Week Three / Journal Four

Think about your own conflicts or conflicts that you are aware of in the world around you. If you think about them in terms of analysis what do you notice, that you might not see if you don't? 


Actually, I'm really pleased with this because I was using the stuff we did in class to-day to analyse a conflict that's going on with some of my friends right now. What happened is Friend A is in conflict with Person A due to something that occured with Friend B, and as a result she's mad at Friend B. I decided that I needed more background on the conflict before I could actually help out (which she asked me to do), so I went to FB and asked for his side of the story. From the information I got, I decided that the conflict was due to context--basically, that what FB said to PA got taken out of context, and when PA asked FA about it she was lacking both PA's personal context AND the context of FB's remark, so when she responded it created a huge conflict. Because FA was unaware of the context of FB's remark, she decided that he must have said something more hurtful to PA than he actually did, and thus was angry at him.


As a result of stepping in as a neutral third party, I was able to get both sides of the story and to try and mediate a solution. Unfortunately, the relationship between FA and PA is pretty much unsalvageable--however, I got FB's promise that he would try to help FA with a bigger problem that she is dealing with, which may help to repair relations between them. I also assured him that he was not as much at fault as he was the victim of the context issues, since he was feeling really bad too.


I am hoping that with continued mediation and FB's desire to repair the situation the conflict can be resolved in a way that will improve FA's situation.


Anyway, this relates back to class because I really think that knowing about the context of conflicts, that third parties can step in, and that staying objective if you are trying to be a peace-keeper are all vital to finding ways to deal with conflict constructively. So that's pretty cool.


Also I just like analysing stuff, so I admit I'm going back over pretty much every conflict I know of in my friend group and seeing what other things can be applied to them.