More about ‘complexity hierarchy and values hierarchy’

Because we are politically correct liberals we know that hierarchies are bad. Everyone is equal to everyone else and to put someone above someone else is bad. [From a philosophical perspective this is an example of a performative contradiction. The position contradicts itself. If all formulations which say that one item is better than another item are bad, then the formulation that states that all items are equal is better than all others, thus, itself being bad.]

The distinction to be made here is between hierarchies of valuing and hierarchies of complexity. An example of a valuing hierarchy is that the paler your skin the more value you have as a person. A recent program on Harlem pointed out that the Cotton Club only hired au lait blacks. Darker skinned persons weren’t acceptable. We find such hierarchies to be unacceptable.

Our vignette about Jack and Jesse and the juice glass is an example of a complexity hierarchy. [Just Conflict, page 90-91] Jack can think in three dimensions and so knows that the short squat glass holds more juice. Jesse only knows amount in two dimensions and so thinks the tall thin glass holds more. Jack’s way of judging amount is objectively superior to Jesse’s. But that doesn’t mean that Jack is better than Jesse. He is only more mature.

We are watching what is happening in Libya. We know that Kaddafi is on his way out. We are worried about what will follow. We are worried that the country will descend into tribal warfare.

There is a developmental sequence we all move through with regard to the circle of our care and concern. We are necessarily self-centered when we are young. Then we move to being more centered in our families, or our community, or our tribe. We may be ethnocentric, or species centric or even cosmos centric. A wider scope of concern is more complicated but more mature.

We are pleased to see that, at least in eastern Libya, the mood of those who oppose Kaddafi is to work together without regard for tribalism. They are committed to a unified and free Libya. Despite economic and educational deprivation, the revolutionaries are showing great maturity. Their way of constructing relationships is more mature, and thus more complex but effective, than is the way Kaddafi has been constructing relationships. We may have a judgment that Kaddafi is a bad person, but it is objectively true that his way of constructing society is less stable and just than a democracy would be.

Shortened training in CCR

For more than 30 years I have worked doing group and individual therapy with people experiencing difficulties in establishing and maintaining safe and satisfying intimate relationships. Early on in my career I noticed that my clients identified many of the same problems. I began to look for the best ways to name and address the issues they showed me. As a result I developed a collection of short teaching modules that addressed the most common and urgent issues.

In the early 90's I had occasion to pull together these bits and pieces into a twelve-week class. Over the years I came to refer to the whole collection as Creative Conflict Resolution and the class itself as Building Healthy Relationships. The class changed a bit from time to time. I have always added new segments and tweaked the sequence of presentation.

Last year I pulled together the many parts and published them in a book called Just Conflict: Transformation through Resolution. I admit it is a bit dense.

In the year that has followed I have had a chance to step back from all of the material and have worked at finding a simple path through the forest of ideas and practices. The result is a paired down presentation that takes about fifteen hours to work through.

The Center for Creative Conflict Resolution is offering this training as the eight-week Building Healthy Relationships class or the week-end long Reconciliation Workshop. Either format has advantages and disadvantages. Both take the participant through a process of identifying a specific persistent pattern of conflict in a significant relationship and discovering what the participant can confidently do that will create what the participant needs in the context of the conflict without expecting or depending upon the other's change.

Both the eight-week class and the week-end workshop start at the same place. Each month on the second Sunday, I offer a free introduction to the material. I call it "What is Creative Conflict Resolution?" To learn more or to register online, go to the web site and the find the calendar in the sidebar on the right. Select the date of the introduction you want to attend.  You will find details there about time and place.  You may register online by following the prompts.

Mastering Family Stress

A couple of days before Christmas, Neal Conan of NPR's Talk of the Nation had a conversation with syndicated columnist Amy Dickinson (Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune) about the difficulties of having holidays with family members we don't get along with. Her advice mostly reduced to having a plan for how to engage in polite conversation which avoided the sources of tension in the relationship.

As the holidays come to a close it is time to start preparing for next year. With some attention to the issues we can approach conflicts with family and friends with confidence that whatever topics come up in the conversation we can handle ourselves and the relationship in a manner that creates peace in our world.

One way to hone your skills is to take the Building Healthy Relationships class or the Reconciliation Workshop from the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution. If you or anyone you know might be interested in becoming more masterful at naming, addressing, and resolving conflict, come to one of the free introductions. They are offered on the second Sunday evening of each month. Simply go to the web site and the find the calendar in the sidebar on the right. Select the date of the introduction you want to attend.  They are entitled “What is Creative Conflict Resolution?” You will find details there about time and place.  You may register online by following the prompts.