fandomhigh | Resolving Conflict Without Violence, Wednesday First Period [Week 2]

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pacifism

Resolving Conflict Without Violence, Wednesday First Period [Week 2]

Anne was standing at the front of the classroom again, waiting for her students.

"Welcome back," she said with a friendly smile. "I hope you all enjoyed your first week of classes." Her smile flashed impish for a moment. "And it's good to see you came back." She hadn't been sure how many people would want to keep up the class, given the subject matter.

"Last week, we considered personal history and the role of violent and non-violent conflict resolution in our own lives. The usual format for this class will involve debate around contentious topics, the sorts of things that often do lead to violence, in order to offer you all opportunities to practice non-violent resolution when it is at its most difficult: when you really, really want to hit something." Or someone.

She turned, writing on the board with big, bold letters. "Family vs Community," she said, underlining the words on the board. "This is something of a classic dichotomy in philosophical discussions, but that's because it hits so close to home for most people. It's easy to put yourself into a lot of these hypothetical situations."

"So, here's the situation I want you to consider. Wherever you live, a dangerous new disease appears. It kills nine out of ten of the people who contract it, and it's so contagious that no attempt to quarantine it has been successful. The only positive thing is that if you're one of the lucky few to survive it, you become immune to future infections. So far, everyone has just relied on the luck of it not reaching their community. For our purposes, imagine that you caught it yourself while traveling abroad, and have only recently returned home after being cleared by the doctors."

"So you know the symptoms really well. Well enough to recognize them when your favorite family member contracts the disease. Now, you know that the early symptoms are subtle enough that it's unlikely anyone else will realize what has happened for a while."

"So. What do you do? Do you try to keep things hidden, hoping that you'll get lucky and your family will survive like you did? Do you warn your friends and neighbors so that they can keep their distance, and reduce the risk themselves? What other options do you see?"

Anne looked around. "I want you to pair up with each other and tease out the details. While this is a hypothetical situation, and that robs it of some of its emotional punch, I want you to prod for details. Push each other on your contradictions, try to find the specifics of how far each of you is willing to go."

She considered the students around her. "If you just play it safe, refusing to immerse yourself in the situation, you won't get nearly as much out of this exercise as you will if you really get into it."

But, really, it was up to them.

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Hyacinthe had missed class last week, but was here today, looking thoughtful. This was a good discussion to have ~~and would hit REALLY CLOSE TO HOME SOON, thanks~~ because if there was one scenario that would focus Hyacinthe's full attention, it was a threat to family.

"Well, you look like you have thoughts," said Summer to yet another cute guy that seemed to randomly appear in one of her classes this week that she did not remember seeing last time. She had thoughts, too, because she still wasn't quite sure what exactly they were and whether or not she wanted to bother with sharing them. This wasn't exactly what she had expected when Ms. Mayer told her last night that they'd be talking about family today.

"I have," Hyacinthe said with a lilting ~~D'Angelline~~ French accent and a charming smile he was happy to turn onto the unknown girl. "But they've suddenly changed course. Hello. I'm Hyacinthe. Care to pair up?"

She was new, so he did his best to keep his suggestion innuendo-free.

And a charming, disarming smile like that was totally not fair when Summer was intent on being brooding and contrarian, so she had to shake her head a little to stay on course. "Yes," she said, "I would."

She went right into it, too, lest she get distracted and forget that she was peeved off about it. "And I would like to start by pointing out that the scenario is entirely flawed from the get-go. Okay, so, this disease starts showing up that literally decimates the population, right? Okay, and then I go abroad, contract the disease, survive it, and get the all clear from my doctors before going home. So unless this is, like, a really short trip and contagion period, some time has passed, and this thing is going on for a while, how likely would it really be that my neighbors haven't also been effected by it in some way? Wouldn't people just generally start to quarantine themselves, be all isolated, out of fear for getting infected? At that point, if I have to warn them that my family member has it, then they're probably too stupid to be careful in the first place, and it's a freaking miracle they haven't contracted it and died already, right?"

And wasn't that a lovely little word salad she just threw at you? And realizing that she'd just ranted at this poor guy she'd just met without even introducing herself, her face turned very red and she cleared her throat.

"Also, hi. I'm Summer."

And she would like to find a corner and die in it now, thanks. This place really brought out her ranty side.

