Anne Mayer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
retired_hero) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2017-06-07 12:04 am
retired_hero) wrote in fandomhigh2017-06-07 12:04 am
Entry tags:
Resolving Conflict Without Violence, Wednesday First Period [Week 5]
"Welcome back." Anne offered the class a smile.
"Humans, and from what I've gathered, many other sentients, possess a survival mechanism sometimes called the 'fight-or-flight response'." Anne turned to write on the board, underlining 'fight' and 'flight'. "At its most basic level, the concept refers to ways that we respond to situations that we recognize as dangerous. The common wisdom is that we can face the danger, and fight it, or that we can try to escape the situation entirely, and take flight."
"Of course, not every situation lends itself to both solutions. It's awfully hard to fight an earthquake, for instance, though you might be able to develop technology that lets you control such things, for most people, flight will be the only option there. Still, the instinct remains, and I suspect most of you will know what I refer to when I say that in many situations there's only a split second to make a decision regarding which option to take, and once you've taken it, you're often committed to it."
"However, when interacting with other people, there is an additional option that becomes available to us." Anne turned, writing again. "Negotiate," she said, underlining the word. "Some people will add a fourth, but we'll skip that for now." Especially since Anne considered 'surrender' to just be an extension of negotiation.
"If the cost of both fight and flight are too high, or the chances of succeeding at either of them are too low, then negotiation often becomes your best choice for navigating a tricky situation. However, in most fight-or-flight situations, where you've decided that you're in danger, you'll be negotiating from a position of weakness. If you were operating from a position of strength, there wouldn't be a need to fight or flee, after all."
"And when you negotiate from a position of weakness, you will most often find yourself working hard to figure out how to give up as little as possible, but knowing that you're going to lose at least something in the exchange. In a high stress situation, where these sorts of things have to be decided quickly, it is important to recognize what it is that you value, and why."
Anne turned back to the board, erasing her earlier work and writing a new set of words.
Happiness of friends and family
Personal health
Acting morally
Material possessions
"There are a nearly infinite number of things that we, as people, value, but let's start with these four. Break up into groups and pick any pair of these. Discuss which you value over the other, and why. As always, probe one another, get into the details. Because the details are the important part of these sorts of discussions. And if you finish one pair, pick another two to compare against each other."
"Humans, and from what I've gathered, many other sentients, possess a survival mechanism sometimes called the 'fight-or-flight response'." Anne turned to write on the board, underlining 'fight' and 'flight'. "At its most basic level, the concept refers to ways that we respond to situations that we recognize as dangerous. The common wisdom is that we can face the danger, and fight it, or that we can try to escape the situation entirely, and take flight."
"Of course, not every situation lends itself to both solutions. It's awfully hard to fight an earthquake, for instance, though you might be able to develop technology that lets you control such things, for most people, flight will be the only option there. Still, the instinct remains, and I suspect most of you will know what I refer to when I say that in many situations there's only a split second to make a decision regarding which option to take, and once you've taken it, you're often committed to it."
"However, when interacting with other people, there is an additional option that becomes available to us." Anne turned, writing again. "Negotiate," she said, underlining the word. "Some people will add a fourth, but we'll skip that for now." Especially since Anne considered 'surrender' to just be an extension of negotiation.
"If the cost of both fight and flight are too high, or the chances of succeeding at either of them are too low, then negotiation often becomes your best choice for navigating a tricky situation. However, in most fight-or-flight situations, where you've decided that you're in danger, you'll be negotiating from a position of weakness. If you were operating from a position of strength, there wouldn't be a need to fight or flee, after all."
"And when you negotiate from a position of weakness, you will most often find yourself working hard to figure out how to give up as little as possible, but knowing that you're going to lose at least something in the exchange. In a high stress situation, where these sorts of things have to be decided quickly, it is important to recognize what it is that you value, and why."
Anne turned back to the board, erasing her earlier work and writing a new set of words.
Happiness of friends and family
Personal health
Acting morally
Material possessions
"There are a nearly infinite number of things that we, as people, value, but let's start with these four. Break up into groups and pick any pair of these. Discuss which you value over the other, and why. As always, probe one another, get into the details. Because the details are the important part of these sorts of discussions. And if you finish one pair, pick another two to compare against each other."
Re: Discuss!
It wasn't a feeling she'd gotten to feel in Fandom much yet, and it felt way better than she was willing to admit.
"Let's do this," she said. "Most important? Happiness of friends and family. Fight me."
No, really, fight her. She felt locked and loaded and ready to go.
Re: Discuss!
"And would you put any limits on that? Is there a point at which you figure your friends and family are happy enough that you don't need to keep giving up other things for them?"
Re: Discuss!