Conflict Mediation Quotes

I am very comfortable with conflict, be it of the legal or mortal kind. My father was a mediator, a bridge maker. I am a grave maker.

And try to remember what we discussed, Susannah. A mediator is someone who helps others resolve conflicts. Not someone who, er, kicks them in the face.

We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expressions of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them,and drives us further apart.

You can't solve problems until you understand the other side." –Jeffrey Manber

The modern family is one in which the divergent values of our separate souls are supported, valued, encouraged. Diversity is not just tolerated, it is affirmed as the radical gift of relationship. Conflict is mediated with accepting love despite disagreement, and no one carries the assigned burden of becoming something other than what they are.

See the system. When you find yourself stuck in an oversimplified polarized conflict, a useful first step is to try to become more aware of the system as a whole: to provide more context to your understanding of the terrain in which the stakeholders are embedded, whether they are disputants, mediators, negotiators, lawyers, or other third parties. This can help you to see the forest and the trees; it is a critical step toward regaining some sense of accuracy, agency, possibility, and control in the situation.

The premise of Ezequiel Morsella’s PRISM model7,8 is that consciousness originally evolved for the delightfully mundane purpose of mediating conflicting motor commands to the skeletal muscles. (I have to point out that exactly the same sort of conflict—the impulse to withdraw one’s hand from a painful stimulus, versus the knowledge that you’ll die if you act on that impulse—was exactly how the Bene Gesserit assessed whether Paul Atreides qualified as “Human” during their gom jabbar test in Frank Herbert’s Dune.)

Compassion is a reflection of our connectedness. YOUR devotion to helping others is an expression of YOUR greatness.

Ron Kraybill, a respected Christian mediator, has noted that "effective confrontation is like a graceful dance from supportiveness to assertiveness and back again." This dance may feel awkward at first for those who are just learning it, but perseverance pays off. With God's help you can learn to speak the truth in love by saying only what will build others up, by listening responsibly to what others say, and by using principles of wisdom.

Ignore rumours about whose throne this is. Can't the Badman Killa go out to pee in peace? Come on ye desperados. I am very comfortable with conflict, be it of the legal or mortal kind. My father is a mediator, a bridge maker. I am a grave maker.

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.

Gary’s model of mediation was built on this idea that everyone needed to be in the room.

...the conflicts made him an indecisive mediator - a man, as someone had once observed, who couldn't keep his feet out of the shit on either side because he couldn't get the fencepost out of his ass.

But the CIA ignored Afghanistan and its civil war. Twetten felt there was nothing the United States could do to mediate the Afghan conflict or put the country back together again. There were too many other challenges in a world so suddenly and vastly changed by communism’s collapse.

The courts do not care if your partner has a narcissistic, borderline, psychopathic, antagonistic, high-conflict, or passive-aggressive personality style. In fact, people with these personality styles are often masterful at manipulating the cast of players in a toxic divorce, including attorneys, judges, mediators, family therapists, and custody evaluators

For hierarchy, according to the anthropologist Christopher Boehm. Boehm studied tribal cultures early in his career, but had also studied chimpanzees with Jane Goodall. He recognized the extraordinary similarities in the ways that humans and chimpanzees display dominance and submission. In his book Hierarchy in the Forest, Boehm concluded that human beings are innately hierarchical, but that at some point during the last million years our ancestors underwent a “political transition” that allowed them to live as egalitarians by banding together to rein in, punish, or kill any would-be alpha males who tried to dominate the group. Alpha male chimps are not truly leaders of their groups. They perform some public services, such as mediating conflicts.28 But most of the time, they are better described as bullies who take what they want. Yet even among chimpanzees, it sometimes happens that subordinates gang up to take down alphas, occasionally going as far as to kill them.29 Alpha male chimps must therefore know their limits and have enough political skill to cultivate a few allies and stave off rebellion.

