The Philosophy of the Pacific Institute

Beyond Conflict and Competition: Diversity, Cooperation, and Life Affirmation as Alternatives to Violence

Lucien A. Buck

While it is clear that violence is derived from multiple causes, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the conflict-competition-violence cycle promoted within Western civilization. Differences between people are inevitable and desirable, but conflict is not. A conflict view is derived from the conviction that variance is equivalent to opposition and struggle. Competition is an orientation that converts opposition—conflict—into a position of being against others in a win-lose contest. Competition—in order to avoid losing—fosters destructiveness.

While conflict, competition, and violence have been idealized within Western society, diversity (an acceptance of the legitimacy of different points of view), cooperation (an orientation that works to enhance the position of all parties), and life affirmation offer alternatives to violence. There is considerable evidence in support of human potential for prosocial and altruistic attitudes and behaviors as a basis for choice.

Conflict, as the inherent nature of human beings and of the universe, is so basic to the thought of Western Civilization that it seems unnecessary to justify its pervasive influence. Discussion of alternatives to a conflict view generally leads to a response of surprise or disbelief. This unquestioned assumption, however, is reflected in the earliest stages of Western culture. Fine (1985), for example, described hate cultures in terms that reflect their conflict foundations, e.g., emotional conflict, antagonism, discord, and conquest. While there are other hate societies, Western Civilization has advocated a conflict perspective throughout its recorded history. Early Greek, Roman, and Jewish societies promoted an expansionistic, warlike tradition. Christianity, originally based upon principles of love and harmony, was converted to a conflict view by the acceptance of the "justified war" and the "holy war." Fromm (1973), similarly, pointed out the typical way in which differences are converted into perspectives of opposition within destructive societies; Western Civilization fits Fromm's definition of this type of culture.

The history of warfare within the West is clearly based upon a conflict orientation: "The view of the clash of arms as the regulator of human affairs, the legitimate arbiter of conflicting state interest, and the instrument for eliminating the decadent, the feeble, and the corrupt influenced thinking about war from classical times to the First World War" (Craig, 1989, p. 31). This conclusion reflects an admiration of conflict in addition to accepting it as natural to human relationships. The power of conflict to distort rational argument is exemplified by Zuckerman's (1989) analysis of NATO's supreme command: "But the plans have always been so unrealistic that they defy all imagination...the planned use of nuclear weapons would utterly destroy the battlefield itself and everything on it, including NATO's own armies" (pp. 30-31). This irrationality is derived from the traditional conflict perspective of Western Civilization, and an adherence to the illusion of warfare as a decisive solution.

Weigley's (1991) analysis of the roots of modern warfare, however, provided little support for the value of battle: "If wars remained incapable of producing decisions at costs proportionate to their objects...the whole history of war must be regarded as a history of almost unbroken futility" (p. 13). Convictions regarding the merit of conflict are not supported by the historical record, and this applies equally to the most recent example—the Gulf War (Draper, 1992).

Belief in the value of conflict within the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology also lacks validation. The recent volume, Aggression: The Myth of the Beast Within (Klama, 1988), illustrates the conflict bias that has existed in many scientific spheres, and attempts to counter this tradition with alternative views. Psychological analysis of nuclear policy has pointed out that "deterrence theory takes conflict for granted" (Tetlock, McGuire, & Mitchell, 1991, p. 244). This same assumption underlies a great deal of psychological research and theory. Psychological analysis, of course, is predominantly an outgrowth of Western scientific and philosophical traditions. The field of conflict resolution, for example, is not balanced by a parallel effort to examine the implications of diversity. The general study of family dynamics has emphasized an analysis of dysfunction, and the individual relationships between men and women have often been interpreted as a war, e.g., Lewis (1976), Psychic War in Men and Women; Tavris and Offir (1977), The Longest War; and Lewontin (1994), Women Versus the Biologists.

The unquestioned assumption that conflict is inherent in the human condition is also basic to the study of violence. Gelles and Cornell's (1990) evaluation of violence within the family emphasized this focus, e.g., "Many interactions in the family are inherently conflict-structured..." (p. 109). This view of the centrality of conflict to the study of violence has a long history (e.g., Coleman & Weinman, 1981; Saul, 1976; Spiegal, 1972; Storr, 1970; Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980; Toch, 1992; Wertham, 1969).

A conflict view typically leads to competitiveness—once difference is interpreted within an oppositional framework, the selection of a style based upon winning or losing seems to be the only choice. As a result, Western Civilization has extended its bias in favor of conflict to include competition as an essential and natural characteristic of homo sapiens. Hate cultures, consistent with their conflict orientation, are highly competitive (Fine, 1985). War is, of course, a competitive solution to the conflict interpretation of group or national relationships; it is the epitome of societies' admiration of competitiveness. This veneration has been pointed out by Craig (1989) in terms of the assessment that war promotes superiority by "eliminating the decadent, the feeble, and the corrupt" (p. 31).

As with all forms of competitiveness, however, war is an unsatisfactory (Weigley, 1991; Zukerman, 1989), as well as irrational, solution. The advocates of war have implicitly acknowledged its ineffectiveness by attempting to restrain its destructiveness by means of rules—an effort that fails at all levels of competition. The absurdity of such regulation, however, is best captured by the oxymoron of "civilized" warfare.

Belief in the desirability and unavoidability of competitiveness extends throughout the natural and social sciences. The interdisciplinary examination of Western scientific traditions in the volume, Aggression: The Myth of the Beast Within (Klama, 1988), has provided clear evidence of the bias that "human nature is fundamentally competitive" (p. 33). This analysis implicitly links competitiveness to the conflict focus of Western culture, a connection also evident in the psychological study of deterrence theory, family violence, and female-male relationships (Gelles & Cornell, 1990; Lewis, 1976; Tavris & Offir, 1977; Tetlock, McGuire, & Mitchell, 1991).

Kohn (1986), however, is one of the few authors to attempt a comprehensive analysis of competition. He confirmed the ubiquitousness of the belief in competitiveness as an inherent human characteristic in the United States, and challenged the near universal agreement that it is unavoidable, an effective motivator, enjoyable, and a promoter of self-confidence. May (1953) summarized the consequences of competition as follows: "It makes every man the potential enemy of his neighbor, it generates much interpersonal hostility and resentment, and increases greatly our anxiety and isolation from each other" (p. 48). The contribution of competition to violence has often been cited by specialists in this area of study (e.g., Coleman & Weinman, 1981; Frank, 1972; Kolb, 1972; Roberts, Mock, & Johnstone, 1981; Saul, 1976; Storr, 1970; Toch, 1992; Wertham, 1969; Wolfgang, 1981).

As competition reflects a win-lose conflict, it is difficult to prevent this process from ending in violence. Kohn (1986) stated the connection succinctly: "competition is a kind of aggression" (p. 143). As a result, Western thinkers view human destructiveness as inescapable, both as an outcome of competition and as an inherent characteristic of human nature in its own right. Violence is a central preoccupation of hate cultures in general and in Western Civilization in particular (Fine, 1985).