If Hyacinthe thought poorly of her rant, he did not show it. "In my world, such things are not entirely uncommon," He said and after a year of being on the island, the phrase 'my world' came more naturally to him. "Word of such things can only pass at the speed of a fast horse and yet diseases tend to somehow spread much faster--though how long between the time of infection and the time the symptoms appear will modify that by some degree." He gave a laugh. "I'm now ancient Hellene scholar nor Yeshuite healer, so I'm afraid I don't know much more than that about how such things would work."

He chewed on his lip, thinking of the way Night's Doorstep tended to function. "Likely, unless they were terribly stupid as you say, some measures of quarantine have already been taken. But such things generally go on a neighborhood basis, rather than family. 'Tis impossible to isolate oneself entirely without starving and like as not, they've convinced themselves that if the sickness hasn't shown up here, it won't at all."

Which was also stupid as hell, but part of human nature.

Hyacinthe sat back to allow her a chance to respond, seeming unfazed by the long speech he'd given in return.

And Summer, with her blush reducing considerably with relief that Hyacinthe rolled with the rant and contributed his own, bobbed her head in agreement. "That's fair," she said. "People, especially when they find themselves in a group, can convince themselves of some really dumb stuff." Herself included, but she wasn't going to talk about the whole giant head cult incident if she could avoid it. "But here's another thing. If I had managed to pull off an immunity to this thing, and my favorite family member started to show signs of it, I wouldn't be concerned about my next door neighbor. I'd be concerned about him and trying to find a cure for him. Meanwhile, warning everyone else wouldn't even be an issue, because he wouldn't stick around if he found out he had it. He wouldn't risk getting everyone else sick, too. He wouldn't care about the neighbors, but he would care about his family, so he would quarantine himself, go off to some isolated place where he couldn't infect us. That's what'd he'd do; that's why he's my favorite. Everyone else would just think he abandoned us, because he wouldn't even tell anyone, but I'd know. He didn't just leave, he left for us."

And Summer was getting worked up again, this time in a different way. She had to swallow to keep herself from wibbling a little, and she was trying really hard not to get too emotional in the middle of some dumb class with a hypothetical situation that might have hit a little close to home.

"So the point would be moot. In my case, anyway."

"I...I am not certain what my mother would do," Hyacinthe said slowly, his brow wrinkling in thought. "Nor do I know where she would go did she leave. Once ill, there is nowhere she could venture that would prevent others from falling sick as well, though I would be in no danger since I would be returning home immune. She'd like as not simply stay in our home and trust that I would take all due care not to carry the illness out of the apartment, though how 'tis spread, I cannot say."

He had that same, pensive look he was wearing when Summer sat. "Though handling my neighbors would be easy enough. I would simply say that the dromonde had shown us the sickness sweeping through the neighborhood and they should leave did they wish to avoid it. That would send those away who are capable of leaving. Except..." His mouth tightened in a line. "The question is, where did my mother get it? If 'twas from me, if I can carry it without falling prey myself, than any contact I have with people is a danger. Did she get it from someone else, than the illness is already here and displacing people would only spread it faster. The best thing to do is to start the neighborhood on whatever treatment allowed me to survive, though the details on that are maddeningly thin."

"Right?" said Summer. "The whole things seems pretty confusing if you pick it apart too much, but I guess that's why it's just hypothetical."

And speaking of not-so-hypothetical....She tilted her head, giving Hyacinth thoughtful consideration. "Can I ask you a personal question? Let's say your mother did get sick, and she knew it, so she left without telling anyone, thinking it would save everyone else. Would you try to go after her?"

"I'm...not sure," Hyacinthe said, looking mildly distressed at the thought. "If she left, I'd have no doubt that she had good reason. I trust her to make the right choice on things. And yet..." He bit his lip. "She's the only family I have. I do not think I could let her just vanish on me without a word. I'd need to talk to her, at least one last time."

Summer, for all the complaining she did about her family, was definitely glad to have them, especially when faced with someone who didn't have that, and she frowned in sympathy and understanding. "To at least get some closure, right? What if..." How to frame this? "Like, what if everyone else around you was all, 'No, sorry, you can't do that, we'll try to stop you if you go, you have to just forget about her; she's sick, and she's going to die anyway.' What then?"

"The day I allow my neighbors to dictate when I can or cannot go to my mother, especially if she is sick or dying is the day I climb onto the damn pyre myself," Hyacinthe said with quiet intensity. "She is my mother. We've only had each other since I was born. No one gets a say in that; not my neighbors, not my friends, not my king."

