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  %PROBLEMS SOLVE KINDS ALIENATION CONFLICT RESOLVE 900126

     Our difficulties in solving our most serious problems
are often rooted in the various kinds of alienation  which
inhibit creative problem solving.  The first steps towards
creatively  dealing  with such problems is to  reduce  the
alienation   which   stands   in  the  way   of   creative
cooperation.  Cooperation is essential in solving our most
difficult problems.  Cooperation is impossible for  people
who are alienated, for cooperation depends upon meaningful
dialogue.

     To be meaningful,  dialogue must be both accurate and
felt  as helpfully significant by the participants in  the
dialogue.   People engaged in disintegrative conflict  may
communicate accurately their mutual animosity; but that is
not   the   basis  for  creative  and   mutually   helpful
cooperation. People who are indifferent towards each other
may  communicate  accurately  the  details  of  the  day's
weather;   but  that  is not the basis  for  creative  and
mutually   helpful  cooperation.   In  the   presence   of
alienation  meaningful  dialogue is virtually  impossible;
and  so  also  is  the  meaningful  cooperation  which  is
essential to coping meaningfully with our most troublesome
problems.

     The  troublesome  problems  we  have  with  abortion,
prostitution,  rape, AIDS, broken homes,  lost childhoods,
addiction  and  codependency,   teen-age  pregnancy,   sex
discrimination, sex education, etc. will not be dealt with
in creative ways so long as people are alienated from each
other because they emphasize different,  but complementary
values.

     The difficult problems we have with the arms race and
the  threat  of  nuclear  war will not be  dealt  with  in
creative ways so long as military,  political and business
leaders  of  enemy nations are alienated from  each  other
through  differences  in language,  culture,   values  and
history about which they are ignorant.

     The  major problems we have between religious  groups
will  not be dealt with creatively so long as  members  of
those  groups  are  alienated through ignorance  of  their
complementary perspectives on the meaning of life and  the
best   way   to   live   meaningfully   together   on   an
astronomically tiny planet.

     The persistent problems we have in science  education
will   not   be   transcended  so  long   as   technically
sophisticated  scientists and personally  mature  teachers
are  alienated  from each other through ignorance  of  and
lack  of appreciation for what each other might offer to a
creative  and cooperative effort to resolve the crisis  in
science education.

     Developers  and  ecologists  will  not  be  able   to
cooperate  in dealing creatively with limited resources on
our  tiny planet so long as they are alienated  from  each
other  and  are ignorant of the complementary  values  and
ideals which the others serve and offer.

     In  each  situation the first steps towards  creative
problem   solving  are  steps  towards  transcending   the
alienation   which   stands  in  the  way  of   meaningful
cooperation  with  those people who are  regarded  as  the
enemy.  So long as the focus is upon winning a war against
the  enemy,   there will be no  meaningful  dialogue,   no
meaningful understanding,  no meaningful cooperation,  and
no meaningful problem solving. There may, however, be much
effort,  sophistication,  technology, energy,  power,  and
destruction; preceded by and followed by much personal and
communal disintegration.

Many  of  our  most  troublesome problems  are  not  truly
problems;   they are dilemmas which technocrats insist  on
treating  as problems.  Such "problems"  will not be dealt
with  wisely  until  technocrats  and  healthy  people  of
integrity learn to engage in open and honest dialogue.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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