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Our Center's methodology is based upon a number of basic assumptions, including the following:
In the field of conflict resolution, any conception of the Other as fixed or absolute dangerously lends itself to the readiness to dehumanize the Other.
The facile notion that “we are one blood” is not helpful, because it threatens a group's much needed sense of self stability and differentiation.
Of even greater threat to participant groups in conflict is any notion of the self as changing or relative, because a precipitous readiness to change poses a threat to a group's identity.
Self as agency is therefore an approximation, and the Other as absolute is a misnomer, but when Self and Other engage in a process of resolution of a conflict, a new opportunity opens up, fostering a measured exchange of representations of Self and Other. When the process is well modulated by the facilitators, four waystations typically emerge: i) polarization, where each side needs to define itself while demonizing the Other; ii) differentiation within each side, recognizing the multiplicity of positions in each separate group; iii) the crossing of mental borders, where each side engages the Other in a metaphor-driven and meaningful dialogue, replacing old concrete passions with a new order of designations to which all parties can relate, typically a new order of designation propelled by an ethic of responsibility for each side; iv) ethical statements become grounded when participant groups join forces to create concrete and mutually beneficial projects.
Following is one account of concrete work that follows the desire by parties in conflict to create mutually beneficial projects.
The Estonian semiotician Yurij Lotman and his co-author B. A. Uspensky defined culture as “the nonhereditary memory of the comm