Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
Morton Deutsch talks about the importance of security at both the international and interpersonal levels.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Security
Morton Deutsch
E.L. Thorndike Professor and Director Emeritus of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College, Columbia University
I wrote a paper called, "Preventing World War III." That was during the height of
the Cold War, I think I wrote it in 1982, it was the Presidential
Address to the International Society of Political Psychology. And there I
took the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union and
characterized it as a malignant relationship, which had some of the
characteristics that I was talking about with the couple. It was right for both
the United States and the Soviet Union to think that the other was hostile,
would undo it, would damage it, you know, all of these things. The relationship
was a malignant one. They had to become aware of the malignancy, and the only
way out really was recognizing that it's hurting, recognizing that there is a
potential better way of relating. And that better way of relating involves
having a sense that one can only have security if there's mutual security. And
that's true in most relationships. That's particularly true to recognize groups
that have had bitter strife where they've hurt each other. They have to deal
with the problem of how to get to where they can live together. It may be ethnic
groups within a given nation or community. They can only live together if they
recognize that their own security is going to be dependent on the other person's
security. So each person, each side, each group has to be interested in the
welfare of the other.
On a national level it has to deal with military and other
economic security. At the group level and personal level, it often has to do
with psychological security. It has to do with someone recognizing, I shouldn't
be treating the other in an undignified, disrespectful way. So in an
interpersonal relationship, that kind of security, recognizing that not only are
you entitled to it, so is the other person entitled to it. And if you don't give
that other person that entitlement the relationship is going to move in the
other direction, back to bitter conflict.
War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny. -- Charles DeGaulle
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