All my life I’ve been able to discern people’s motives and thought patterns with great ease. It has led me to being able to understand why a lot of things in the world occur the way they do. More than once I’ve heard some variation of the phrase “I just can’t understand why people think the way they do,” for me, almost everything that a sane person does to create conflict can be boiled down to a few phenomena.
Solipsism. The most widespread cause of conflict in my opinion. It is so nefarious because by nature of having it, one must think that they do not have it, and that their perceived “other” does instead. I’m not talking about it in the literal or philosophical definition; I’m thinking about the nefarious, subtle, unnoticed thought that tells people that “my experience is the ground proof that other’s experiences are compared against.”
We tend to think that other people, when they disagree with us, have some common inaccuracy, and we hold the elusive truth, simply because it was told to us by the people that WE trust, or the sources that WE subscribe to.
When we hear a claim that disrupts our currently held truth, our first thought is not “how valid is the source of this claim compared to the source of my current claim?” Instead, we rush to think “actually, (you well-meaning but naive fool), the world operates THIS way.”
The second is another form of solipsism I refer to as “the main characters point of view.” Simply because we are ourselves, and not everyone else, we tend to put things that affect some people positively and others negatively at a disproportionate rating based on how they affect ourselves.
When we are driving on a freeway and we encounter a long traffic jam, we are quick to think “damn everyone in front of me for holding me up,” while slow (or never) to think “sorry everyone behind me for holding you up.” The traffic is an obstacle in our way, not something that we are a part of.
There was an issue on a ballot I filled out recently that regarded the building of senior homes. There were a lot of pros and cons to consider, and I won’t reveal which way my final decision went, but I clearly remember that my initial reaction was “fuck them, I can’t live in a senior house so why would that be a good idea?” A similar thing happened when I came across an issue of whether or not to raise the toll on bridges to pay for traffic improvements. There were a lot of things that I had to consider, but my initial reaction was “I don’t care, I don’t use bridges in my commute.”
I can easily see how with bigger issues, the same solipsistic reaction can inform one’s decision. If neither myself nor anyone I know had to rely on government assistance, then I might easily think “why does this even exist, no one important uses it, and I’m still paying for it.” If I never felt the need to own a firearm, I might think “why do these need to be legal, I feel safe without one, and everyone should.”
Another big thing that causes conflict stems from the fact that we can not read each other’s thoughts as humans. I heard a famous saying that went “we judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.” When we’re in a long line to get on an off-ramp and we see someone cut the line and then try to get in, we tend to assume that they are an asshole. However, if we were to be in a position where we had a slight mindslip or were unaware that the line next to us was for the off-ramp that we desired to use, we would find everyone else presumptuous for assuming the worst about us when we attempt to squeeze in.
Nearly all conflict on an individual level boils down to solipsism, the value of one’s own experiences vs. others, the main character’s point of view, and the lack of knowledge about the intentions of others; but that only explains half of conflict. The conflict that happens on a group scale is also very easy to understand, and is in many ways an extension of the personal causes of conflict.
On a group scale, nearly all conflict in history and the world can be explained by two causes: tribalism and groupthink.
These things are something I pride myself on being able to discern and walk away from before being consumed by them, being that I have personal experience in them.
I’ll always remember vividly a scene I experienced back when I was going to church. I caught the last part of a conversation regarding gay marriage during the height of the Prop 8 event.
“…the gays are just angry because they lost!” How easy is it to dismiss a person’s concerns and experiences when one can label them not as an individual, but as a member of an enemy team?
As humans, we can not be content 100% of the time, and if we are not content, there must be a reason for it. Groups that give us a place to blame our discontent on will validate us and trick us that we can be 100% content 100% of the time if only it were not for whatever they say is getting in the way.
Furthermore, for life to have a purpose, it must have a goal. For a goal to exist it must not have been reached yet. If a goal is has not been reached, there must be an obstacle. In order to create meaning for ourselves, we have to create obstacles or define things that exist as obstacles. If the Punisher exists and there are no badguys to punish, then he is useless. In order for us to create meaning for ourselves, for us to be the hero of our own story, we must have a villain.
Groups that offer us a villain offer us a purpose; this is why they will always exist, and why we will always cling to them.
Darkness 