As a 'retired' Sociology/Communications lecturer, I really miss discussing aspects of my beloved subject so for this evening, I thought I'd do a sociological perspective of the current situation.
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Citizens of many countries live together with the hope of achieving success and progress both for themselves and for their nation. Yet, so much conflict can arise if and when certain people move to advance their own interests instead working towards the collective good of citizens. When we look at the latest happenings, it is evident that conflict is no longer an ephemeral problem but one that has indelible effects both far and wide and affect many, if not all, across the board.
In simple terms, conflict can be treated broadly as the clash of power against power in the striving of all things to become manifest or simply as a distinct category of social behavior when two parties try to get something they both cannot have. The current dialectics of conflict in Malaysia remind us that conflict is correlative to power. The ones who have power have the ability to produce effects while conflict is the process of different powers meeting and balancing and thereafter untangling the powers involved.
I find it ironical that a certain party uses a balance as its symbol but does not seem to display the same ethos in its actions. At the rate things are moving, one begins to wonder if leaders genuinely desire to eradicate conflict and move towards harmony. The speech and actions of some seem to widen the drift rather than to bridge barriers. Currently, we have to witness the ups and downs of the political drama unfolding before our very eyes like silent observers seated on wooden horses on a merry-go-round.
The tussle between the balancing of powers and the actual balance of powers is evident. Sociologically speaking, we can regard the opposing powers as the ones that create a conflict-situation at the level of dispositions and powers. When trying to attain the actual balancing, the process of their clashing, may be partially indeterminate, like the unconscious cognitive balancing in a mental picture which partially determines our perception. However, aspects of this process may become obvious when people start to voice their dissent not in cacophony but in a crescendo of voices, the climax of which has not been reached; I doubt it will, at the rate at which voices are quelled.
The balancing process may involve latent and manifest conflict and the opposing powers may exist to flex their muscles in dominance to attain subordination - which is what we see happening before us daily!
A balance of powers is no longer a conflict. It is neither a conflict nor manifest conflict. It is merely a system of solve social conflict which is exclusively an aspect of social power that those in control can enjoy.
And why so you may ask? Simple. All social conflicts involve interests. A person's interest is a symbol of power that involves one's attitude and strength towards producing effects. A social power is a social interest oriented towards other people. Thus, social conflict is the opposition and balancing of such interests via antagonism, tests of power, competition, differences in opinion, incompatible ideology etc. Somehow, somewhere, there must be some mutually exclusive benefit for which two parties are fighting against each other ( we don't need much imagination here to think of examples!)
Ideally, when there is conflict, there should be genuine and concerted effort to attain balance but this seems too far in the horizon if we were to assess the prevailing mood and sentiments. Yet, dreamers like me can still hope for miracles to occur. How then can conflicts be resolved? Here are some possibilities:
* Seek for middle ground to resolve points of conflict and in doing so, help prevent the crystallization of these points of conflict into wide cleavages in the system.
* Rogue arm-twisting approach such as through threats or withdrawal of privileges and if one gives in docilely, it could be perceived as a sign of weakness which may encourage other such threats in the future which serve to strengthen the will to combat or endure the threat. Thus, coercion carries within its use the tendency to divide, to polarize society. It is the agent of class struggle.
* Election - Let the people choose their leaders and establish the legitimacy of leaders via the ballot box.
* Persuasion - Lobbying etc.
* Manipulation (by controlling potential situations or opportunities)
* Altruistic moves
* Abdication (King Edward VIII who abdicated because of Wally Simpson)
This is such a broad topic that I will have to continue in Part 2 on another day. Please leave a comment if you wish. I would love to hear from you. Thanks! May you have a pleasant evening with your loved ones.
I came across this interesting article in the archives of The New York Times this afternoon about the selection of judges.
Believe me. It is a very good article that as many people should read. Only snag - its length. With a little patience, lots of peanuts/fruits, you should be able to make it *grins*.
Happy reading and have a nice day!
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Rendering Justice, With One Eye on Re-election
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: May 25, 2008, The New York Times
Last month, Wisconsin voters did something that is routine in the United States but virtually unknown in the rest of the world: They elected a judge.
The vote came after a bitter $5 million campaign in which a small-town trial judge with thin credentials ran a television advertisement falsely suggesting that the only black justice on the state Supreme Court had helped free a black rapist. The challenger unseated the justice with 51 percent of the vote, and will join the court in August.
The election was unusually hard-fought, with caustic advertisements on both sides, many from independent groups.
Contrast that distinctively American method of selecting judges with the path to the bench of Jean-Marc Baissus, a judge on the Tribunal de Grand Instance, a district court, in Toulouse, France. He still recalls the four-day written test he had to pass in 1984 to enter the 27-month training program at the École Nationale de la Magistrature, the elite academy in Bordeaux that trains judges in France.
“It gives you nightmares for years afterwards,” Judge Baissus said of the test, which is open to people who already have a law degree, and the oral examinations that followed it. In some years, as few as 5 percent of the applicants survive. “You come out of this completely shattered,” Judge Baissus said.
The question of how best to select judges has baffled lawyers and political scientists for centuries, but in the United States most states have made their choice in favor of popular election. The tradition goes back to Jacksonian populism, and supporters say it has the advantage of making judges accountable to the will of the people. A judge who makes a series of unpopular decisions can be challenged in an election and removed from the bench.
“If you want judges to be responsive to public opinion, then having elected judges is the way to do that,” said Sean Parnell, the president of the Center for Competitive Politics, an advocacy group that opposes most campaign finance regulation.
Nationwide, 87 percent of all state court judges face elections, and 39 states elect at least some of their judges, according to the National Center for State Courts.