The built environment is shaped not only by private sector development pratices, but also by the honored and fascinating field of planning. Planners in towns, counties, regional and state government, consulting firms and in economic development agencies translate ideas about human settlements into concrete designs. They can be generalists or specialize in transportation, urban centers, rural land use, economic development and more. At its best, the planning profession aims to mediate tensions between people, social groups, and the natural environment by creating an orderly process for determining common values, shared priorities and elegant principles for transcending conflicts. Therefore planners may find themselves caught in some of the most challenging political crossfire to be found. But they also have the opportunity to educate many sectors and communities.

Sometimes what we seek to gain through "winning" a conflict is not worth what we're refusing to sacrifice. And true compromise often involves sacrifice: As on the path between Scylla and Charybdis, the monsters of Greek mythology who lie on either side of a narrow strait to devour sailors and ships, either way you go there will be losses. Through life experience we gradually learn to differentiate between the ideals, values and principles which can, and those which cannot, be compromised.

While researching bullying prevention programs for the first edition of this book, I was concerned that many of the programs developed for schools had as their foundation conflict resolution solutions. People who complete such well-intentioned bullying prevention programs become skilled at handling different kinds of conflict and learn effective anger management skills, but they still have no clue how to identify and effectively confront bullying. It is disturbing how often school districts’ procedural handbooks mention the use of a mediator “to resolve” a bullying issue, as if it is a conflict. In doing this we are asking targeted students to be willing to reach some sort of “agreement” with the perpetrators. In conflict, both parties must be willing to compromise or give something up in order to come to a resolution. The bullies are already in a position of power and have robbed the targets of their sense of well-being, dignity, and worth. How much are we asking the targets to give up? With

The high principles of Masonry were particularly welcome in the uncertain times leading up to the Revolution. American society was struggling with conflicting political loyalties, denominational conflicts among competing sects, cultural and language issues resulting from increased non-English-speaking immigration, and the problems of balancing self-government with being an English Colonial province. Masonry offered itself as a cultivated and ordered society of far-thinking individuals who could help mediate differences.

Unlike Kate, by then I’d had a job. In fact, I’d had sixteen jobs, not including the years I worked as a babysitter before I could legally be anyone’s employee. They were janitor’s assistant (humiliatingly, at my high school), fast-food restaurant worker, laborer at a wildlife refuge, administrative assistant to a Realtor, English as a Second Language tutor, lemonade cart attendant, small town newspaper reporter, canvasser for a lefty nonprofit, waitress at a Japanese restaurant, volunteer coordinator for a reproductive rights organization, berry picker on a farm, waitress at a vegetarian restaurant, “coffee girl” at an accounting firm, student-faculty conflict mediator, teacher’s assistant for a women’s studies class, and office temp at a half a dozen places that by and large did not resemble offices and did not engage me in work that struck me as remotely “officey,” but rather involved things such as standing on a concrete floor wearing a hairnet, a paper mask and gown, goggles, and plastic gloves and—with a pair of tweezers—placing two pipe cleaners into a sterile box that came to me down a slow conveyor belt for eight excruciating hours a day.

Central to Individuation is the child archetype. The child functions to correct the one-sidedness of the conscious mind, to 'pave the way for a future change of personality,' and it 'a symbol which unites opposites [conscious and unconscious]; a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole'. The child is the being which matures toward independence, and it accomplishes this through voluntary separation from the mother archetype – the psychological symbol of familiarity and protection – and subsequent exploration of nature and/or the unknown. Said separation is spurred by a conflict which is unresolvable by current conscious means, which is why the child must abandon the infantilizing safety of the mother so that he can enter the unknown and retrieve or receive the wisdom necessary for the heroic transformation necessary to resolve the previously unresolvable conflict.

Because we can’t ever truly get inside someone else’s experience, it’s all too easy to misunderstand each other.

