Thoughts on coercion...

I've been thinking a great deal about coercion lately - specially since I started reading the Juergensmeyer book Gandhi's Way. What I've been thinking is that coercion comes into play whenever we allow ourselves to become attached to a specific outcome. If we have an idea about what we think an outcome should be, it's highly likely that we'll resort to coercion to make that outcome happen.

Here are some defs of coercion from Merriam-Webster online:
1 : to restrain or dominate by force
2 : to compel to an act or choice
3 : to bring about by force or threat

Example

It's difficult to describe but I'll give it a whack. One example I can think of is lawyers within our judicial system. By nature of the profession, a lawyer is automatically attached to a specific outcome - either the client is proven innocent or the defendant is proven guilty. One of those two things has to happen and lawyers spend their lives ensuring one or the other. However, this form of conflict resolution leaves no room for another outcome and thus something has to happen to force the outcome onto one of the two prescribed paths.

I believe that's why there seems to be so much unease and discontent within a process that's supposed to help us find justice and resolve conflict. At its core, the system is already working against true resolution - resolution in which both parties agree on the principles. Obviously, my thinking on conflict resolution has already been influenced by Gandhian theory so feel free to disagree. However, I believe that Gandhi's ideas about turning the fight from people to principles is the highest idea.

It is true that this can seem idealistic, unrealistic, and unworkable but I don't believe it is. I do believe it is difficult and can require immense amounts of committment from all parties involved. One of the keys to facilitating this type of CR is encouraging the warring factions to truly listen to each other. It is also important that they realize that listening to someone and acknowledging their point of view do NOT indicate agreement with that point of view. Unfortunately, it seems that many are not even willing to listen.

I can sympathize with that because I've been in those kinds of situations - situations where you are so angry and feel so justified that you don't want to even admit there CAN be another point of view. That's a difficult hole to pull yourself out of and it's easy to see why many people either can't or won't.

Guilt them into listening?

So back to the idea of coercion: As the intermediary, it would be tempting to put into play something that might influence a particularly stubborn party to relax their viewpoint a bit and look at things differently. I wouldn't say it was coercion unless it's something designed to move the party a certain way or influence them to think in a specific direction. For example: If two countries are having a disagreement over their national boundaries and one refuses to listen to the other's reasoning, it would be coercive to say something like "Why aren't you being reasonable? Country A has listened to you, why won't you listen to them?" I would label that as coercive because you're relying on guilt to bring Country B to the table - not a true willingness and desire to resolve the issue.

No - I don't have a good solution because it would depend on each situation. I would tune in to the energectic exchanges that were taking place and gather whatever information I could from those in addition to what the parties were verbalizing. Oftentimes, what people say and what they are attempting to do energetically are two vastly different things. Knowing the difference and being able to call someone on that difference could potentially make a big difference in the situation. I also believe we then need to introduce the language of emotions into the dialog and that could prove tricky.

Emotional language

The Western world in particular has gone to great lengths to remove emotional discourse from our 'serious' use of language and bringing in the words "It feels like x is happening" could be difficult. Not impossible but challenging. However, it has been my experience that people want their feelings heard and acknowledged. Even at a national level, this could be true.

Remember that nations are comprised of and led by individuals. When those individuals get their feelings hurt, why shouldn't it affect us nationally? If another nation is willing to listen to emotional talk, why not put it on the table? On this note - one more observation about coercion: It seems that coercion is also an attempt to force another person/party to either disallow, refuse to acknowledge, or stifle their true emotional responses. It may be that their emotional response makes us uncomfortable or that it's inconvenient - whatever the reason, we're not interested.