What's Happening [07.17.12]

American Bar Association Seeks Proposals for 2013 ADR Conference

Tom A. Kosakowski- The ABA's 15th Annual Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference is set for April 3-6, 2013 in Chicago, IL. Billed as the country's largest dispute resolution event, the conference draws from varied and diverse groups including national and international ADR practitioners and organizations, corporate leaders, government employees, judges, court administrators, and academics.

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Thoughts on violent revolution, anarchism and social change…

Rebecca Sargent- ...Most of the anarchists I know believe in creating consensus-run societies. Herein lies one of my greatest problems with the whole philosophy of the violent revolution type of anarchism. Consensus right now does not favour a violent overthrow. Society does not consent to this. How can one expect to build a consensus society on the back of silencing another’s objections entirely?

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Empathy

Andre Jackson- Over the last few months I’ve found myself in conflict with a dear friend over and over again due to our inability to correctly recognize and predict each other’s emotional responses. But just as a lack of empathy can cause conflicts, empathy can be an important tool. Mauricio Hernández Sarti finds that

“empathy is one of the most powerful processes that allows forgiveness and understanding … to resolve conflicts”

Empathy is both genetically determined and a learned skill...

The problem with missing empathy is one’s inability to determine another individual's feelings...

How can empathy be learned? Beth Steffaniak mentions the following “7 Ways to Develop Empathy and Gain Insight”...

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Beware of the Darkside?

For a long time now, I’ve been wondering about some disconnect, or lack of congruence, in an area that is a major source of pride for the ADR field (particularly for mediation): Dealing with emotions.

We pride ourselves, as a field, on identifying parties core emotions, dealing with parties’ real concerns, and tapping into their underlying motivations. In teaching and training we teach future practitioners to address emotions, rather than to fear them as disruptive; to see them as a key area to engage parties in, as opposed to something to be brushed under the carpet.

However, it seems to me that we might not be fully preparing – and priming – these practitioners to elicit and deal with emotions that make up the true Dark Side of human experience. By these, I’m referring to emotions and emotional states that are often out of control, un-nameable and seemingly unmanageable.

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THE COLD SHOULDER

Cinnie Noble- One of the reactions to people who provoke us is to give them ‘the cold shoulder’. In the dictionaries I consulted, I found that the source of this is Sir Walter Scott. There is no reason explaining its derivation but rather descriptors of what the expression reflects, including words such as aloofness and disdain.

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