{3 minutes to read} Wow, Daylight Savings Time. At last. Was there ever a time we needed some extra light more than now? Even though changing the clock doesn’t really give us more daylight, we all feel better when it’s still light out at 7 pm. Or later. Shedding light on things is generally seen as something good. It implies opening up and understanding. It’s also one of the great aspects of mediation. It’s why mediation works.
{3 minutes to read} In my last blog, I made the connection between theater and mediation, noting that good theater often addresses the types of conflicts that could be resolved in mediation. A play about mediation might be a real bore, because it’s after the fact. Protagonists have already done whatever created the dispute. Creating conflict makes for good theater. However, resolving conflict can also be engaging.
{4 minutes to read} Most people know the basic plot behind West Side Story, which in turn was based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. The Jets and the Sharks are teenage gangs at each other’s throats. The Jets are white, mainly the sons of Polish or Italian immigrants, while the Sharks are recently arrived, resented immigrants from Puerto Rico. Both gangs are young, hormone-driven, and infected by the stereotypes of time immemorial. They don’t realize they’re fighting the same battle for respect and dignity. Throughout, there is coded language used to inflame, and inevitable miscommunication because they’re unable to see their common interests until it’s too late — like what happens in many conflicts.
There are very few emotions as destructive as anger. Shootings, murders, rapes, spouse and child abuse, intra-family squabbles (big and small), road rage, divorce, gang violence, are all fueled in part by anger. Anger is usually an aspect of any litigation, although even mediators must acknowledge that litigation as a dispute resolution mechanism is light years ahead of violence.
Anger and violence go back a long way. Whether we take the Bible as historical truth or a fundamental mythos of our collective Western unconscious, the first act of violence is primeval: it occurs between the very first human offspring. Most of us think we know the story, but just in case, the entire events are described in only seven short verses, as follows (Genesis, 4:3-9):