Page 33: Each of these associations is a distinct unit, each one pursues its own goals, but taken in their totality these associations direct the life of the community. These associations control business competition, regulate prices, mediate disputes, provide a system of social security, and act as intermediaries between the individual and the Thai government.

in itself a huge spiritual task. We are called to it almost prophetically, to find a way to create avenues of understanding and redress and balance and harmony, so that we can start living in a truly peaceful world in which these different experiences will all be valuable resources for insight, growth and creative development. We can mediate peaceful co-existence with each other through honoring each other and through discarding all that will create conflict and violence.

Forgiving those who wronged us in silence and never talking to them again isn't arrogance or pride but a form of self-care

The other way that we can intervene is to act as mediators or coaches rather than dictators or judges. Instead of stopping the conflict or imposing solutions, we can help kids see one another’s perspectives and encourage them to generate their own solutions.

How will major deadlocks or other problems be managed? • Will there be outside observers or mediators? •   Will deadlines, if any, be binding or not? •   What milestones might help build momentum and keep the process on track? •   If the negotiations end in no deal, when and how might parties reengage? •   Who are the parties that need to ratify the deal, and how much support is sufficient for passage?

He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.

When conflicts arise, which they inevitably do, mediation happens at a “peace” table or corner, where a child holds an object such as a stone when talking, and passes it over to the other child when listening. The tools build in a slow rhythm for pacing a conversation that is prone to breaking out into an argument.

The paradox of capitalism is that its predations may destabilize its own dynamism. Capitalist persistence requires institutions that organize inequities and mediate conflicts in ways that limit and legitimate predations before they provoke destabilization.

Writing when perched along a ledge of conscious awareness while simultaneously giving voice to the unconscious voice tumbling within allows a writer to tap into the external world of the known while also exploring the unconscious world of the unknown and the unknowable. For as long as I can stand the mounting pressure, I dance along this tremulous thin line separating sanity and insanity, mediating the conflicts between a lucid intellect and an impulsive, instinctual nature. Captivated in this submerged psyche space, disengaged from conscious tether of personal identity, and free from the jaundiced constraints and dictatorial commands of rational logic, I operate unencumbered by preconceived limitations.

Like mediation programs, many restorative justice programs are designed around the possibility of a facilitated meeting or an encounter between victims, offenders, and perhaps community members. However, an encounter is not always chosen or appropriate. Moreover, restorative approaches are important even when an offender has not been apprehended or when a party is unwilling or unable to meet. So restorative approaches are not limited to an encounter. Even when an encounter occurs, the term “mediation” is not a fitting description of what could happen. In a mediated conflict or dispute, parties are assumed to be on a level moral playing field, often with responsibilities that may need to be shared on all sides. While this sense of shared blame may be true in some criminal cases, in many cases it is not. Victims of rapes or even burglaries do not want to be known as “disputants.” In fact, they may well be struggling to overcome a tendency to blame themselves. At any rate, to participate in most restorative justice encounters, a wrongdoer must admit to some level of responsibility for the offense, and an important component of such programs is to name and acknowledge the wrongdoing. The neutral language of mediation may be misleading and even offensive in many cases. Although the term “mediation” was adopted early on in the restorative justice field, it is increasingly being replaced by terms such as “conferencing” or “dialogue” for the reasons outlined above.

( O1O'2920'8855 )PCASH( O1O'2920'8855 ) In addition, the ACRC marketed “onsite,” which is the strength of the Commission’s outreach program, making fruitful results. The ACRC supported the onsite coverage of the Onsite Mediation Meeting, through which collective complaints or public conflicts are mediated onsite, whenever they were held. In particular, press conferences were held beforehand to strengthen the ACRC’s cooperative relations with the media in certain regions for onsite coverage and reports to be expanded.