Inasmuch as war is, by definition, the pitting of forces against other groups, it is an obvious example of competition as violence (e.g., Craig, 1989; Weigly, 1991; Zuckerman, 1989). In addition, there is a long history of scientific effort to substantiate violence as a fundamental attribute of human beings, and this bias continues to exist in contemporary science (Klama, 1988). Gelles and Cornell (1990) substantiated the pervasiveness of "intimate violence" within the West: "The history of Western society is one in which children have been subjected to unspeakable cruelties" (p. 26). The abuse observed in the family "exists within a cultural context where violence is tolerated, accepted and even mandated" (Gelles & Cornell, p. 110)." This behavior is a logical result of the war between the sexes (Lewis, 1976; Tavris & Offir, 1977) and the casualties are clear. For example, in 1984, "806 husbands were killed by their wives, while 1,310 wives were slain by their husbands" (Gelles & Cornell, p. 67).

The primary implication of the data presented above involves evidence supporting the extent to which violence exists and can be encouraged within normal human beings. Some of the primary sources of this violence are the values approved of and admired by society, i.e., conflict and competition. The view that difference is always to be interpreted from a conflict perspective predisposes people within Western culture to a process that ends in violence. If people are "naturally" in conflict with each other, competition becomes a valuable, perhaps inevitable, choice. When this idealized social option can be confined within the "rules of fair play," violence can be avoided or partially controlled. When competitiveness is interpreted within a framework of "winning at any cost," rules are abandoned and violence is inevitable. Some individuals have been captured more effectively by these values, or exhibit other personal vulnerabilities to violent behavior. The main focus of this discussion, however, is not an examination of individual proneness to violence, but rather, an analysis of the conflict-competition-violence cycle. If violence is to be controlled, attention cannot be limited to a psychological analysis of individuals.

The Conflict, Competition, Violence Cycle

A good starting point for analyzing the cycle of violence is Toch's (1992) discussion of Violent Men, in which he stated, "violence is viewed as interpersonal, as a form of social conduct comparable to other forms of social conduct" (p. 13). More specifically, Toch pointed out that "violence is often a two-person game" (p. 7). While he perceived some people as violence prone, "even where the victim does no more than appear at the wrong time and place, his or her contribution is essential for the consummation of his or her destruction" (p. 7). This is not an attempt to blame the victim, but rather an emphasis upon the conception that violence often grows out of a sequence of events on the part of at least two people which ends with one individual feeling "that he or she must resort to a physical act, that a problem he or she faces calls for a destructive solution" (p. 7).

The appropriate unit of study, therefore, is the violent incident. Toch (1992) proposed that violence grows out of "a sequence beginning when two or more players make their opening move and ending when one player proceeds to hurt another" (pp. 35-36). He provided a number of specific examples which indicate that police-civilian interactions are often viewed as conflict. Even when an individual attempts to comply with a police officer's order, the officer may convert "the situation (as the person sees it) into a confrontation between two hostile parties" (p. 48). However, regardless of who takes such a step, an interaction involving a difference of opinion changes into a conflict because at least one of the actors interprets events in this fashion. Even if one person lacks an initial conflict view, it is difficult to avoid this outcome in a society that seldom provides any alternative. Once the interaction is defined as a conflict, both participants easily move on to compete with one another. As stated by Toch, "The civilian warns the officer of the fact that he intends to resist if the action is escalated. The officer must face the showdown, however, because his only perceived alternative would be to admit defeat" (p. 47). Many examples of this type of sequence are provided by Toch, and are often described as "man to man" confrontations (pp. 48-49)—a synonym for competition.

While the specific words "conflict" and "competition" are not always used by Toch (1992) the sequence is clear: "The initial stance of the violence-prone person makes violence probable; his first moves increase the probability of violence; the reaction of the victim converts probability into certainty" (p. 180). While he conceded that some people are violence-prone, it is clear that individuals with less potential for violence are easily drawn into a violent incident. In addition, Toch interpreted other forms of violence in a similar fashion: "every riot is...a violent incident....The game is played between members of a frustrated group and the agents of white society" (p. 199).

It is of central importance, however, to clarify that the steps of the violent incident are built upon culturally promoted concepts of conflict and competition, as this ties violence to the "normal" population rather than to some type of exceptional, perhaps abnormal, person. While such people exist, they cannot be held responsible for the general problem of violence or for socially approved violence.

A variety of other investigators have provided evidence consistent with Toch's perspective. Wertham (1969), for example, proposed that violence cannot be understood in terms of "human nature" alone. According to Wertham, "Violence and violence-mindedness are deeply embedded in our whole social life" (p. 20). Similar to Toch, Wertham viewed violence as growing out of an interpersonal interaction. Wertham stated, "We always have to visualize the potential influence on one another of first, the perpetrator; second, the victim; third, the reaction of other people in a smaller or wider circle" (p. 47). Thus, the response of other people is added as an important influence to the escalation characteristic of a violent incident.

A comparable sequence of events was proposed by Tedeschi and Felson (1994) in terms of social interactionist theory. From this perspective, violence is the end result of a series of behaviors and interpretations of events between two individuals. At various stages, a grievance may be resolved or forgiven, otherwise the interaction escalates into a violent encounter. Third parties, however, can intervene in this sequence (Tedeschi & Felson, pp. 247-248). Tedeschi and Felson provided extensive research support for coercive action in a variety of contexts; one of the most reliable elicitors of retaliation is "perceived intentional attack" (pp. 256-257).

Consistent with Toch and Wertham, Sargent (1972) discussed "the lethal situation" (p. 105). Roberts, Mock, and Johnstone (1981) provided evidence of homicide growing out of a relationship that "can no longer be sustained but cannot be given up" (p. 24). Wolfgang (1981) analyzed violence that grows out of social situations which "escalate arguments to altercations" (p. 109). Meloy (1992) concluded that most violence is perpetrated within a bond or attachment. Campbell (1993) proposed a sequence of escalation in criminal and domestic violence, and Walker (1968) interpreted the 1968 Chicago riots as growing out of reciprocal provocations between the police and some of the demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention, although the police were described as the primary aggressors.

In addition, Rappaport and Holden (1981) attacked the prevalence of "person blame" interpretations. This focus upon deviant individuals leads to a preoccupation with violence among the powerless and ignores the violence of the powerful. As a result, "person-blame ideology" leads to the inability to predict individual violence and to develop adequate prevention strategies (p. 425).

Rappaport and Holden (1981) concluded that violence is rooted in the general society. They stated, "more individual violence is perpetuated among people known to one another than between strangers, unless of course one wants to include organized violence such as wars, or recreational violence such as football games...(p. 413)." The primary implication consistent with this chapter is that violence is rooted in the socialization of people within Western Civilization, and these roots are importantly derived from conflict-competition values.

Toch (1992) and Wertham (1969), for example, discussed the competitive, aggressive childhood games and toys that prepare children for the adult cycle, leading to violence and war. "The American family and the American home are perhaps as or more violent than any other single American situation..." (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980, p. 4). One of the primary consequences of this education within the family is to promote "the idea that violence can be and should be used to secure good ends—the moral rightness of violence" (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, p. 103).

