INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT: SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES
Professor Herbert C. Kelman and Dr. Donna Hicks

People, because of their social nature, live in organizations. Whether structured or not , organizations encompass everybody and, in the end, everybody belong to one same organization: the world. Within this unique and omni-comprehensive whole, people belong in different sub-worlds, that go, as in concentric circles, getting closer and closer to the individual person—and we might consider the family group (or sub-world, for that matter) as the closest one.

Being human is not a matter of choice. Once you are born human there is an irrevocable bond to every other being that was also born human—there is an unimpeacheable condition of participation in one only human nature. Paradoxically, it is this same human nature that requires an individuation for the members of this species. ‘Identity’ and ‘identical’ do not share just a common etymological root; the quest and demand for an identity stem from a command issued by the same identical nature to every each participant of that nature.

This is why ‘unity’ and ‘identity’ are not opposite concepts in principle or, to use attribution theory’s language, if they are pit against each other that is not attributable to dispositional, but to situational factors.

I like to put these concepts—‘unity’ and ‘identity’—together in a musical metaphor. Harmony is a familiar term not only in a musical context, but also within the context of attitudes towards conflict in many non-western cultures. In a polyphonic choir, the desired outcome is harmony, which is brough about through "cooperation of differentiated—each with its own identity, for this sake—voices". If one voice utters the wrong note, there is a conflict of sounds and harmony is thwarted. However, if a note is not uttered—if it is hushed or stops singing—there is no harmony either. Note also that unity in harmony is essentially opposed to uniformity, since it requires an ensemble of diversity of notes, which the more defined the better—the more a do is differentiated from a mi, the more perfect the harmony.

It is understandable in this context, that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn viewed nationalities as the "wealth of humanity", as their "crystalized personalities; the smallest among them has its own special colors, hides within itself a particular facet of God’s design" (cited by Isaacs, H.R. 1975, pages 441-442). I do not share, though, Isaacs’ pessimistic view of these differentiations, when he writes that "from it too, and presumably also part of God’s design, have come the hatred, violence and bloodshed that resulted as these colors clashed, as these crystallized personalities confronted each other over their differences and over how to distribute humanity’s wealth, whether spiritual or material". Those differentiations may certainly be part of God’s design; but I strongly reject the idea of those differences being the indisputable cause for the clash of colors, and the confrontation of the crystallized personalities. As Schwartz (1992) writes "differences may lead to conflict or complementarity" (page 432), they neither lead to conflict nor worsen it, unless ideologically misused.

That is what nationalism does, and that is why it is an ideology. "Whatever its specific form, nationalism is an ideology that provides a justification for the existence or creation of a state defining a particular population, and that prescribes the relationship of the individual to that state" (Kelman, 1997, page 166)

As Foucault (1977) explains, language performs a constitutive function; discourse is seen as the way in which social processes emerge, reconstitute themselves, and change, albeit masking its own role in the constitution of social life. Thus, the language of ideologists masks the real nature of process, although this nature is such that is not real, but ideal. It is the ‘idea’ what creates a world. Hereof the power of ideas, their ability to ‘create’. This creational sense of power is measured as in relation to a scale from ideal to real, from nothing to something, from not being to being. The wider the gap between nothing and something, the more powerful the idea. In the universe of extensible things, the absolute extent of this power is only attributed to ‘magic’, or supernatural forces.

In the universe of social relations, the understanding of this power can be substantially different. I understand by ‘relation’, something that is not completely within the universe of extensible, measurable things, and not completely out of it. Therefore, ideologies have always something ‘magic’ about them. They come wrapped in a religious discourse (Isaacs, 1975; Kohn, 1968; Fishman, 1973; Huyn, 1988), with a strong desire to replace any previous existent religion or, in a minimal scenario, to transform it into a "national religion". "The upshot of the whole process was that a nationalist theology of the intellectuals became a nationalist mythology for the masses" (Isaacs quoting Hayes, 1975, page 440).

But there is an understanding of power ‘a contrario sensu’. Instead of creation, destruction, instead of bringing something from nothing, making something disappear, ‘annihilating’ it. This concept is out of scale: it starts from zero to the left, and its measured in negative numbers. The absolute numbers can be apparently greater, but they are preceded by a negative sign.

If we assume that ‘absolute power’ understood as an ‘ex nihilo’ creation, we – as human beings, limited by an extensible ‘humanity’ – are bound to be left out of this possibility, and have to content ourselves contributing to someone else’s creation, through enhancement of what is given, ‘something’ already made. In social relations, however, as far as we understand ‘societas’ as humanly contrived, and not as something that comes together with human nature, the ground is fertile to produce the creational illusion, the ‘ideology’. It is not just mere coincidence that the ideology of nationalism was born contemporaneous with the ideas about the contractualist character of society, and related to the theory about the sovereignty of the people (Isaacs, 1975).

‘Idealist’ is that who shelters an ‘ideal’ about himself, and about society. He or she, does not strive to ‘change’ himself/herself or society, but only to improve both as received, not as constructed. On the other side, ‘Ideologist’ is that whose idea encloses a creational illusion. Through language, the idea may become allegedly real (Foucault, 1977), thus translating into ‘ideology’. It is not real, because it never goes beyond the world of ideas, but posing it on the negative side of the scale, can generate, through change, that creational illusion. But there is no real creation of reality. It is like a mirror of reality, as if being on the other side of the scale meant to be beneath the surface of crystalline water, on the other side of reality. Thus, even though ideas cannot really construct reality, they can mirror that construction. Nonetheless, in the same way as in the mirror everything appear backwards, ‘construction’ would mean ‘destruction’.