( O1O'2920'8855 )PCASH( O1O'2920'8855 ) In particular, in 2013, to grasp the current status of complaint-handling of each administrative organization, the Commission expanded the scope of its fact-finding examination to 100 organizations, including those that are mandatorily subject to such examination and those that applied to take the examination. Moreover, it addressed numerous collective complaints through onsite mediation, and solved large-scale public conflicts jointly working with the Office for Government Policy Coordination

Archipelago is the only answer to ruling a population of trillions, who own a million different cultures, mores, and histories.” He shrugged. “It is simple: an artificial intelligence—a mechal brain, if you will—exists and mediates things. It knows each and every citizen personally and orchestrates their meetings with others, communications, and so on in order to avoid irreconcilable conflict. Beyond that, it stays out of sight, for it has no values, no desires of its own. It is as if every person had their own guardian spirit, and these spirits never warred, but acted in concert to improve people’s lives.” “A tyranny of condescension,” said Galas.

Management,” according to the neorealists, means maintaining the conflict as “a low intensity confrontation”—which means the loss of local, human lives, without any damage to the mediating superpower.

The advice process: From the start, make sure that all members of the organization can make any decision, as long as they consult with the people affected and the people who have expertise on the matter. If a new hire comes to you to approve a decision, refuse to give him the assent he is looking for. Make it clear that nobody, not even the founder, “approves” a decision in a self-managing organization. That said, if you are meaningfully affected by the decision or if you have expertise on the matter, you can of course share your advice. A conflict resolution mechanism: When there is disagreement between two colleagues, they are likely to send it up to you if you are the founder or CEO. Resist the temptation to settle the matter for them. Instead, it’s time to formulate a conflict resolution mechanism that will help them work their way through the conflict. (You might be involved later on if they can’t sort the issue out one-on-one and if they choose you as a mediator or panel member.) Peer-based evaluation and salary processes: Who will decide on the compensation of a new hire, and based on what process? Unless you consciously think about it, you might do it the traditional way: as a founder, you negotiate and settle with the new recruit on a certain package (and then probably keep it confidential). Why not innovate from the start? Give the potential hire information about other people’s salaries and let them peg their own number, to which the group of colleagues can then react with advice to increase or lower the number. Similarly, it makes sense right from the beginning to choose a peer-based mechanism for the appraisal process if you choose to formalize such a process. Otherwise, people will naturally look to you, the founder, to tell them how they are doing, creating a de facto sense of hierarchy within the team.

Even when an encounter occurs, the term “mediation” is not a fitting description of what could happen. In a mediated conflict or dispute, parties are assumed to be on a level moral playing field, often with responsibilities that may need to be shared on all sides. While this sense of shared blame may be true in some criminal cases, in many cases it is not. Victims of rapes or even burglaries do not want to be known as “disputants.” In fact, they may well be struggling to overcome a tendency to blame themselves. At any rate, to participate in most restorative justice encounters, a wrongdoer must admit to some level of responsibility for the offense, and an important component of such programs is to name and acknowledge the wrongdoing. The neutral language of mediation may be misleading and even offensive in many cases. Although the term “mediation” was adopted early on in the restorative justice field, it is increasingly being replaced by terms such as “conferencing” or “dialogue” for the reasons outlined above. • Restorative justice is not primarily designed to

Theoretically, then, mental health depends upon the maintenance of a balance within the personality between the basic human urges and egocentric wishes on the one hand and the demands of conscience and society on the other hand. Under ordinary circumstances we are not aware of these two forces within our personality. But in times of conflict an impulse or a wish arises which conflicts with the standards of conscience or which for other reasons cannot be gratified in reality. In such instances we are aware of conflict and the ego takes over the role of judge or mediator between these two opposing forces. A healthy ego behaves like a reasonable and fair-minded judge and works to find solutions that satisfy both parties to the dispute. It allows direct satisfaction when this does not conflict with conscience or social requirements and flexibly permits indirect satisfactions when judgment rules otherwise. If a man finds himself with aggressive feelings toward a tyrannical boss, feelings which cannot be expressed directly without serious consequences, the ego, if it is a healthy ego, can employ the energy of the forbidden impulses for constructive actions which ultimately can lead to solution. At the very least it can offer the solace of daydreams in which the boss is effectively put in his place. A less healthy ego, failing at mediation, helpless in the face of such conflict, may abandon its position and allow the conflict to find neurotic solutions. A

we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them, and drives us further apart.