Violence increases in direct proportion to the amount of conflict (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980), and occurs least within noncompetitive relationships—democratic or equal households. These conclusions continue to be supported by the more recent analyses of Friedman (1993) and Gelles and Cornell (1990). However, Gelles and Cornell more clearly emphasized that the idealization of these values can be found throughout the history of Western Civilization. While Gelles and Cornell concluded that "people learn to be violent when they grow up in violent homes" (p. 113), the present analysis extends the principle to the learning of a conflict-competition ideology within the home.

The home as a context for learning violence has been pointed out by other investigators, such as Wolfgang (1981), who also emphasized the particular efforts to instill competitiveness and violence in males within this culture. Friedman (1993) discussed violence as a "macho sport" that has gone haywire (p. 454). This position is supported by Coleman and Weinman (1981), who stated that conjugal violence is enhanced by a concept of masculinity that places demands on men to be "strong, dominant and superior" (p. 237). While male gender roles promote competitiveness-violence, Coleman and Weinman concluded that violence must be understood within an interactional framework.

Sonkin and Auerbach-Walker (1985) took a similar position, stating that "battering men are only an extreme on the continuum of being `a man' in this society" (pp. 4-5). As Kilmartin (1994) summarized, competitiveness and aggressiveness are basic characteristics of a "real man," and lack of proper masculinity is punished. Masculine ideology results in participation in dangerous sports that lead to "debilitating injuries" and "death," a belief in "heroic" behavior during wartime that ends in "victimization," and participation in unsafe sexual practices in the time of AIDS (Kilmartin, pp. 160-162). Masculine violence often fits an interactional pattern: "37% of the cases in which a male murdered another male were precipitated by trivial events, such as the killer's 'saving face' when another man had insulted him" (pp. 212-213).

Farrell (1993) promoted a parallel perspective in terms of the roots of male competitiveness, but emphasized that "men's focus on winning was, historically, a focus on protection—even at the expense of themselves" (p. 69). Society has trained men to push competitiveness into violence, then people are surprised by the destructiveness of men. In Farrell's (1993) words, "The tragedy of the warrior is that the more he fights the enemy, the more he begins to be like the enemy" (p. 71).

If a major source of violence in Western Civilization is derived from the socially approved or even idealized values of conflict and competition, control of destructive behavior requires a reassessment of the bias inherent in these concepts. This means confronting the fact that violence is primarily a consequence of the normal socialization of men, but is also pervasively supported by, and participated in, by women, either directly or indirectly. Violence cannot be reduced substantially by the imprisonment or treatment of individuals as long as there is widespread encouragement of assaultive behavior by means of the conflict-competition-violence cycle. Society must reflect carefully upon some of its cherished beliefs, and must discover alternatives to behavior that is considered "the only way."

In order, however, to confront other possibilities, an additional bias of Western Civilization must be questioned—the pervasive belief that self-interest drives all behavior. If selfishness is inherent, conflict is inevitable, competition is desirable, and violence is unavoidable. As the volume, Aggression: The Myth of the Beast Within (Klama, 1988) has shown, the conception of fundamental selfishness has a long history within Western Civilization and continues to be a cornerstone of sociobiology. The epitome of these efforts is represented by the attempt to interpret the altruistic behavior observed in many species as evidence of "selfish genes" (Klama, p. 13). Even the "cooperativeness and altruism" necessary for the maintenance of complex, human societies has to be viewed as based upon a reaction against biological selfishness (Klama, p. 31).

Mutualism, Cooperation, Diversity, and Prosocial Behavior

In spite of the prejudice that interprets all human behavior from the perspective of basic selfishness, there is growing and extensive evidence which contradicts this bias. While it is clear that human beings have considerable capacity for egoistic behavior, it is equally apparent that other potentials are an inherent part of human nature. In fact, there is a long history of scientific efforts to contradict the cultural prejudice that self-interest is the fundamental animal or human potential (e.g., Allee, The Social Life of Animals, 1958). Allee proposed "that a general principle of automatic cooperation is one of the fundamental biological principles" (p. 30), and provided evidence to support the conception "that the drift toward natural cooperation is somewhat stronger than the opposing tendency toward disoperation" (p. 203). The term "disoperation" was used to refer to "harmful effects," such as "intense competition," that can result from undesirable conditions—e.g., overcrowding. Similarly, Saul (1976) and Kohn (1986) provided evidence that prosocial behavior is as characteristic of human nature as the traditionally promoted views of conflict, competition, or violence.

Wilson's (1992) discussion of the present crisis of mass extinction implicated the human conflict-competition-violence cycle. Wilson stated, "Human hunters help no species" (p. 253). According to Wilson, mutualism is a central facilitator of the biodiversity necessary for maintaining the world's ecology (p. 178). Mutualism represents "an intimate coexistence of two species benefiting both" (p. 178). Wilson went even further by proposing that mutualism is a fundamental foundation for life. "Most life on land depends ultimately on one such relationship...the intimate and mutually dependent coexistence of fungi and the root systems of plants" (p. 178).

These general perspectives regarding the relationships among life forms provide a picture quite different from the self-interest, conflict-competition bias which has dominated Western thought. Evidence of mutualism, diversity, and cooperation provides support for this perspective as fundamental to all life forms. Bertness (1992), for example, recently emphasized the critical role of cooperation in the ecology of the seaward edge of the salt marsh. Honeycutt (1992) provided evidence not only of cooperativeness, but of altruistic behavior in mole-rats, stating that "apparent acts of altruism are common in many animal species" (p. 43). Weiner (1994), in his review of variations in the finch, concluded that mutualism, as well as competition, is basic to evolutionary change. Even further, Heinrich (1989) observed altruistic behavior in ravens—actively helping each other find food, and Chadwick (1991) reported supportive and nurturant behavior toward sick and wounded herd members among elephants. Finally, de Waal (1988) analyzed "peacemaking" among a variety of primate species—chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, stump-tailed monkeys, pygmy chimps, and great apes.

If mutualism is fundamental to all life, prosocial behavior is an inherent human potential. The early hominid species have been viewed by Leakey and Lewin (1992) as demonstrating "a significant degree of cooperation" (pp. 116-117). Rather than supporting the "hunting ape hypothesis," these authors proposed that "evolutionary history has endowed our species with an inclination to cooperate" (p. 18). Further, they concluded that "there is no evidence of frequent violence or warfare in human prehistory until about ten thousand years ago, when humans began to practice food production" (p. 18). Similarly, Zur (1989) reviewed evidence which supports the conclusion that "for the last 200,000 years humans have had the technical and physical capability to create and use weapons against each other, but only in the last 13,000 years have humans begun to design and use weapons to defend against and attack other human beings."

Leakey and Lewin (1992) interpreted prosocial behavior as essential to the rise of technology, and proposed that altruism must have been highly developed in "intelligent and intensely social animals, like our human ancestors" (p. 350). Johanson and Johanson (1994) supported the concept that cooperation among social hominids was the foundation for "the dramatic growth in brain size" characteristic of Homo (p. 81). Consistent with Leakey and Lewin (1992), these investigators found no evidence of skilled hunting ability in homo habilis or homo erectus. Johanson and Johanson (pp. 300-302) concluded that culture has "propelled the human species." Rather than competitive-violent skills, art—appearing 40,000 to 50,000 years ago—was the foundation for the transition to fully modern human beings.

