Preface

This book draws on two dozen academic disciplines (Figure 0.1) to describe over 100 theories that seek to explain a broad range of human aggression and conflicts and over 75 methods for managing them.

Organizing a book around academic disciplines risks becoming pedantic Like the six blind men describing an elephant based on touching a different part, each discipline studies only a part of the whole. Arranging a book by type of theory is useful to a student of ideas not to practioners. This book is arranged by “level” of conflict: individual, interpersonal, community, organizational, intrastate, and interstate. Examples of conflicts at these levels are a worker “going postal,” a divorce, a zoning dispute, a strike, congressional redistricting, and diplomacy. The book departs from this scheme at four points. Chapter 1 proposes six criteria for distinguishing good from bad theories. Chapter 2 describes analytical methods useful across a wide range of conflicts. Chapters 5 and 6 consider intellectual and moral conflicts. Finally, Chapters 18 and 19 consider applying and advancing theory.

The book draws on a lifetime of reading within and outside the academic literature on conflict and a myriad of other topics. There is an extensive bibliography. Unfortunately, bibliographies always are incomplete and immediately obsolete. Some ideas may appear in several sources for, as the Preacher said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Sometimes a single phrase provided inspiration. The title illustrates the point. Taken from the American World War II films produced by Frank Capra to justify the war to the public, I use it to describe a search for answers.