Ideas cannot construct reality, but they can destroy it through action. Of course, the ideologist will not preconize ‘destruction’ for the sake of destruction. The ultimate goal will be creation. So, in Hegel, dialectic conflict, implying destruction of the thesis, was not intended to but in pursuit of the ‘creation’ of synthesis. So, in Marx, the destruction of the established system through fight of classes was not intended to but in order to achieve the communist paradise.

When an idea under the surface of reality, is set forth through language - if successful- becomes ideology. When is it successful? When it gets sway in minds different from the ideologist’s own, and ensuing in action, destructive action, to the extent to which it deviates from reality. When I say ‘reality’ I refer to "reality outside the mind", independent from the mind, not to the known reality, but to the knowable reality.

Victor Turner, talking about Sally Moore, writes that "like Heraclitus, too, she is aware that there is also a strain towards order and harmony, a logos, within the variability, an intent, as James Olney puts it (1972:5) to transform ‘human variability from mere chaos and disconnection into significant process’" (page 77-78). We can identify that Turner’s "strain towards order and harmony" as the clue to the reality. As long as the idea is in syntony with that logos, in consonance with reality, it enhances it, in some way it creates it by growth, by completion, and the result is harmony. Thus affected, reality is made more beautiful, more lovable. It is like the action of polishing a diamond: it does not create the diamond, but it makes it more lovely.

The idea in open challenge to the logos, instead, implies and generates conflict and destruction.

I hold the thesis that the origin of a nation is an ideological construct (ideological in the sense that reality is contrived to support structures of power relations). "Historically, such a process of ideologizing ethnic characteristics is likely to have occurred whenever there were energetic individuals and groups who had an interest in creating loyalty to a wider group—in order, for example to establish a new religion, or to expand their economic activities, or to broaden the base of their political power" (Kelman, 1997, page 170). That ideologization of ethnic characteristics is made possible by determined circumstances, for example "during periods of social, economic, or political crisis, when it is brokered by leaders who create or reinterpret histories and traditions" (Stein, 1996, page 97).

Very illustrative of how leaders can so easily manipulate sentiments of peoples, in an ideological way, to favor their personal purposes, is the following quotation from Fishman: "Thus, in seeking the collaboration of the Hungarians in his quarrels with the Hasburg Emperor in 1809, Napoleon issued a proclamation saying ‘You have national customs and a national language; you boast of a distant and illustrious origin; take up then once again your existence as a nation. Have a king of your choice, who will rule only for you, who will live in the midst of you, whom only your citizens and your soldiers will serve . . . Meet therefore in a National Diet, in the manner of your ancestors’ (cited by Kedourie 1961, p. 94)" (1973, page 9).

And it is not coincidental that Napoleon himself, in waging his expansionist wars, expanded, more than anything else, the nationalist ideology so successfully applied in his own country. Likewise, other European powers did not spare efforts to promote the ideologies of the French Revolution in American countries colonized by their enemies.

The products of an ideology are typically artificial ones, inventions of the human mind with no foundation on reality. But, as I said before, ideology can artificially ‘create’ a sort of reality. But mirroring that creation on the real world, we soon discover its real power: a power for destruction. Isaacs paints a somewhat pessimistic image of the destruction provoked when nationalist ideologies took the place of the political artificer of modern societies:

Artificial, in the first place are the divisions and animosities that nationalism is so skilled at producing. As Stein points out, "leaders and elites evoke threats to political identity that then provoke stereotyping and contribute to violence" (page 98), and he offers the example—so actual—of the Serbian leaders, who "quite deliberately sharpened ethnic differentiation in the period following Marshal Tito’s death and the weakening of the state structure" (Stein, 1996)

Social-psychological research shows that "prejudice and stereotypes can be seen as part of an ideology of a group which, on one hand, buttresses group member’s beliefs in their own superiority, and on the other hand, justifies aggression and violence toward members of the outgroup" and that "real—and I add ‘or perceived’—threat increases ingroup solidarity, the awareness of own group ingroup identity, and the tightness of group boundaries." (Stroebe & Insko, 1989, page 15). But political leaders need not to know about findings of Social-psychology, they know this instinctively, and they use it ideologically.

Artificial, in the second place, are also the political divisions of the land. In real trouble would be that who attempted to exemplify cases where the political division of the land—the so called "nation-state"—responds to a reality of circumscribing people of the same "kind" (if successful, then go and define the "kind", for neither "ethnicity", nor "culture", nor "nationality" appear as concepts easy to grasp and agree upon a commonly accepted meaning). Even the seemingly monolithic Japan, often portrayed as paradigm of a seamless nation-state, may not be so monolithic in a closer look, as Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, one of Japan's leading writers, painted in an October 1994 interview: "The Japanese, from the prime minister on down, claim that being a single race and culture strengthens the nation. That is not at all my feeling. There are various cultures in different regions, and each region has its own culture."