what has it been for, except to confirm the value of their delusion, my opposition equal to their zeal? Reason was our golden calf. The truth is that every person stands alone and free to make his own choices the very moment he rejects the oppression of the learned. It is as easy as lifting a veil, but it is nevertheless a yoke gone from my shoulders. I have vainly sought to mediate my doubts between two conflicting doctrines. Never again. My choices need not be consistent in the eyes of others. I answer to no one. Only now do I understand. I am free, Jean Michael. Finally free. Free in mind and soul.

Evaluating long-term relationship objectives with key suppliers is crucial. A thorough market analysis, coupled with strategic mediation to resolve discrepancies, should effectively address pricing issues. This underscores the necessity of robust contractual agreements and the prudence of maintaining backup suppliers to mitigate risks if conflicts escalate into disputes. Additionally, implementing contingency plans ensures that pricing discrepancies are managed effectively, enabling the cultivation of positive supplier relationships while securing fair and competitive pricing.

A child who is self-regulated can wait a few minutes if dinner is late, concentrate on homework even if they want to go outside and play, or tolerate car rides. They can sit until the recess bell rings or hold on to a question for a time rather than blurting it out while the teacher is talking. A self-regulated child can use words to navigate a conflict with a peer on the playground rather than simply pushing or hitting to get their way. Self-regulation allows children to adjust to life’s challenges by using their own internal resources rather than needing an adult to navigate or mediate difficulties for them or with them.

A wise person can successfully resolve a conflict by incorporating basic knowledge of Psychology to understand human behavior , Dispute Resolution to bring both parties together to form an agreeable solution and Law to restrain from engaging in illegal actions.

EVOLUTION, ALTRUISM AND GENETIC SIMILARITY THEORY by J. PHILIPPE RUSHTON The reason people give preferential treatment to genetically similar others is both simple and profound: they thereby replicate their genes more effectively. Altruism is a very interesting phenomenon, even recognized by Darwin as an anomaly for his theory. How could it evolve through his hypothesized "survival of the fittest" individual when such behavior would appear to diminish personal fitness? If the most altruistic members of a group sacrificed themselves for others, they ran the risk of leaving fewer offspring to carry forward their genes for altruistic behavior? Hence altruism would be selected out, and indeed, selfishness would be selected in. Altruistic behaviors, however, occur in many animal species, some to the point of self-sacrifice (Wilson, 1975). For example, honey bees die when they sting in the process of protecting their nests. Darwin proposed the competition of "tribe with tribe" to explain altruism (1871, p. 179). Thus, a tribe of people willing to cooperate and, if necessary, sacrifice themselves for the common good would be victorious over tribes made up of those less willing or able. Subsequently Herbert Spencer (1892/93) extended this, suggesting that the operation of a 'code of amity' towards the members of their own group, and a 'code of enmity' toward those of out-groups prevailed in successful groups. In non-elaborated forms, some version of "group-selection" was held by most evolutionists for several decades. A degree of polarization followed [Wynne-Edwards' advocacy of group selection] As D. S. Wilson put it, "For the next decade, group selection rivaled Lamarkianism as the most thoroughly repudiated idea in evolutionary theory" Essentially, there did not seem to exist a mechanism by which altruistic individuals would leave more genes than individuals who cheated. The solution to this paradox is one of the triumphs that led to the new synthesis of sociobiology. Following Hamilton (1964) the answer proposed was that individuals behave so as to maximize their "inclusive fitness" rather than only their individual fitness by increasing the production of successful offspring by both themselves and their relatives, a process that has become known as kin selection. This formulation provided a conceptual breakthrough, redirecting the unit of analysis from the individual organism to his or her genes, for it is these which survive and are passed on. Some of the same genes will be found in siblings, nephews and nieces, grandchildren, cousins, etc., as well as offspring. If an animal sacrifices its life for its siblings' offspring, it ensures the survival of shared genes for, by common descent, it shares 50% of its genes with each sibling and 25% with each siblings' offspring. …the makeup of a gene pool causally affects the probability of any particular ideology being adopted, which subsequently affects relative gene frequencies. Religious, political, and other ideological battles may become as heated as they do because they have implications for genetic fitness; genotypes will thrive more in some cultures than others. … Obviously causation is complex, and it is not intended to reduce relationships between ethnic groups to a single cause. Fellow ethnics will not always stick together, nor is conflict inevitable between groups any more than it is between genetically distinct individuals. Behavioral outcomes are always mediated by multiple causes.