The pervasiveness of prosocial behavior continues to be supported by evidence regarding contemporary human functioning. Buck and Ginsburg (1991) argued that "altruism and other kinds of social behaviors involve species specific behavior systems" (p. 150). They provided evidence of a biological basis for altruism, and argued that the need to "dehumanize" the enemy during warfare indicates "that there is something about human qualities per se that tends to discourage killing and promote bonding" (p. 162). This is consistent with Kelman and Hamilton's (1989) conclusion that, in spite of the frequency of crimes of obedience, "more than one enlisted man avoided carrying out...orders, and more than one, by sworn oath, directly refused to obey them" at the My Lai Massacre (p. 7), and even the hardened Nazi Einsatzgruppen troops showed symptoms of "psychological decompensation" as a result of "face-to-face shooting" (Lifton, 1986, p. 15).

Prosocial attitudes and feelings, therefore, need to be overcome in order to promote violence. Batson and Oleson (1991) reported that "the relatively high rate of helping by high-empathy individuals, even when justification for not helping was high, is precisely what we would expect if feeling empathy for the person in need evokes altruistic motivation to have that person's need reduced" (p. 70). In addition, these investigators found no evidence that altruistic responses were related to specific rewards or punishments (p. 72). This supports the empathy-altruism hypothesis that human beings are "capable of caring about the welfare of others for their sakes and not simply for our own" (p. 63). Batson and Oleson concluded that people continue to get involved in spite of pressures that oppose empathy, and that altruism is likely to be more resilient when related to strong attachments (pp. 81-82).

Consistent with this, Fogelman and Wiener (1985) provided examples of the altruism of seemingly ordinary people who helped victims of Nazi oppression. Some of these rescuers helped people with whom they had developed strong attachments, but others saved people they did not know and, sometimes individuals they did not like. While a variety of factors were involved, these "ordinary" people acted altruistically under conditions that involved great personal risk. Such behavior is difficult to interpret within the context of self-interest.

Many similar examples can be found that exhibit varying degrees of prosocial concern and personal risk. Buck (1991) discussed the courage and altruism of a number of noteworthy individuals, many of whom put their lives on the line in support of their actions: Liu Binyan, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Andrei Sakarov, and Anatol Shcharansky. This list is not exhaustive and could be updated with many additional figures, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, who challenged the dictators of Myanmar or the Brazilian union organizer, Chico Mendes. Nevertheless, any such list leaves out thousands of other less prominent people who have fought for others rights with little recognition, e.g., the extensive list cited by Branch (1988) as participants in the American Civil Rights movement or the whistleblowers discussed by Glazer and Glazer (1986).

Fiske (1991) provided cross-cultural support for altruism. Fiske stated, "What the ethnographic evidence shows is that prosocial behavior is universal, helping is the mode, and altruism is very common" (p. 177). Defining altruism as "a genuine concern for some good beyond the self, motivated by a deep sense of personal connection or moral obligation to others" (p. 177), Fiske concluded that it is an inherent characteristic of human nature. Fiske (pp. 177-178) proposed four types of relationship that represent most human interaction: (a) communal sharing (kindness and sharing with no expectation of reciprocation); (b) authority ranking (interactions that include the provision of services or goods to the authority out of a sense of respect, and protection and other services to subordinates resulting from a sense of responsibility); (c) equality matching (the distribution of goods among peers seeking a balanced exchange as a result of a desire to share equally); and (d) market pricing (exchanges derived from bargaining with reference to prices or some other standard). Fiske interpreted all of these modes of interaction as prosocial—growing out of "compassion and concern for others" because the social relationships involved are "intrinsically motivating" (pp. 178-179).

Even market pricing, which is often viewed as selfish, competitive, or antisocial, can be successful only within some "culturally specific social form" (pp. 181-182). The pervasiveness of working together—prosocial interaction—is also supported by Fine's (1985) description of love cultures, and Fromm's (1973) category of life-affirmative societies.

The Diversity, Cooperation, and Life Affirmation Cycle

Violence can be reduced by revising the assumptions we promote as basic to human nature. If human beings are prosocial and altruistic, the behavior of others cannot be automatically viewed as driven by self-interest. If human beings have considerable capacity for empathy, conflict is not inevitable. It is, in fact, the concept of inherent conflict that often produces an expectation of opposition, and this forces relationships toward struggle. It is differences that are inevitable, not conflict. Differences may be compatible and allow for easy acceptance, but they may also be incompatible, making it extremely difficult to achieve a working relationship. All differences, however, can be considered within a perspective of diversity, rather than conflict. Diversity accepts the inevitability of differences, and works to honor the legitimacy of all points-of-view.

Wilson (1992) proposed that biological diversity "is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it" (p. 15). It is the unwillingness of modern technological society to tolerate different life forms that has created a crisis of biodiversity; that is, "we are in one of the great extinction spasms of geological history" (p. 280). The survival of human beings is interdependent with that of other species. Diversity at the psychological, sociological, and political levels may also relate to survival, but certainly provides an alternative to conflict-violence relationships.

May's (1972) conception of integrative power is based upon a diversity perspective; it is the power to seek solutions that fosters the growth of all parties. Within this form of problem solving, it is assumed that those on the other side can be trusted and are seeking a justifiable purpose, given their values. This is also the framework that Fromm (1963) described as essential to loving, and Maslow (1971) proposed for the "Being-cognition" characteristic of self-actualizing people (pp. 251-266).

Similarly, while Erikson (1987) recognized difference as a foundation for the individuality required for a healthy ego-identity, he also saw the need for the growth that is reflected in a wider identity. He defined a wider identity as "...the capacity for empathic identification with other people...the willingness to understand the otherness as well as the all-too-familiar in ourselves" (p. 502). A wider identity promotes integrative power.

In addition to these authors, Gandhi's writings are derived from a diversity perspective (Buck, 1992a, 1994). For example, his conception of the ideal social order is reflected in "Sarvodaya"—"the welfare of all" (Gandhi, 1954, p. 3). In order to protect the welfare of all, the rights of individuals need to be shielded against encroachment by all authorities, e.g., the state, majoritarian abuse, and centralization (Gandhi, 1961, pp. 45, 70). Gandhi focused upon equality as a context for sexual, economic, social, and international diversity (Buck, 1994). This emphasis was most clearly expressed in his statements relevant to religion: "In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals" (Gandhi, 1954, p. 25).

Gandhian synthesis is an orientation directed toward the enhancement of the desires of the other—including an "opponent"— even as one advances one's own position (Buck, 1994). This requires an open-ended, creative solution to problems where the focus is upon the means. Therefore, success is determined by utilizing the proper approach, rather than the achievement of a particular goal. The process of moving toward creative solutions involves a sequence of steps (Buck, 1994). The first effort is the persistent search for avenues of cooperation. The pursuit of mutuality begins with a reduction of demands to a minimum consistent with "truth," but this is combined with refusing to surrender essentials.

However, cooperation is not compromise in the Western tradition; a new synthesis is found where there is no victory or concession. If initial problem solving efforts fail, an attempt is made to find a solution through reason. When cooperation and reason fail, self-suffering may be initiated. Self-suffering is an attempt to touch the humane potential present in all human beings; however, Gandhi left open the possibility that it is impossible to reach this capacity in some individuals. At each step, it is necessary to seek a return to cooperative efforts. When cooperation, reason, or self-suffering have not resolved the situation, direct action is required—noncooperation.

