legal sanity

This interesting article compels us to consider the high costs of everyday conflicts. The writer contends that we live in a rapidly changing society firmly rooted in the “dialectic, right/wrong, either/or patterns that originated in Aristotelian logic.” This pervasive “win-lose” mentality has coupled with the disintegration of educational institutions, religious communities and the extended family to produce a culture more concerned about “rights” and “entitlements” than “responsibilities towards others.” The article suggests that the many people who are starting to question this cultural norm would benefit from a candid evaluation of the real costs of conflict in their lives (the direct cost; the cost of professional help; the opportunity cost; the emotional cost; the relationship cost). With these costs laid out, instead of spending scare resources “rehashing the past” in “the ‘battle’ that is traditional conflict resolution,” people might seek outcomes that address broken relationships and reflect what they really want for the future.