He insists on keeping everyone in the same room and, together, digging up what lies underneath the conflict. Other mediators separate the feuding parties into different rooms, because it’s easier. They stay on the surface, focused on fixing the immediate problem and not much more. That surface-level work seems safer, and it is—in the short term. Going deep into conflict is risky; it can ignite latent resentments, fueling ever more conflict.

We must take a more critical look at the effects of civic exclusivism, rather than merely critiquing populism. In the past, populism has been criticized for inciting enmity between classes by oversimplifying politics as a conflict between the 'rich' and the 'poor; as well as for inviting social chaos by granting power to irresponsible politicians. Yet, populism is at least capable of contributing to the deepening of democracy insofar as it gives prominence to the issue of socioeconomic inequality and demands its resolution. In contrast, civic exclusivism transforms interclass economic conflicts, which could in practice be mediated through redistribution, into a zero-sum moral antagonism based on a good versus evil. In so doing, it legitimizes the exclusion of the poor, and in this regard, is far more harmful to the deepening of democracy than populism. It may also threaten the consolidation of democracy by fostering the politics of resentment.

rule of two.” He would get the two people most closely involved in the decision to gather more information and work together on the best solution, and usually they would come back a week or two later having decided together on the best course of action. The team almost always agreed with their recommendation, because it was usually quite obvious that it was the best idea. The rule of two not only generates the best solution in most cases, it also promotes collegiality. It empowers the two people who are working on the issue to figure out ways to solve the problem, a fundamental principle of successful mediation.13 And it forms a habit of working together to resolve conflict that pays off with better camaraderie and decision making for years afterward.*14

The national government, he said, would have to reconcile the conflicts between the commercial North and the agricultural South and mediate between the minds of men “accustomed to acting and thinking differently.” Americans must learn “to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority, to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness.

No area of understanding is more relevant and important to mediation competency than a basic understanding of how the human brain functions, perceives events, processes emotional notions, cognitive response and formulates decisions. The awareness of cognitive neuroscience and psychology are at the heart of our work in managing conflict and problem solving. — Robert Benjamin

To actually make peace, where open wrong, hostility, and destruction now operate, is the hardest and best work in the world. It involves saying true words that some people might not like to hear: “That’s wrong. Let’s solve it.” It involves confronting evils, rescuing victims, calling wrongdoers to accountability: “You can’t treat people that way.” It involves anger on behalf of victims and to the face of victimizers. But such merciful anger always maintains its sense of proportion, its perspective, and its constructive purpose. The process of problem-solving, of peacemaking—of making right what is wrong—is often long and hard. It takes honesty. It’s almost always complicated and uncomfortable. You’ll need patience yet again. You’ll need to forgive again. You’ll need more charity. You’ll need to check your attitudes, words, and actions. You’ll need the Holy Spirit to mediate the mercy and strength of Christ in order for you to do it in some semblance of the right way. You will often need forgiveness yourself as you stumble in your peacemaking. When you fail to be merciful as your Father in heaven has been merciful to you in Christ, you will have to call out for mercy from above. And yet you’ll continue to pursue the constructive conflict with darkness because that is the way redemption is accomplished.

