Conflict Management and Resolution: Mon Period 4 - Class # 8 - Mar 5

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

Wilson sat behind his desk carefully sorting through the sheets he’d made up to critique the students on their mid-term assignment. He had been extremely pleased with the whole class and today there were muffins and other snack items, as well as tea, coffee and cocoa laid out for anyone who wished for a quick bite as they signed in.

When everyone was settled, Wilson stood up and smiled.

“Good morning. I hope everybody enjoyed their break; I can assure you that mine was quite…enlightening. Okay a few house cleaning items I need to go over and we’ll get started on today’s lecture.”

As he spoke, he walked through the rows of seats, handing back the critiques.

“First of all, I’d like to compliment all of you on the work you did for your mid-terms. These were excellent and I think you’ll find that your grades reflect this. If you have any question about your grade, see me after class.” [ooc: Feel free to mod your grade, everybody rocked last class, thank you all for that!!]

Once he had everything handed out, he went back to the front of the class, gave the kids a moment to flip through their grades and then called for their attention once more.

“So, in two weeks we’ll be taking a field trip up to New York to observe some of the practices of the U.N. We’ll be leaving on Friday the 16th after classes and returning Sunday evening, sometime before midnight. I will have an itinerary and room assignments ready for you in next week’s class but if you know for some reason that you will not be able to travel with us, please let me know this week. After class, voicemail or during my office hours, whatever suits. The same if you just have general questions or concerns.”

Looking across the group, Wilson nodded and pushed away from the desk.



Lecture:

“Okay, let’s get started.”

Moving to the overhead, Wilson flipped off the lights and put the first film on the projector.

“Today we’re going to talk about intractable conflicts. An intractable conflict is first and foremost, a process (not just a single violent episode) of competitive relationships that extend over a period of time, and involves hostile perceptions and occasional military actions. The term itself acts as an integrating concept connoting processes where states become enmeshed in a web of negative interactions and hostile orientations. This pattern is repeated, indeed worsened, every so often, with the parties involved unable to curb, or manage, the escalation of their relationships.

These conflicts are characterized as follows:”

Wilson had the notes written up on the overhead.

1. In terms of actors, intractable conflicts involve states or other actors with a long sense of historical grievance, and a strong desire to redress or avenge these.

2. In terms of duration, intractable conflicts take place over a long period of time.

3. In terms of issues, intractable conflicts involve intangible issues such as identity, sovereignty, or values and beliefs.

4. In terms of relationships, intractable conflicts involve polarized perceptions of hostility and enmity, and behavior that is violent and destructive.

5. In terms of geopolitics, intractable conflicts usually take place where buffer states exist between major power blocks or civilizations.

6. In terms of management, intractable conflicts resist many conflict management efforts and have a history of failed peace making efforts.

“Given the characteristics of intractable conflicts, the lack of contact between the parties, the hostility and repeated violence, it seems plausible to suggest that one path out of this dilemma would be to accept some form of third-party mediation. Third parties can play a very useful role in the context of intractable conflicts.”

Class Activity:

Shutting off the overhead and turning on the lights, Wilson leaned back against the desk and smiled at the class.

“Well, we’ve already worked on third party negotiation in class. So today I would like you guys to take the remainder of the class, think about an intractable conflict you may have heard about, been involved in, be curious about and I want you to write out a brief essay on how you would approach it, were you asked to be a third party mediator to such a conflict.”

[ooc: Class cribbed from The Conflict Resolution Information Resource website. Please wait for The OCDs are up! Class is in session.]

Comments

Sign In 3/5

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

Grab a snack on your way past the sign in sheet!

Re: Sign In 3/5

[sensethevisions]

Phoebe Halliwell

Talk Amongst Yourselves

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

It's expected that there might be some whispering and chatting in between essay writing.

Re: Talk Amongst Yourselves

[demonbelthazor]

Bel? Sitting waaaaaaaaaaaaay in the back of the class, slumped down in his seat, trying way too hard not to be noticed.

Essay

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

Get your soap box or if you wish your cracky box here...or handwavey if you like.

Re: Essay

[repeterpetrelli.livejournal.com]

Peter handwavily worked on his essay.

Re: Essay

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke wrote for most of the class period about being locked into an evil partnership and the importance of outside opinions to show how destructive the relationship had become.

Re: Essay

[demonbelthazor]

Bel wrote an essay about demons fighting over territory and his third-party method of solving it -- him stepping in and taking over the territory himself.

What? Okay, probably not the best topic, but he was just going with what he knew at this point after missing so many classes.

Re: Essay

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana wrote a very detailed handwavey essay.

Re: Essay

[water-wonder.livejournal.com]

Tori thought about what to write her essay on, wondering what would be an appropriate example.

She decided to handwavily write about when Hunter and Shane weren't getting along, because they both believed themselves to be leaders of the group. Always something with the color red.

