Resumen de Improving Galtuns's A-B-C to a scientific theory of all kinds of conflicts
With respect to past wisdom about conflict resolution, Galtung suggested an important innovation: according to him, a conflict is essentially composed by three aspects A-B-C, i.e. Assumptions, Behaviour and Contradiction. These aspects are here defined in a more accurate way so as to make them independent of one another. Three representative theories of micro, meso and macro conflicts respectively – i.e. Freud’s theory of intimate conflicts, Marx’s theory of social conflicts, and Clausewitz’s theory of war conflicts – are interpreted through improved definitions of A, B and C, which moreover bring a new light to these theories; in particular, they emphasize the three actors in each kind of conflict. In sum, through A-B-C, one is capable to properly interpret conflicts at all social levels. A further suggestion of Galtung’s was to summarize all possible motivations of the aspect A. Whereas he characterized these two dichotomies by means of only some interpersonal features, I characterize them in structural terms; i.e. the kind of life-goal (infinity) and the kind of organization of life (authoritative law or freedom). These dichotomies are traced back to Leibniz’s two labyrinths of human mind. Remarkably, each of the aforementioned theories is based on choices on the two structural dichotomies which are the alternative ones to the choices that the dominant, violent theory of conflict resolution is based on at the corresponding levels. From the aforementioned theories, an alternative model of conflict resolution is obtained in a parallel way to what was obtained inside the set of all scientific theories. In this model, the alternative choice on the kind of organization implies the use of non-classical logic. In fact, all the above three theories rely on non-classical logic, manifested in the original texts by their use of doubly negated propositions. In particular, the word non-violence, by including two negated words, is recognised to be the proper word for characterizing the alternative conflict resolution. As an application of this general model of conflict resolution, a six-step method for non-violently resolving conflicts at the interpersonal level – a level not considered by the above theories – is suggested.
