Conflict

If the theatre creates a complete and living world centered on human beings, then conflict must be part of drama, for life includes conflict. The American Heritage dictionary defines conflict as: "1. A prolonged battle; a struggle; clash. 2. A controversy; disagreement; opposition. 3. The opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies. 4. A crashing together; collision." Conflict is opposition in varying forms and magnitudes. Conflict is not a single action or force. Rather, conflict is an action or force in relationship to another action or force. Conflict happens when two or more actions interrelate. In our struggle to understand peace, we often assume that peace is attained when conflict dissipates.

Westerners sometimes think of peace in terms of stasis. A person is at peace when he or she experiences a stillness of life, when things do not change or require change. But peace is not necessarily stasis. To many, peace connects to balance and balance connects to action. The goal of two interrelating forces is to seek some kind of balance. In human relationships, attaining balance is attaining justice. The key to attaining balance is reconciliation, for the conflicting forces necessarily have to find a way to exist together without dissipating. Ancient Greek philosophers saw balance or harmony as the oscillation of alternating opposites. Peace can then be seen as a process of reconciliation between active conflicting forces which results in active justice or balance.

Stasis is not a realistic goal in life, for life is a process in time. The seemingly motionless stagnant pool is in process of evaporating and life forms flourish within it. The cells in our body continue to die and regenerate, our heart continues to contract and rest, the sun rises and sets, the tides flow in and out. On a social level, the economy rises and falls, we communicate well and we fall short of expectations. On an emotional level, we have sorrows and joys, pain and pleasure, need and fulfillment of need.

There must be opposition in all things. All opposition of all kinds is conflict. Even making a choice involves conflict. On a purely physiological level, we cannot engage in life and survive without facing conflict. We have to eat and sleep. On a more abstract level, we cannot live in society without dealing with conflict. The task in life is to figure out how to deal with conflict.

The ideal human goal in dealing with conflict is to create peace. Much of the writings in scripture tries to help us know how to deal with conflict and create peace in ourselves and in our everyday living. But conflict does not go away; it cannot. Peace, then, must be seen as a process of attaining balance in life. When conflict creates injustice, to be a peacemaker means to actively engage in correcting the balance of that injustice.

Yet in order to be a peacemaker, how we correct the balance of injustice is all-important. Some people believe that to correct the balance we must eliminate the enemy. That is, in order to deal with conflict, we must meet it with the same magnitude of conflict as that conflict. Not so. It's important to understand that for peace to exist, balance means affirmation and reconciliation.

The 1988 Statement on Theology of Peacemaking draft by the World Church Peace Committee of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints states that

To be peacemakers involves complexities of behavior, economics, politics, and relationships that are not easily grasped by simple images of harmony, unity and peace. It is the working out of specific examples of life's injustices that humanity not only seeks peace but experiences moments of peace, i.e., moments of realization of God's presence. This is truly the life of worship.

Conflict must exist for us to live. But to live in peace, conflict must somehow be turned into an affirming of personhood and the world. Conflict must be transformed. Ah, there's the rub! Peace must be a continual process of reconciliation. Peace is active.

The World Church Peace Committee quotes President Wallace B. Smith's address at the Kirtland Temple. In 1986, President Smith said that

Perhaps we are coming closest to being real peacemakers when we begin earnestly to seek justice. In our day, as in all times past, war is the result of injustice, greed and oppression. The church has a prophetic task to speak out against both the structures of injustice which promote and sustain militaristic adventurism in the world, and those who misuse the power they have acquired to maintain those structures. But the task extends beyond mere denunciation of such practices to participation in the realization of a new and better society. For our church, peacemaking is caught up in our efforts to be engaged in the cause of Zion. Whether working for a ban on nuclear weapons or seeking to raise the level of economic welfare, expanding social justice, broadening opportunities for persons to participate in public policy-making, or working to restore the quality of the global environment, we have been called to assist God in the redemption of society.

To "be engaged in the cause of Zion" means to take reconciliatory action which will justify life in such an affirming way that people experience moments of God's presence.

Peaceful conflict leads to justice. The only way to avoid engaging in conflict in life-situations is inaction.

Because conflict is such a vital process of life, it must be a part of theatre. Otherwise, the theatre would not be able to create an experience of human existence. Exploring the relationship between ourselves and God (or the gods), between ourselves and other people, between ourselves and nature, between ourselves and our society, and between ourselves and ourselves must be a discovery of how we deal with conflict.

Drama helps us examine our own life-conflict. And most drama seeks a balance. Drama portrays conflict and then somehow resolves that conflict. Also, drama constantly seeks justice. I can't think of any drama that ends with the antagonist destroying the protagonist and the audience likes it.

But drama is also very human and very personal. Through the experience of the production, the audience identifies with characters and situations. In Theatre, Robert Cohen writes about conflict in drama:

Plot can hold suspense only when it involves alternatives and choices: Macbeth has strong reasons to murder King Duncan and strong reasons not to; if he had only the former or only the latter, he would project no real conflict and we should not consider him such an interesting character. We are fascinated by a character's actions largely in light of the actions he rejects and the stresses he has to endure in making his decisions. In other words, plot entails not only the actions of a play but also the inactions --- the things that are narrowly rejected and do not happen. A character's decision must proceed from powerfully conflicting alternatives if we are to watch his behavior with empathy instead of mere curiosity. In watching a character act, the audience must also watch him think; a playwright gets him to think by putting him into conflict.

Conflict can be set up between characters as well as within them; it may be reducible to one central situation or it may evolve out of many. Whatever the case, conflict throws characters into relief and permits the audience to see deeply into the human personality. To see a character at war with himself or in confrontation with another, is to see how that character works, and this is the key to our caring.

Drama portrays the conflict of characters, situations, and/or forces. Drama is structured to intensify the conflict until it reaches a climax when the conflict necessarily has to resolve somehow.

Copyright 1990 Debra Bruch

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