Diversity provides fertile soil for the cultivation of cooperation. Within this framework, harmony represents a rational, effective mode of action. For example, listening carefully to the other person's version of an automobile accident, and accepting that position as an honest interpretation sets the stage for an amiable solution. Cooperation is a means of interacting that is an alternative to competition; it reflects an attempt to work with others, and, often to unite in a mutual effort toward a joint goal.

The central issue is the attitude and intent to work with, rather than having a unified purpose. In this way, cooperation can serve as a means for moving toward a single goal, or for developing creative solutions to diverse goals. Therefore, accepting the legitimacy of the other person's view of an accident does not mean agreeing with it. The cooperative response can be to work harmoniously to collect the relevant information necessary to provide separate versions to the insurance companies.

Competition is a means of working against others, whether there is a single end or a multiplicity of ends. The central feature is the intent to win and avoid losing. A competitive response to an accident is likely to result in the loss of valuable information, and, possibly, an escalation of anger into a violent interaction. The opposite of competition involves not moving against, but this is not the same as working with. There are many forms of noncompetitiveness that do not include cooperation, e.g., avoidance, conformity, and surrender.

The primary focus of these definitions is on internal events, rather than on behavior or conditions of the environment. At the behavioral level, cooperation and competition are often confused, and some behaviors can serve either alternative. Environments can be arranged to enhance both modes, but a cooperative or competitive structure can be subverted by contrary intentions. This does not mean that such structural arrangements are irrelevant; they can provide a context for learning cooperative or competitive attitudes.

Cooperation is relatively independent of external events; one can successfully cooperate independent of the behavior of others. The cooperativeness of others enhances the ease with which solutions can be reached, but one can cooperate even with a competitor, making it impossible for the competitor to win or lose. For example, one can play tennis cooperatively with a competitor. This requires an effort to place the ball close to the other person so they can make an effective return. Competitive scoring will guarantee more points for the other player, but little satisfaction that he or she has won. This approach may also convert the game into a cooperative interaction where winning is no longer important to either player.

Cooperation requires the growth of independence; it is derived from an internal locus of choice and the sense of self-worth that comes from competence. It takes as much competence to place a ball near a player as it does to aim far away.

Cooperation cannot be coerced; duty and subservience can provide a surface imitation, but they lack the intent and capacity to work with. Equality is the necessary context for cooperative efforts. Competition is inherently a relationship between superior and inferior. It is goal- and achievement-oriented—winning and losing. Within this context, the goal must be constantly reachieved—there can be no enduring satisfaction. The temporary gloating derived from winning is often converted into guilt over the subjugation of another person, particularly when the opponent is also a friend or intimate. While cooperation can be evaluated relative to a goal, this represents a superficial level. It can become entirely independent of goals; it is best understood as a process rather than an achievement.

Cooperative tennis is not concerned with scores. Exercise and the enhancement of the skill necessary for mutual play provides the satisfaction. As a process, cooperation is the means and the goal—they are the same. In this fashion, as long as one attempts to work with others, "success" is guaranteed. If "success" comes from the effort, failure can only result from an unwillingness or inability to try.

Competition, while primarily reflecting an attitude, is dependent upon events outside of the person. In order to compete, a competitor is required. It is hard to win without another who is willing to put himself or herself in the position of losing. Competition leads to dependence upon the actions of others and diminishes self-control and self-worth, regardless of winning or losing. The effort to be number one is based on comparing oneself to others, and the individual is defined by this comparison, rather than by an internalized sense of competence. Most people can never become number one, and the few who do succeed, experience failure most of the time. Those rare individuals who reach the top know, or will soon know, that they are easily and inevitably replaced. Competitiveness opens one to permanent and unavoidable vulnerability, which promotes fear of failure and conformity rather than individuality.

Cooperativeness requires the courage of self-choosing, where courage is defined as the willingness to act in spite of fear or despair. All choices require the courage to accept responsibility for the consequences of one's actions. Cooperative choices involve the courage to give up previously learned aggressive methods. As cooperativeness is used and tested, and self-confidence in its application is enhanced, faith in its strength is experienced. A capacity for working with requires growth of the total person. In order to grasp the strength derived from this orientation, the individual must become aware of cooperative options and be able to apply them. Cooperation blends individuality with community; competition denies community.

Competitiveness leads to internal change—secretiveness, deceptiveness, manipulativeness, and exploitiveness. These natural consequences of an intense desire to win must be moderated by the establishment of rules. While rules can be added to cooperative games and are required in order to guarantee "fair competition," there is no parallel need to insure fair cooperation. It is evident, however, that within the context of a struggle, rules are made to be broken and winning is everything. If rules are incorporated within a cooperative venture, there is no desire to break rules, except for remnants of competitiveness or a desire for an advantage. A cooperative tennis game does not need to provide a rule that it is necessary to place the ball close to the other person. As the players increase their ability to work with each other, they will move in this direction.

One alternative to competition is compromise—giving up on, or giving in to, some important concerns. This resolution of conflict-competition results in some degree of dissatisfaction for everyone involved, but de-escalates the movement toward destructiveness.

A diversity-cooperation stance allows for creative solutions that incorporate the essential needs of all participants, leaving no winners or losers. The respect central to this framework allows for the legitimacy of positions not previously considered. If there is a disagreement about competitive tennis, there are many options in addition to compromise, e.g., cooperative tennis. In order for this to be a creative solution, both people need to find this option desirable, and neither can feel that they have given up something important. Creativity flourishes more openly in an environment that minimizes a fear of failure and enhances a willingness to risk.

Competitiveness represents a common mode for people within Western culture, but it provides little opportunity for healthy growth. It may be more effective than inaction or escape, but is almost universally inferior to cooperation for dealing with important human issues, such as child rearing, education, intimacy, work, creativity, social relationships, international affairs, and the relationship to the environment. A marriage based upon competition must end with the defeat of the husband or the wife, or both.

Competition is best viewed as culturally promoted pathology. It is related to a deficit view of life based upon a belief in, or the actuality of, limited resources. Harmony is more consistent with sufficiency or even inexhaustibility of wealth. Competition leads to scarcity, even where there is none; cooperation provides the creative opportunity for expanding assets. In a cooperative relationship, the partners can share skills, such as political science or mathematics, with one another with the result that both enlarge their competence.

Many of the characteristics of cooperation are supported by Kohn's (1986) review of the literature. According to Kohn, cooperative efforts lead to superior performance, as measured by a variety of characteristics. Collaboration produces greater enjoyment, more self-esteem, less anxiety, less conformity, more creativity, greater empathy, and less violence. Given the strenuous efforts to teach competition within Western society (Kohn), the greater frequency of collaboration provides strong support for the conclusion that cooperation is more fundamental or more powerful than competition.

Further evidence supporting the value of cooperation was provided by Levine and Moreland (1990) in regard to small group process. They offered evidence of serious negative consequences of conflict "including interpersonal hostility, reduced performance, and even group dissolution" (p. 605). They found that, on the other hand, cooperation fosters togetherness, mutual attentiveness, affection, self-disclosure, and coordinated behavior.

