Conflicts

 

Conflicts

The current headlining focus on Ukraine and Russia is perhaps the biggest link in what amounts to a chain of conflicts—turmoils in various situations in the Middle East, in Africa, and elsewhere. Some of these situations involve full scale wars, others are perhaps less dire but may still involve disastrous living conditions for the people caught up in them.

The situations that lead to violent conflicts vary. Causes include territory, natural resources, water. Very often colonialist or neo-colonialist interests are at the heart of the problem.

Both globally and locally the concept of freedom or liberty is involved in such struggles, and this relates to power. For freedom is not only an abstraction but “effective power to do specific things,” in the words of John Dewey.*

In “The problem of freedom” the philosopher encourages us to look at the matter in the context of culture, “a state of interaction of many factors.”

It was important to Dewey not to isolate any one notion in the conversation, and I bring this up here because in spite of the vast number of texts being published on the current crisis I believe his words still resonate: “The fundamental postulate of the discussion is that isolation of any one factor, no matter how strong its workings at a given time, is fatal to understanding and to intelligent action.” 

I offer this short comment in the belief that violent conflict is not the answer to the problem.

* Cited in Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy, p. 435 (paperback).