Nor does what has just been said in anywise conflict with what was pointed out in previous chapters. The above elements just as truly shadowed forth another fundamental aspect of the everlasting covenant as did the different features singled out from the Adamic and the Noahic. In the everlasting covenant, God promised a certain reward unto Christ upon His fulfilling certain conditions—executing the appointed work. The inseparable principles of law and gospel, grace and reward, faith and works, were most expressly conjoined in that compact which God entered into with the Mediator before the foundation of the world. Therein we may behold the "manifold wisdom of God" in combining such apparent opposites; and instead of carping at their seeming hostility, we should admire the omniscience which has made the one the handmaid of the other. Only then are we prepared to discern and recognize the exercise of this dual principle in each of the subordinate covenants. Not

The phenomena we refer to as intelligence may be a byproduct of intergenomic conflict between genes mediating offense and defense in the context of language’, write Rice and Holland.

We were each trained in interest-based negotiations and have provided trainings in this approach. However, as we got more and more difficult cases, we realized that these traditional interest-based methods were failing and that high conflict disputes needed their own quite different approach.

He said the best contract lawyers were the ones who heard the unspoken. The hopes and dreams and fears that both sides held, sometimes so tightly they didn’t even know it themselves. A good contract attorney has to be a mediator first and foremost. And the best mediator is someone who can translate conflicting emotions into some form of harmony. But to do that, they have to look beneath the surface. See the unseen. Hear the unspoken.

In this ideal of justice the apparent conflict between the theories of law and the practice of everyday life is accounted for. The Teutons had a strong inclination for peaceable settlement of disputes, but mediation stood outside trying to effect a reconciliation by mutual agreement without in the least prejudicing the right of frith. Later law reflects an original Teutonic sense of justice insofar as it works up two separate tendencies into one system. The lawyers of the transition age tried to make mediation an integral part of the judicial proceedings and thus tend towards a legal system built up on the weighing and valuation of the offence at the same time as they worked for the abolishing of the ancient right of private revenge. By this harmonising process, Teutonic jurisprudence was gradually led into correspondence with Roman law, but it was slow in abandoning the idea of absolute reparation as the paramount condition of right and justice.

The degree of unity aspired to in the total society is incompatible with human freedom and the right to disagree. Politics should be the mediation, not the suppression, of conflict.

Our culture encourages such a posture. We all have been brought up and educated with the “adversarial” model for resolving disputes. This model, based on our legal system, assumes that the truth will emerge through the most vigorous combat between advocates of opposing positions. If each of us fights for our own opinion as ruthlessly as possible, then the one left standing when the smoke clears must be right. Regrettably, this model obscures the truth as often as it helps us discover it. The adversarial model favors the bigger, stronger, louder champion, regardless of his or her views. Even worse, it distracts us from looking for creative ways to reconcile conflicts by finding new perspectives that accommodate differences or mediate opposing positions.

On average, married couples experience a slow decline in the quality of their marriage as the years go by. It’s a depressing but well-established pattern. But when couples practice a version of going to the balcony, something unexpected happens. Social psychologist Eli Finkel and his colleagues directed a group of sixty married couples to spend seven minutes writing about their most recent fight from a different perspective. Specifically, “from the perspective of a neutral third party who wants the best for all involved.” They imagined a mediator like Gary in the room, in other words. “How might this person think about the disagreement? How might he or she find the good that could come from it?” Then they were asked to think about that person’s perspective during their next fight. Every four months, for a year, they repeated this writing exercise. The couples who did this marriage hack, reconsidering their conflicts from an imaginary third party’s point of view, reported feeling less upset about their disputes than couples who hadn’t done it. More importantly, the usual, slow loss of marital satisfaction did not happen for these couples that year. They still had conflict, but it didn’t wear on them the same way. Because it was healthy.