Similarly, Weinstein (1991) supported the effectiveness of a variety of forms of cooperative education. Educational practices that encourage or require students to work together for common goals are superior to competitive situations at producing positive race relations, prosocial development, and improved interactions between academically handicapped and other students. Snow and Swanson (1992) also found evidence supporting the effectiveness of cooperation for cognitive achievement and for producing more positive attitudes toward school, improved self-esteem, and better relationships among students.

Deutsch (1993) concluded that students can learn "that it is to their advantage if other students learn well and that it is to their disadvantage if others do poorly" (p. 510). This cooperative attitude can be fostered while simultaneously requiring "individual accountability" (p. 510). Cooperative learning approaches consistently demonstrated greater commitment, helpfulness and caring; more skill in empathizing with others; higher self-esteem; more positive attitudes toward learning; and greater competence with and improved attitudes for effective collaboration. Deutsch also emphasized that high-achieving students learn "at least as much" in cooperative classrooms (p. 511).

Support for the effectiveness of cooperative alternatives has been found in other situations. Tetlock, McGuire, and Mitchell (1991) argued that there are more effective approaches to international relations than classical deterrence theory, which is based upon a competitive-violence perspective. While conceding that it is difficult to judge the success or failure of deterrence in many situations, some dramatic failures are clear. The effectiveness of a cooperative strategy was exemplified by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy's policy can be viewed as sending implicit cooperative signals to the Soviets (p. 262).

In addition, Tetlock et al. (1991) provided evidence in support of graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension-reduction (GRIT) strategy. This policy is based upon a cooperative spiral—unilateral reduction of tension is announced and specific actions taken. Cooperative efforts continue in the face of defection or the apparent lack of response by the other party. This action is taken without any sense or actuality of weakening one's own position. GRIT is highly consistent with Gandhi's orientation, and has been demonstrated to be more effective than "tit-for-tat" approaches in which initial cooperation is followed by repeating the opponents move—including competition or failure to respond (p. 262). GRIT is particularly effective when "repeated and rephrased" (p. 263)—that is when cooperation is persistently pursued. Cooperative alternatives can obstruct violent consequences because the initiative remains in one's own hands, rather than allowing the other side the determination of the next step.

Carneval and Pruitt (1992) recently argued for the advantages of win-win negotiation "in which parties achieve higher joint benefit than they could with a compromise agreement" (p. 535). They also emphasized the readiness of people to cooperate and described a variety of win-win solutions, such as each party winning on the issues it finds important, expanding the pie, compensating the loser, and developing of new options. Similar to Gandhi, they recommended that effective problem solving be firm and flexible, but they differed in stating that concern for the other party's outcome can be genuine or strategic. For Gandhi, genuine acceptance of the legitimacy of the other's goal is most effective.

It is impossible to provide, within this context, a detailed analysis of the hundreds of applications of Gandhian synthesis, but the reviews of Bondurant (1965), Malik (1986), Shepard (1987), and Oza (1991) have provided extensive examples. The effectiveness of Gandhian cooperation has also been demonstrated in the United States within King's civil rights movement (Branch, 1988). In addition, Buck (1992a) proposed that the centrality of cooperativeness in the approaches of Mandela, Havel, Sakarov, and Shcharansky parallel the Gandhian position.

According to Gandhi, when cooperation, reason, or self-suffering have not resolved the situation, direct action is required (Buck, 1994). There are a multitude of possibilities, but the group of methods called "Satyagraha" are most central to Gandhian synthesis. Gandhi (1950) defined the core of Satyagraha as an autonomous, loving search for truth. In practice, this search is not easy to implement, as it requires the simultaneous application of noncooperation and nonviolence (Buck, 1994). The fullest utilization of Satyagraha requires changing oneself—initiating a process of self-realization. The most difficult of these changes is to learn the self-discipline required for nonviolence. While violence can never be completely removed from life or from social interaction, it can be reduced radically, and all choices can aim toward the "least violence" (Buck, p. 240).

The Salt Satyagrah, which began on March 12, 1930, reflects all of the components of a successful campaign (Bondurant, 1965). This action started with extensive public planning, training participants to resist a violent response when attacked by the police, and a letter by Gandhi to the Viceroy Lord Irwin informing him of the details of the action. In spite of jailing thousands and violent attacks by the police, the English capitulated. Creatively, however, Gandhi allowed the Viceroy to avoid the appearance of capitulation. The salt laws were not repealed, but, in practice, the British salt monopoly ended. This campaign did not begin until cooperative negotiations broke down, and it did not avoid violence. However, almost all of the violence was initiated by the British, and there was less destruction than during hostile Indian uprisings.

The most important implications of Gandhian synthesis are that extensive control over violence is possible, and that cooperation and nonviolent noncooperation represent powerful alternatives for solving differences—noncooperative means lead to noncompetitive alternatives (Buck, 1994). In addition, Satyagraha requires a comprehensive program of planning and training. The requirement for independence—the capacity to act alone—must be balanced with the social responsiveness basic to service to the community. This prosocial focus is built upon the value of equality.

Courage is the crucial virtue required for nonviolence; it is part of a total process of growth which avoids seeking authority over others even as it resists external coercion. Courage includes the force of loving and, therefore, the strength to resist violence. The courage of the Satyagrahi is the bravery of the gentle and the nonviolent; it is not the competitive-violence of the Western ideal. Satyagraha requires complete openness and honesty. The "other" is told all of the details of a planned action, and the exact demands are specified and kept to the essential minimum, contrary to ordinary principles of negotiation. Rejection of conflict-competition perspectives diminishes the likelihood of violence, but the least violence is derived from alternatives that utilize cooperation or noncooperation.

Gandhian synthesis is derived from the conception that violence can never be solved by counter violence, only by nonviolent means. When the Satyagahi is attacked, the appropriate response is to reject any self-protection or violent response, and continue with the planned action, e.g., unauthorized march. This requires extensive discipline and the courage to give up violent methods. It is not possible to avoid violence by others, but it is possible to reject one's own. This will result in less likelihood of assault or death than when both sides resort to violence.

The obsession with interpreting human behavior from a violence perspective has been coupled with a strange neglect of the psychological study of love, one of the central defining characteristics of human beings. Freud (1949) proposed two basic instincts—eros and the destructive instincts—as central to human functioning. According to Freud, "the aim of the first of these basic instincts is to establish ever greater unities and to preserve them—in short to bind together; the aim of the second...is to undo connections and so to destroy things" (p. 20). This represents Freud's conception, in one of his last works, that there are inherent forces toward unification within human beings, as well as destructive ones. The centrality of loving, to Freud's thought, has been demonstrated by Bergman (1987) and Lear (1990).

Fromm (1964) accepted the forces of eros and destruction, but revised the Freudian perspective to suggest that "the life instinct thus constitutes the primary potentiality in man; the death instinct a secondary potentiality" (p. 50). Fromm added to this the distinction between the necrophilous—attraction to "all that is not alive, all that is dead"—and the biophilous—"reverence for life"—orientations (pp. 37-61). The nechrophiliac believes in force, the power to kill; the biophiliac "loves the adventure of living," wants to "influence by love" (Fromm, pp. 40-47). Love of life grows out of interpersonal and social forces rather than biological. Whether inherent in the biological system or learned, loving is as fundamental to human nature as violence.