Re: Essay

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

Pippi's essay discuss a happy family who has a lot of money and nasty smelly pirates who want the money. So the happy family hide most of the money. Then then smelly people chase the happy family around trying to find out where the money is, forcing the happy family to beat the crap out of the smelly people time and again, taking what money the smelly people have to tide them over until they can get back to the hidden money. Then the smelly people kidnap half the happy family and the other half has to go rescue him with her friends. Then they get him back and go to rescue other friends but the smelly people kidnap the first couple of friends while they were on the beach playing with turtles instead of looking for the other friends and the happy family has to trade the money for the friends. Then the other friends steal the happy family's boat back from the smelly people. (Did I mention they took the happy family's boat? Well they did.) Then the smelly people have to trade half of the money for a book about how to build a raft so they can get off the island. And then they half to trade the other half of the money for an axe.

And the morel of the story is...

Take a bath you smelly pirate.

Re: Essay

[lovechildblair.livejournal.com]

Conflict: Demon Tongues vs Wasteland rescuers
By Blair Sandburg

I would first negotiate a cease-licking. Only after that had been put into effect would I be able to speak with both parties. A lot of conflicts are born out of the fact that the parties feel like they need to defend themselves. I would make the rescuers put down their weapons, and in Alanna's and Nadia's case...their hands. The demon tongues would need to promise not to drag/thump or lick people during negotiations. Since I'm not sure if that's a survival technique or not, I'd provide the tongues some hard candy for the duration of the negotiation.

My second job would be to provide an comfortable neutral area for everyone to converse. Since the demon tongues are...well, tongues, it'd have to be in the wasteland itself. Maybe a small clearing away from the giant teethy mouths. A lot of books say that chairs and conference tables are good because they provide equality in the resolution process. Personally I believe that is too rigid so I would provide bean bags for the rescuers and chaise lounges for the tongues. (They're very long and would appreciate the space) Since the wasteland is very red, I'd make sure the furniture was a nice soothing blue and possibly put some candles there for ambiance. Not too many since it's important not to replace violent feelings with amorous ones.

Finally I'd try and discover what we could do to end the conflict without violence. I'd try and see what each party wanted and if it was possible for the other party to contribute said want. For instance the rescuers could let the tongues lick them gently in return for not getting thumped to the ground as much. The tongues would in turn promise not to drag the rescuers to a teethy death if the rescuers would promise not to chop them to tiny bits. Opening a dialog between the parties would show them their similarities and help them understand that deep down inside, we're all the same. (Except for the fact that some of us are people and some of us are giant demon tongues) Finally, after the conflict was resolved I'd initiate a group hug.

Re: Essay

[sensethevisions]

Phoebe may have written a detailed essay about negotiating the return of something that belonged to you... that began in having to defeat the evil that held it captive.

Re: Essay

[untouchableskin.livejournal.com]

Marie wrote an essay about possible ways to resolve a situation like being kidnapped by evil mutants.

There was a suprising lack of 'blowing up national monuments' in her essay.

Re: Essay

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

Teddy wrote about two aces of people who have been fighting forever over reasons they don't even remember.

He doesn't like his solution of a partnership between the two, lead by product of a union between the two ruling powers but it's the only one he knows of.

Re: Essay

[absolutesnark]

Summer wrote a very interesting handwavey essay.

Re: Essay

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette wrote an essay on two Catholic schoolgirls and one Catholic schoolboy. One girl loved the Catholic schoolboy, and the other just wanted to sleep with him. Yes, very dirty. The very rich, very spoiled, the very get anything he wants Catholic schoolboy wanted the impossible this time. He wanted his cake, yummy chocolate, and he wanted to eat it too. Whenever and wherever possible.

Unfortunately the schoolboy choked on all that cake and died because no one around him knew the Heimlich maneuver.

Thus, the conflict was resolved. Without the schoolboy, there was nothing for the two schoolgirls to fight over, unless one of the schoolgirls wanted to make a very public statement about the other schoolgirl who was a severe coke addict.

Side note: This essay does not reflect anything concerning Annette Hargrove whatsoever.

Annette turned her essay in, for some reason feeling strangely bitter.

Re: Essay

[sensitivejim.livejournal.com]

Jim had lots of intractable conflict to draw upon. Sometimes schools were just too strict. "Rules". They should be more like guidelines.

He tried to be as neutrally third-party as he could, though.

Re: Essay

[proudsidekick.livejournal.com]

Layla wrote a detailed essay about the forced partnerships of heroes and sidekicks, and all of its flaws.

Talk to Wilson

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

Bring coffee?

Re: Talk to Wilson

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke was there after class, looking nervous. "I missed the midterm, sir," he said. "I was...performing a practical application of conflict resolution back home."

Re: Talk to Wilson

[demonbelthazor]

After class, Bel hesitantly approached Wilson. Phoebe might have been subtly pushing him.

OOC - 3/5 [AKA George]

[dr-jwilsonmd.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna hug it and squeeze it and call it George!

Re: OOC - 3/5 [AKA George]

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Hee! The Abominable Snow Rabbit!

Re: OOC - 3/5 [AKA George]

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

That's it, from now on I'm going to start labeling my OOC threads as "George" instead.

*hugs and squeezes Fairy!Wilson*