Why can't we all just get along?
The Washington Post has a story on conflict resolution education in schools, and the unrealistic expectations that can develop when kids are taught that any dispute can be resolved through non-violent, non-forceful means:
"Americans are dictating for the Iraqi people what a 'good life' looks like," says Puneet Gambhir, a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria. "Why didn't we communicate directly with the Iraqi people, ask them what a government for their families and friends would look like, allow them to buy into our dream? We never created buy-in."
Ms. Gambhir neglects to clarify just how we could directly communicate with people who live under a brutal, tyrannical regime, and who hear only what their state-controlled propaganda machine allows them to hear. There is no "Radio Free Iraq." This type of thinking contains a vast logical hole, where the thinker has skipped directly over the process that would remove such roadblocks to communication - i.e., removing a dictator through violent methods. It's ridiculous - and more than a little scary - to see that anti-war ideas are being spread by teaching children that evil tyrants can be controlled through words alone, and that it's possible to communicate as freely with those living in tyranny as with those living in free countries.
Of course, one factor here is that Ms. Gambhir lives in a society and attends a school where communication works. Her teachers, however, should be qualifying all of the talk of conflict resolution with lessons on how it takes a free and democratic society in order for non-violence to be feasible, and why, in some situations, non-violence is the same as appeasement, and the "peace" that results from it is accompanied by vast human suffering.
"I hear this all the time from my 19- and 20-year-old students," says James Garbarino, a professor of human development at Cornell University. "They say they've been told to use their words, seek compromise, walk away from provocation, work with those in authority for a peaceful solution." Even the argument in favor of deterring an imminent threat doesn't work for some students, he continues: "In school, if they thought a bully was about to attack them and they attacked first, they wouldn't get very far with the principal, particularly if they 'shocked and awed' him with a lead pipe."
Yes, but if the bully continually attacked students, why can't they be taught to defend themselves and defend others? The zero tolerance rules in place in most schools punish both participants in a fight, which can only teach kids that there is no means of self-defense other than appealing to a higher authority and hoping that will fix the problem. What if (the real-world parallels here should be obvious) the "higher power" refuses to do anything about the bully, yet it's obvious that he has attacked others in the past and plans to do so in the future? Why should a kid be a target and forced to believe that violence is always wrong?
Luckily, as Joanne Jacobs points out, some kids understand that seeking compromise, while useful in high school life, doesn't always apply to international politics:
Of course, not everyone thinks that Saddam Hussein just needs a hug.
Zach Clayton, student chairman of the National Association of Student Councils, wonders whether the interpersonal skills taught in school should even be applied to international relations. "We're quick in third grade to teach nonviolent resolution strategies," he says, "but by our junior or senior years in college we know that countries can't always play paper-rock-scissors."Learning to analyze analogies is one of those "critical thinking" skills we always hear about. For example, the school bully might be forced to toe the line by the principal. He might learn to control his anger and work well with others. There is hope. He's just a kid. By contrast, Saddam Hussein, already responsible for the deaths of a million people, must be tolerated in all his brutality or destroyed.
Well said, Joanne, well said.