Gandhi (1940) and May (1972) also agreed that good and evil are inseparable in life. As stated by Gandhi (1940):

Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa. The very fact of his living—eating, drinking, moving about—necessarily involves some himsa, destruction of life, be it ever so minute (p. 257).

Ahimsa, therefore, needs to be understood as a principle of least violence rather than nonviolence. Ahimsa is equivalent to love. "In its positive form, Ahimsa means the largest love, the greatest charity" (Gandhi, 1970, pp. 13-14). The process of working toward least violence is endless, and Gandhi readily acknowledged his own imperfections.

The essence of Gandhi's contribution lies in his demonstration of the extent to which people can rise above destructiveness (Buck, 1984, 1994, in press). This process requires changing one's whole orientation toward life (Gandhi, 1940). Similarly to Gandhi, King grasped the importance of Ahimsa, and saw the necessity of training in nonviolent methods. According to Branch (1988), King promoted a nonviolent approach in the South. King balanced nonviolence with an orientation intended to enhance the humanity of the opponent as well as one's own interests.

Acceptance of diversity, an openness and capacity for cooperation, and an affirmation of life are possible, and are as solidly founded in human beings as conflict-competition-violence. Both perspectives are utilized by people in varying degrees, but this chapter proposes diversity-cooperation-life affirmation as a more effective means of living—as more compatible with health. Health, as has previously been proposed (Buck, 1990, 1992b), is best characterized as a group of adaptations built upon considerable autonomy. Healthy people fit in with social expectations to varying degrees or radically dissent. Personal values and a sense of community are united in a fashion that facilitates "free assent." Values are internalized as one's own, based on their relevance to the unique potential for growth within the person, and the individual's connectedness to significant others. As a result, people who have moved reasonably in the direction of health have a greater capacity for dealing with differences by respecting the legitimacy of multiple points of view while holding solid self-values.

In addition, such individuals are open to the choice of working with others and are receptive to life-affirming solutions. Choice, for the healthy, includes maximizing the alternatives available to the person. The necessity of developing autonomy in order to enhance respect and nonviolence was advocated by Gandhi in his analysis of the term "Swaraj"—self rule. The focus of freedom is on each individual. Swaraj, as with all Gandhian concepts, is a process requiring continuous effort and self-discipline for which Gandhi has used the term "Brahmacharya." Swaraj, however, is always integrated with, but not controlled by, social responsiveness (Buck, 1994).

Loving, like choice, is promoted by the degree of independence reached by each person. Loving is, by definition, life-affirming. It represents a relationship between equals who have the security to engage in a process of exchange, characterized by giving to rather than giving up, by empathic knowing, by respecting the unique individuality of others, by caring in the sense of active concern for the self-actualization of other people, and by voluntary responsiveness to that growth. This is a process consistent with Fromm's (1963) "art of loving," Maslow's (1968) "transition from D-love to B-love," and May's (1969) "process of loving." Advanced phases of this process reflect complementarity—a fitting together that enlarges each person even as it respects the individuality of both. The mutuality promoted—the ability to share in the satisfactions derived from the other person's growth—enhances a new unity, a consenting harmony (Arieti & Arieti, 1977), a process partnership (Rogers, 1972).

Success within a two-person union prepares one for a capacity to surpass this boundary and embrace a new generation, eventually extending to an understanding and respect for all of humanity. Erikson's (1982) epigenetic process integrated the intertwining issues of intimacy, generativity, and integrity representative of the life-affirming accomplishments possible within a receptive culture. Generativity expands intimacy to include a more "universal care" (p. 68), even as integrity culminates in "a sense of coherence and wholeness" (p. 65). Integrity unifies "a comradeship with the ordering ways of distant times and different pursuits" (p. 65). It is built from the widening of identity to include the commonality reflected in the experience of otherness in oneself and sameness in others (Erikson, 1987).

The possibilities of love for serving the affirmation of life are also central to Gandhi's (1970) thinking. Gandhi summarized love's potential for enhancing the other by stating: "Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return" (p. 2). The culmination of Gandhi's life-affirming directions is included within his interpretation of "Advaita." Advaita is based upon a respect for all people (Gandhi, 1967), unity with all human beings, and unity with all life.

Education for Nonviolence

If a great deal of violence grows out of the context of an escalating sequence of conflict-competition, part of the solution can be found in diversity-cooperation socialization. A focus upon individuals, whether from a punishment or rehabilitation perspective, cannot succeed as long as society continues to admire and promote combative, win-lose alternatives for solving problems. As Toch (1992) has concluded, violence takes place within "violence-prone games." "The violence-prone person invites violence-prone interactions with other people" (p. 225). While Toch (pp. 223-231), at times, focused upon the "subculture of violence" and the rehabilitation of violent men, he proposed that the first step toward nonviolence is tied to self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge includes an understanding of "one's conduct in its social context" (p. 231). Toch went even further in tying violence to the general culture by discussing the focus of children's games as promoters of "competitive, retaliatory and aggressive" solutions, and proposed that "equity, justice and fairness" could be built into games (pp. 234-235). He also discussed the Oakland Police Department's violence reduction project, which has successfully helped officers gain insight into their own violence-promoting behavior. This demonstrated that it is possible to teach people to avoid the challenges that usually provoke an escalation of aggression, and to eliminate their own tendencies to threaten others. As a result, he concluded that "individual change can go hand in hand with group-based change and organizational change and even with community change" (p. 254).

Toch concluded that, in the final analysis, violent individuals are educated in destructiveness. He stated: "Our Violent Men, after all, are basically children who have learned to use force as a compensatory tool" (p. 257). Violence is, to a considerable degree, learned as a means of problem solving, but even those who have learned well can be socialized with nonviolent alternatives.

Wertham (1969) also discussed the extensive indoctrination in violence that this society provides for its children, particularly boys. He proposed that violence "is not a thing apart but is linked by a thousand threads to the present fabric of our social and institutional life" (p. 338). One of the most important of these threads is what Wertham has called "violence-thinking," the tendency to think only of violent solutions to problems and to use all sorts of rationalizations to defend these choices. As noted by Wertham, "We say freedom and mean power, we say power and mean violence" (p. 346).

One of the clearest results of the study of violence is that violence leads to violence. As a result, Gandhi concluded that we can never solve violence through violent means (Buck, 1994). Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1980) tied the education of violence to the family, stating, "the American family and the American home are perhaps as or more violent than any other single American institution" (p. 4). They emphasized the need for "long-term changes in the fabric of society," and an alteration of the toleration, acceptance and even encouragement of beliefs that "create a cycle of violence" (p. 244). As an alternative to violence, they provided evidence that demonstrated considerably lower rates of spouse abuse within families that share decision making, i.e., cooperative families. The reduction of violence requires the elimination of norms that "legitimize and glorify" violence, such as beliefs in the value of physical punishment; the mobilization of extended family and community support systems that utilizes prosocial, altruistic means; and the reduction of inequality between the sexes that can solve "the battle of the sexes" (pp. 237-243). Essentially, Strauss, et al. promoted nonviolent-cooperative alternatives to child rearing that are consistent with Gandhian synthesis.