Aware he might have gotten a little too intense there, Hyacinthe made a visible effort to ease back, giving Summer a smile that didn't quite manage to make it to his usual levels of flirtation. "And you?"

It was exactly the kind of intensity Summer had been mining for. It was just the thing she had suspected might come out of him as soon as he mentioned how his mother was all he had, and just the thing she knew she wanted, needed to hear. A very small part of her wondered if it was bad to have picked up on his emotions and used them to bolster her own self up, but she was too captured by the passion to care. Her eyes were big and bright and firm with conviction, with just the slightest suggestion of regret underneath.

"Same," she said. "My grampa might not be perfect, but he does way more for us than I think anyone realizes. I would owe it to him to go after him. He'd have done the same for me."

Or so she thought. The official jury might be out on that one for a long time.

"No one outside of the family has any right to dictate how we respond to the ones we love," Hyacinthe said firmly. "The don't know and they don't have the right. We owe it to those we love to do more for them than allow them to crawl off to die alone in the dark like a dog."

"Yeah, exactly!" Summer felt pretty pumped up at that one. As pumped as one could by while imagining their grandfather dying along in the dark like a dog, which was probably exactly what was happening to him in prison right now.

There was one hitch, though, and that brought Summer down a bit. "What about other family, though? I know you said you really only had your mother, and I'm sorry about that. But at least then you don't have other family members muddying the waters. Like, what if you had a dad or a brother telling you it's bad to go after your mother? Where does that put you?"

There was an almost-imperceptible wince at 'dad.' "My family life is...complicated," he said slowly. "And none who could lay claim to the title by blood would have any say in what I do. But, did I have a hypothetical sibling, say? Well, for one, I suppose I'd hope that they believed in finding our mother as much as I. I suppose the question is...why? Even if she is only crawling away to die, shouldn't we wish someone were there to be with her? I am immune, I can other solace without fear. What possible reason could they have to wish me to let her die alone?"

Summer took this all in with a few thoughtful nods. Morty had been very vocal about his reasons, sure, but Summer just couldn't buy it. She just couldn't believe it at all.

"Mmmm," she hummed a little. "Yeah, I think I'd stick with my gut and my convictions and go, no matter what they said." She allowed a little smile. "Thanks. This has been a really helpful...uh...mental exercise for me."

"I'm am always glad to be of assistance to a lovely lady," Hyacinthe said, with a small bow over his desk. "'Tis been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I can only hope that we deepen it during the year."

Summer was just way too charmed by bows, however little they may be, and, serious talk over, she did have a plan to get to work as soon as she could, but she had to at least ride out the rest of the class, right? So what was a little something more light among hopeful new friends?

Although, yes, she realized the lighter stuff should have probably come first.

"I'd like that," she said, and would have liked to say more, but, all of a sudden, her brain wasn't working as well as it had a few second ago. Funny, that.

Just wait until he was able to stand up properly because class was over, Summer. Hyacinthe was good at bows.

"You threw the party did you not?" he asked. "My apologies for not making it. I hope I can persuade you to throw another that I may come?"

Summer brightened even more. "That was me!" she proudly stated, preening just a little, because, hey, someone recognizing you for a party you threw that they weren't even at meant you were doing it right. "And you really don't need much to convince me to throw another one, but that just means you'll have to promise to come if I do, and bring your friends. The more the merrier, right?"

Although, should she really be focusing on parties right now? Maybe a little. She reasoned that it's what Grampa Rick would have wanted, and it wasn't like she'd be prepared to bust him out of prison tomorrow or anything.

It also meant that the island was infested by nosy squirrels that reported on everything.

"I can certainly promise to attend," Hyacinthe said easily. "And I'll bring who I can. Though I'd like the chance to get to know some of the newbies as well. 'Tis a pity that there are so many new faces and yet I've only managed to speak to one of them." He flashed her another smile. "Though you've set a high bar for the rest to live up to."

Damn, but that smile and those words were just not fair at all. "Ha!" Summer laughed, a bit nervously, but she wasn't about to deny it or anything dumb like that. "We'll just have to see about that."

Magical fantasy-France cares nothing for your sense of fairness!

"Well, until such time, I shall just have to enjoy getting to know you better, no?" He asked. And flashed her dimples. Because he could.

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Resolving Conflict Without Violence, Wednesday First Period [Week 2]

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