinction between exclusive and inclusive individualism?

Chapter Nine: Navigating Nonviolence and Violence; Pacifism and War

Part One: Violence and Nonviolence

Readings:

Ryan, C. (1994). The One Who Burns Herself for Peace. Hypatia, 9(2), 21-39.

Questions:

1. What is nonviolent communication?
2. How is healing the alleviation of suffering, as well as making others and oneself whole?

Part Two: Pacifism and War

Readings:

Gould, R. (2010). Are Pacifists Cowards?: A Consideration of this Question in Reference to Heroic Warrior Courage. The Acorn, 14(1), 19-26.

Questions:

1. How can pacifism be expressed as courage and/or cowardice?
2. How is fighting to protect what one cares about wrong?
3. What is worth protecting violently?

+oneself

+close others

+distant others

+country

+identity

+principle

4. What is minimal violence pacifism?

Chapter Ten: Navigating Goodness and Evil; Professional Ethics: Strength and Weakness

Part One: Goodness and Evil

Readings:

Hallie, P. (1981). From cruelty to goodness. Hastings Center Report, 23-28.

Birmingham, P. (2003). Holes of oblivion: The banality of radical evil. Hypatia, 18(1), 80-103.

Questions:

1. How do power, wealth, and status so easily turn evil?

+Moral commitments to self/close others/distant others

+Healthy and unhealthy competitiveness

+bullying as winners need losers

2. How is dishonesty the enemy of conflict processes, collaboration, and community?

+Fake news

+Secrecy and lack of transparency

+Toxic ethical environments and the experiences of gas-lighting and     powerlessness

3. How is healing basic to goodness?

+Healing, takes time

+Evil is both quick and structurally slow

4. How is goodness a kind of welcoming?
5. What is the banality of evil?

 Part Two: Professional Ethics: Strength and Weakness

Questions:

1. What is the distinction between moral strength and moral weakness?
2. What is moral agency?
3. How does groupthink affect professional ethics?
4. How does relativism affect professional ethics?
5. How does determinism affect professional ethics?
6. How does faith and fate affect professional ethics?
7. What is the distinction between financial strength and moral strength?
8. How does navigating difference transform professional ethics?
9. How can we deepen our conscience through diverse dialogues?

Chapter Eleven: Navigating Global Ethics Theories/Processes and Motivating/Enforcing Global Ethics

Part One: Navigating Global Ethics Theories/Processes

Questions:

1. What does global ethics look like from a conflict process perspective?

+Western abstract/contextless/disconnected

2. Is there a Western philosophical bias in global ethics
3. How do we enforce global ethics?

+Authoritarian or democratic?

Chapter Twelve: Navigating Abuse of Power/ Manipulative Games People Play:

Part One: Sharing Power and Abusing Power:

Questions:

1. How should conflict workers understand power?
2. What is the distinction between power-over and power-with?
3. How is power handled within collaborative processes?

+Power differences

+Boundary-setting

+Adversarial and accommodation conflict styles

4. How is life a game to win or lose?

+Manipulation

+Maintaining control and order

+Domination as being boss

+Playing on others’ weaknesses

+Endless criticism (No 5 to 1)

Part Two: Navigating Manipulative Games

Questions:                                                                             

1. How is dishonesty as central to game-playing?
2. What other manipulative games do disputants play?

+Rhetorical Devices

+White lies

+Social exclusion

+Passive lies

+No Transparency

+Lies as mistakes

+Everybody lies

+Allowing people to be misled

+Marketing as lying

Chapter Thirteen: Navigating Environmental Conflicts                                           

Part One: Abundance and Scarcity Thinking for the Environment

Questions:

1. What are the connections between abundance, scarcity, and violence against nature?
2. What are the perils and positives to the use of abundance and scarcity thinking?
3. What is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic (instrumental) values?

Part Two: Environmental Conflict Processes

Questions:

1. What is the dilemma of facilitating environmental conflicts, while coming to grips with ecocide?
2. Is there a democratic solution to ecocide, or will we need to turn to authoritarianism?
3. What is morally wrong about culling endangered species to keep their gene pool diverse?
4. Does preserving each individual species life and controlling reproduction undermine species survival?
5. How can we navigate this dilemma?

Chapter Fourteen: Navigating Anarchism as Collaboration and Current Political World

Part One: Anarchism as Collaboration

Questions

1. How is collaborative anarchism a revolution we can win-win?
2. How is collaboration central to conflict processes?
3. Why should anarchism embrace collaboration as a central principle?

Part Two: Navigating Current Political World

Questions

1. How can contemporary political party conflicts benefit from collaborative processes?
2. How can collaborative processes improve political interactions with the news media?

Chapter Fifteen: Navigating Virtual World Conflicts: How Electronic Devices Shape Us

Part One: Personal Conflicts with Technology

Questions

1. Are electronic devices more than tools, communication, and resources?
2. How are electronic devices addictions and distractions?
3. How is computer technology hyper-logical, abstract, and context-denying?

Part Two: Virtual World Conflicts with the Natural and International Worlds

Questions

1. How are electronic devices world-framing devices?
2. Is there a war where computer technology is battling users and nature?
3. How are we becoming ruled by computer technology?
4. Aren’t humans behind every computer, making what appear to be conflicts with machines really conflicts between users and people hidden behind machines?
5. Is cyber war a real or imagined threat?
6. How are we going to create peace, as nations and political entities use the virtual world to make war against their enemies?