Their conclusions were recently updated and extended by Gelles and Cornell (1990). Gelles and Cornell found that, in regard to wife abuse, women who chose to stay with their husbands were least effective when they struck back—an escalation of violence—and most effective when they became convinced and determined that "the violence must stop now" (p. 81). This is consistent with the Gandhian refusal to accept violence from others, even as it is rejected as a means of solving differences. While Tedeschi and Felson (1994) seemed to accept coercive behavior as an inevitable aspect of human interactions, they suggested that "people who can state grievances and criticize without offending the target and who can give adequate accounts for their own misbehavior are less likely to become involved in coercive episodes" (p. 362). Further, they proposed that "empathy with others inhibits the use of coercion" (p. 363). Parallel to this is research summarized by Adams (1989), which indicated that a belief in the conception that war is inherent in human nature makes it less likely that students will believe in nonviolent alternatives or participate in actions promoting peace.

Western conflict-violence values obstruct the awareness of nonviolent possibilities. However, there is evidence supporting Tedeschi and Felson's position (1994) that the capacity to take the perspective of others reduces violence (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988). Not only did abusive parents score lower on indexes of empathic responsiveness, but abused children also exhibited less empathy. Similarly, Koss, Goodman, Browne, Fitzgerald, Keita, and Russo (1994) provided data indicating that men who lack empathy in their gender schema are more sexually aggressive, more supportive of rape, and more likely to use violence for "resolving conflict" (pp. 30-31).

Violence may promote violence by stifling empathy. Empathy requires taking the perspective of the other, and therefore, to some degree, grants legitimacy to the other person's point-of-view. This is, of course, basic to Gandhian cooperativeness—the acceptance of difference without translating it into conflict.

Kohn (1986) also questioned the competition-violence represented in the athletic games of childhood. He pointed out that many cooperative games have been proposed. The "cooperative conflict" advocated by Kohn (p. 157) is, in fact, simply cooperation built upon discussion and debate that is necessary to reveal each person's point-of-view—the disclosure necessary for empathy. For Kohn, a noncompetitive society is possible, but will require the modification of fundamental aspects of the economic and political system. Kohn proposed that education for a noncompetitive society requires the "affirmation of an alternative vision" (p. 194). Alternatives that break the connection between self-interest, conflict and competition, have the best chance of avoiding the cycle of violence.

Conclusions

Violence is caused by a variety of factors, but one of its primary sources is derived from the culturally promoted values of conflict and competition. Justification of conflict-competition as essential human characteristics is typically related to innate self-interest. Destructiveness is, therefore, rooted in basic values of Western Civilization. The conflict-competition-violence cycle is taught to children within the family environment (Gelles & Cornell, 1990) as part of normal socialization, but is particularly characteristic of masculine education (Farrell, 1993; Kilmartin, 1994). As a consequence of this training, violence is promoted as a preferred solution to relationship problems. The pervasiveness of violence within society, therefore, cannot be adequately reduced by techniques oriented toward particular individuals in terms of either rehabilitation or punishment.

A comprehensive solution to violence must come from the reeducation of society, and from questioning the self-interest-conflict-competition-violence bias that is promoted both generally and by much of the scientific community. Alternative perspectives must be given clearer recognition, and must become a regular part of the socialization of children. Human beings have potential for prosocial and altruistic behavior that is equal to their potential for selfishness and competitiveness. While all of these possibilities are available to human beings, none are more fundamental. It is proposed here, however, that altruism, diversity, cooperation, and life affirmation are more effective perspectives for dealing with human interactions.

Children need to be educated, and adults reeducated, in terms of the multiple options available for solving life's problems. The best means for avoiding violence is to refuse to join the conflict-competition cycle that escalates into assault or homicide. People need to get in touch with a sense of community and with prosocial capacity, and develop an awareness of the effectiveness of coping styles consistent with these sources. Differences among people are inevitable and desirable within democratic societies. However, difference can be understood within the perspective of diversity—respect for the legitimacy of alternative points-of-view.

Diversity enhances empathic understanding, and thereby encourages mutual disclosure and honesty. Tolerance of diversity makes cooperation more effective, and cooperative solutions are not dependent upon the initial stance of the other person. What is necessary is to give up efforts toward victory, defeat, or compromise, in order to seek win-win solutions. In view of the intense socialization in competitiveness, training will be necessary in order to learn to work toward a creative synthesis that provides for the essential needs of both parties.

As cooperativeness is never passivity or conformity, it requires the courage necessary to persist with deeply held beliefs, and also the flexibility that comes from strength. Cooperation maintains self-control and choice; it does not depend upon the behavior of others. Cooperativeness is primarily a reflection of the attitude of working with others—even those initially defined as enemies. It includes a willingness to change, to grow. Techniques are valuable as part of learning cooperativeness as long as they are used within the context of working together, but they are meaningless if there is a conscious, or even unconscious, desire to win.

Practice with situations that require cooperation for the success of both participants can exemplify the positive feelings and the creative levels of achievement that occur within this atmosphere. Tasks can be arranged to demonstrate the value of unilateral cooperation, i.e., while one persists at achieving one's own goals, each move of the other person (competitive, manipulative, etc.) is responded to cooperatively. A variety of additional techniques can be taught, such as practicing tasks that can only be solved by achieving higher benefits for both parties, or using cooperative games and athletic events that counter the usual situation of pitting people against each other.

In addition to education in cooperative approaches, noncooperation can be taught as a means of returning a deadlocked situation to a context of working with the other party for mutual gain. Noncooperation includes a variety of techniques that always seeks to avoid conflict and never includes competitiveness. This is consistent with Gandhi's Satyagraha, which is based upon the altruistic principle of a loving search for truth. Noncooperation is always in the service of cooperation, and is restricted to the use of nonviolent options. As violence is difficult to eliminate or even reduce, advance planning, honesty, and self-discipline must be pursued. Ideally, noncooperative approaches are built upon self-awareness and self-growth—a balance between one's conscience and a sense of community, and a striving for equality.

Violence maximizes violence; nonviolence leads to least violence. It is clear that people can change, even in a violence-promoting society. Most people already resist the entrapment of the conflict-competition cycle sufficiently to avoid extreme violence. Noncooperation provides an active means of coping that is an alternative to either violence or passivity.

The primary problem of violence can be reduced only by changing society—cooperative-nonviolent games and athletic events must be promoted; education in violent problem solving rooted in physical punishment must be abandoned; training in competition-violence that is called masculinity must be modified; and the admiration, and allure of violence, represented by the death penalty or war, must be confronted openly. Cooperation guarantees success as long as one maintains the cooperative stance, but it is a process that one must continuously work toward achieving.

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About the Author

Lucien A. Buck, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York. He is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has numerous publications and presentations in the areas of conflict, competitiveness and violence, perception, altered consciousness, and psychotherapy. He has presented at several international conferences on Gandhian concepts as they apply to democracy, humanism, and life affirmation.

Copyright © 2005, Pacific Institute for the Study of Conflict and Aggression, Kamuela, Hawaii  96743.
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