Some Conflicts Cause Harm

We must prepare for a future replete with conflict, even in a world where we collectively are taking care of each other and even if the particular conflicts of today are no longer hardwired.

The reality is that conflict will persist permanently, even as we build a world that is more just and equitable. The enduring nature of conflict can be viewed as falling across several axes: minor and intense conflict, healthy and unhealthy conflict, interpersonal and institutional conflicts, conflicts of interests, and conflicts of inequalities (and others).

Some conflicts give rise to harm that requires restoration and repair, while others — wisely navigated — become generative fuel for innovation and collective advance. The omnipresence of conflicts points to the need for better skills, vehicles, and strategies for navigating conflict and for holding together collectively as we grapple with conflict — not only within social justice institutions or movement spaces, but broadly within a complex, pluralistic society.

That attention to conflict elevates a recurrent theme we see in our work with organizations: progressives’ troubling tendency to speak to an ever-smaller constituency when there is an urgent need to engage meaningfully across a broader set of people with whom we do not agree; with whom we must engage; and with whom we must move toward a new vision of collective engagement, democracy, and shared abundance — even as we may still disagree about so much. (To be explicit, this is not a suggestion that the justice ecosystem should bridge to white supremacist, violent, or authoritarian forces.) We must prepare for a future replete with conflict, even in a world where we collectively are taking care of each other and even if the particular conflicts of today are no longer hardwired.