In the rest of the world, the usual selection methods emphasize technical skill and insulate judges from the popular will, tilting in the direction of independence. The most common methods of judicial selection abroad are appointment by an executive branch official, which is how federal judges in the United States are chosen, and a sort of civil service made up of career professionals.
Outside of the United States, experts in comparative judicial selection say, there are only two nations that have judicial elections, and then only in limited fashion. Smaller Swiss cantons elect judges, and appointed justices on the Japanese Supreme Court must sometimes face retention elections, though scholars there say those elections are a formality.
“To the rest of the world,” Hans A. Linde, a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, since retired, said at a 1988 symposium on judicial selection, “American adherence to judicial elections is as incomprehensible as our rejection of the metric system.”
Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, has condemned the practice of electing judges.
“No other nation in the world does that,” she said at a conference on judicial independence at Fordham Law School in April, “because they realize you’re not going to get fair and impartial judges that way.”
Please click here to read the rest of the article. Thanks and have a nice day!
Wife: 'What are you doing?'
Husband : Nothing.
Wife : 'Nothing...? You've been reading our marriage certificate for an hour.'
Husband : 'I was looking for the expiry date.'
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Wife : 'Do you want dinner?'
Husband : 'Sure! What are my choices?'
Wife : 'Yes or no.'
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Wife: 'You always carry my photo in your wallet. Why?'
Hubby: 'When there is a problem, no matter how impossible, I look at your picture and the problem disappears.'
Wife: 'You see how miraculous and powerful I am for you!'
Hubby: 'Yes! I see your picture and ask myself what other problem can there be greater than this one?'
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Stress Reliever Girl: 'When we get married, I want to share all your worries, troubles and lighten your burden.'
Boy: 'It's very kind of you, darling, but I don't have any worries or troubles.'
Girl: 'Well that's because we aren't married yet.'
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Son: ' Mom, when I was on the bus with Dad this morning, he told me to give up my seat to a lady.'
Mom: 'Well, you have done the right thing.'
Son: 'But mom, I was sitting on daddy's lap.'
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A newly married man asked his wife, 'Would you have married me if my father hadn't left me a fortune?'
'Honey,' the woman replied sweetly, 'I'd have married you, N O MATTER WHO LEFT YOU A FORTUNE!'
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Girl to her boyfriend: One kiss and I'll be yours forever .
The guy replies: 'Thanks for the early warning.'
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A wife asked her husband: 'What do you like most in me, my pretty face or my sexy body?'
He looked at her from head to toe and replied: 'I like your sense of humor.'
This is really a very sad story, hope you will enjoy it and do treasure every single moment with your loved ones before it's too late for regret . . . .
He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary's School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievousness delightful.
Mark talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again that talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me so much, though, was his sincere response every time I had to correct him for misbehaving - "Thank you for correcting me, Sister!"
I didn't know what to make of it at first, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day.
One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, and then I made a novice-teacher's mistake. I looked at Mark and said, "If you say one more word, I am going to tape your mouth shut!"
It wasn't ten seconds later when Chuck blurted out, "Mark is talking again." I hadn't asked any of the students to help me watch Mark, but since I had stated the punishment in front of the class, I had to act on it.
I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. I walked to my desk, very deliberately opened by drawer and took out a roll of masking tape. Without saying a word, I proceeded to Mark's desk, tore off two pieces of tape and made a big X with them over his mouth. I then returned to the front of the room.
As I glanced at Mark to see how he was doing, he winked at me. That did it!! I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked back to Mark's desk, removed the tape, and shrugged my shoulders. His first words were, "Thank you for correcting me, Sister."
At the end of the year, I was asked to teach junior-high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom again. He was more handsome than ever and just as polite. Since he had to listen carefully to my instruction in the "new math," he did not talk as much in ninth grade as he had in third.
One Friday, things just didn't feel right. We had worked hard on a new concept all week, and I sensed that the students were frowning, frustrated with themselves - and edgy with one another. I had to stop this crankiness before it got out of hand. So I asked them to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.
Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me the papers. Charlie smiled. Mark said, "Thank you for teaching me, Sister. Have a good weekend."
That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday I gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" I heard whispered, "I never knew that meant anything to anyone!" "I didn't know others liked me so much."
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another again. That group of students moved on.
Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions about the trip the weather, my experiences in general. There was a lull in the conversation. Mother gave Dad a side-ways glance and simply said, "Dad?" My father cleared his throat as he usually did before something important.
"The Eklunds called last night," he began. "Really?" I said. "I haven't heard from them in years. I wonder how Mark is."
Dad responded quietly. "Mark was killed in Vietnam," he said. "The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could attend."
To this day I can still point to the exact spot on I-494 where Dad told me about Mark. I had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think at that moment was, Mark I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you would talk to me.
The church was packed with Mark's friends. Chuck's sister sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Why did it have to rain on the day of the funeral? It was difficult enough at the graveside. The pastor said the usual prayers, and the bugler played taps. One by one those who loved Mark took a last walk by the coffin and sprinkled it with holy water. I was the last one to bless the coffin. As I stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to me.
"Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. I nodded as I continued to stare at the coffin. "Mark talked about you a lot," he said.
After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates headed to Chuck's farmhouse for lunch. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting for me. "We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."
Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. I knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which I had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."
Mark's classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."
"I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary." Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said without batting an eyelash. "I think we all saved our lists." That's when I finally sat down and cried. I cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.
~ Sister Helen P. Mrosla ~
Life is short. Learn how to forgive and forget.
Live every single day of your life as though it's the last so that you live it to the fullest and cherish all the good things that comes your way.
