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| "Melanoma Daydreaming", an image I made using G'MIC-Qt and Paint.NET, which you can find more information about here |
(1) ignore the issue
(2) escalate the issue
(3) talk about the issue without escalating it
What
is incredibly painful for me is I am trying to follow (3) and some of
the other participants follow (1) or (2). I would even go so far to say
in most cultures, (1) or (2) is even preferred or encouraged, which is
antithetical to cooperation and friendship. I see it happen with so many
other groups of people, the person trying to start peaceful discussion
is shut down or punished... it makes me feel deeply sad inside,
witnessing and experiencing that.
I
suppose the choice is like a prisoner dilemma vote. Choose (1) and
you're voting for the issue to stay. Choose (2) and you're voting to
resolve it with violence (social or physical or otherwise). And (3) is
the nonviolent approach. Much the same way as how the theory of
nonviolent communication defines violence in terms of escalated
conflict.
Sure, if you think the other participants won't choose
(3), then (2) might be the only option to make the conflict go away. But
it pretty much always comes at a great cost to both parties
irrespective of the final outcome. And if the other party chooses (1) in
response but they are much more powerful than you, they can leverage
that power such that if you choose (2) they can morally justify their
retributive choice of (2) to themselves without ever having to attempt
(3). In other words, diplomacy is the hard time
balancing political issues and deciding how to vote among these three
methods can semi-accurately define a political ideology. Virtually all
political ideologies are completely fine with choosing (2)
retributively, which I suppose is another way of describing the comic skit from Piling Higher and Deeper #331, "Why war?":
