When to Fight, When to Seek Peace
1. A simple taxonomy
Many people have a simple taxonomy when it comes to conflict: good guys and bad guys. On this view, good guys want peace, bad guys want conflict. The only reason things are bad is the bad guys, and if they would just stop wanting conflict we could finally have peace.
Of course, on this model you might think there are more good guys than bad guys. That fits with most people’s experience, since most people think of themselves and their friends as the good guys, and it’s usually possible to be broad-minded enough to imagine that even most of them (whoever “they” happen to be) are really good and well-meaning people who just happen to have received some bad information or fallen in with the wrong crowd.
So, it’s possible to think that bad things still happen and we can’t have peace and nice things because it just takes a few of the bad guys to spoil everything for the rest of us. That certainly seems true of parties and Thanksgiving dinners, at least—just one or two people badly misbehaving is often enough to throw everything off.
This raises the puzzle though of why the good guys don’t gang up (team up?) and just beat the bad guys. Maybe it’s because the good guys are too good! Even the Avengers couldn’t sacrifice one of their own to stop Thanos. You might think the bad guys have a natural advantage because, in the words of Dark Helmet, “evil will always triumph, because good… is dumb.”
2. Ready to go deeper?
Now this would all be well and good, if it weren’t for the existence of lying, and the fact that at some point the bad guys figured out how to lie about goodness.
I know, this is deep. But don’t worry, we won’t go that deep. You won’t need your Nietzsche. We aren’t going to question the moral foundations of society or the epistemic foundations of morality. For now, let’s just assume that the normal concept of good things—peace, love, motherhood, human flourishing, etc.—is right or at least close enough, and let’s also assume that the standard conception of virtue—the thing that separates the good guys from the bad guys—is also close enough.
With these assumptions in mind, we’ll see whether we can move beyond the simple-minded “good guys/bad guys” setup, incorporate a few key facts, and make our way towards a more realistic model of conflict.
3. The simple taxonomy refuted
To start with, let’s introduce the idea of incumbents. In politics, the incumbent is the politician who was already elected, who already holds power. They’re running for re-election, rather than running to unseat someone else. This notion of incumbent generalizes: among businesses, on the dating market, and in popularity contests in high school, the incumbent is the one already in the relevant position, the position of power. They’re the ones who are already rich, popular, and dating the person you like.
Now, not all incumbents are bad; “incumbent” is itself a neutral term. But there can be bad guys (we’re still in our simple model) who are incumbents. Then we just need to add one pretty simple idea, which is that incumbents sometimes lie to people about whether they, the incumbents, should retain their power.
It’s not hard to imagine what such lies would look like. The lies could be multi-faceted, varied, and complex, but underneath many would boil down to the proposal that the current situation is good (i.e., the situation in which the incumbent retains their power), and that anyone who attempts to change the current situation is bad.
Again, the forms and manners in which this proposal can be presented might vary, but in essence the message is that those who want to keep things the same (peace) are the good guys, those who want to change things (conflict) are the bad guys, that the only reason things are bad is that the bad guys keep wanting to change things (conflict), and that what we need is for people to stop doing that, so that things can return to how they were (peace).
Sound familiar? It should, because it’s exactly the same as the simple model of good guys and bad guys we started with. The flaw in that model is that it assumes that peace now, i.e., the maintenance of the status quo, is good, and the conflict now, i.e., disrupting the status quo, is bad. The refutation of that model consists in the recognition that it itself is a tool employed by ill-intentioned incumbents to seduce good people into supporting them. If it seemed simple-minded, even designed to offload responsibility, well, maybe it was.
4. Now what?
The simple realization that poorly-intentioned incumbents will often seek to maintain their power by dubbing challenges to their power “bad” and people who accede to their power “good” throws a monkey wrench into the whole “good guys/bad guys” model of conflict. As it turns out, conflict isn’t just something started by bad guys. It can be started by good guys who are opposing bad incumbents.
So… what do we do with that? There are several options. We could try to distinguish “good conflict” and “bad conflict,” or “good incumbents” and “bad incumbents.” This is hard. We’ll talk about it briefly later. We could also try to import some galaxy-brain style model, like Eric Weinstein’s Four Quadrant Model:
Instead, let’s build up from where we were, complexifying the simple good guys/bad guys model, and seeing if we can make it actually useful.
5. The incumbents, the complicit, and the yearners for peace
If we just have this idea, which is after all a very natural idea—that the powerful will often seek to retain their power—we should add a category for that sort of person. We might postulate that they will always seek peace… or rather, “peace.” Call these the strategic incumbents.
If we add that the strategic incumbents will seek to woo people to their side with the promise of peace, and that some (perhaps with a degree of consciousness) will be successfully wooed, that gives us the complicit.
We can call the remaining people who tend to oppose conflict the yearners for peace. Not incumbents themselves, and not in the pockets of the incumbents, these people strongly prefer peace to conflict, though will recognize, grudgingly, that at times conflict is in fact necessary.
Adding these types to our model, we get one side of our new model:
The strategic incumbents, of whom there are numerically few, seek to prevent conflict as conflict might unseat them. The complicit go along with this, for the most part. The remainder of what we were previously calling “the good guys” are in fact actually good: they yearn for peace, but are willing to fight when actually necessary. Reading from left to right, the propensity towards conflict increases.
6. Troublemakers, bringers of war, and the yearners for destruction
Now let’s add some symmetry. Just as there are those who are complicit in an unjust peace, there are those who will add fuel to a raging war. Call them the troublemakers. These are the people who won’t start a fight, but will join one… people who will throw the second stone.
Likewise, just as some yearn for peace, others yearn for destruction. Are there such people? You may have met a few, though you may not have recognized them for what they are. They’re not profit-maximizers. They’re men (and women) who want to see the world burn.
Finally, opposite to the strategic incumbents are the bringers of war. These are the people who don’t just want to see things burn. They are the lighters of the matches, the stockpilers of the kerosene. They are the warmongers; the yearners after destruction are their henchmen.
Reading from left to right again, the propensity to conflict increases. The troublemakers need a pre-existing fight. The destruction-yearners usually need a leader. The bringers of war need only time and opportunity.
7. The bringers of peace
Well, that escalated quickly. We started with a simple-minded model, added the idea that power often protects itself, added some symmetry, and boom—we now have a much more realistic set of categories to fit people into with respect to both peace and conflict.
Probably you’re asking, “Which type am I?” Patience: we’ll get to the personality quiz in a moment. There’s one last type to add, the actual good guys in this simplified schema, the ones who are peaceful at the right times, seek conflict at the right times, oppose malintentioned incumbents, and fight against the bringers of war. Let’s call them the bringers of peace.
Note that these are the bringers of peace, not those with the greatest disposition towards it.
8. A combined model, and a sketch of the dynamics
Putting the pieces together, we get the following typology, read left to right, from most opposed to conflict to least. Green means peace, red means war, intensity signals the strength of passion present, and sizes are meant to be relative and rough.
A lot can be said about the dynamics of conflict on the basis of this model. The strategic incumbents recruit the complicit, and try to corrupt the peace-yearners. The bringers of war recruit the destruction-yearners, and the troublemakers pile on. The bringers of peace oppose both the strategic incumbents and the war-bringers, and so naturally both oppose the bringers of peace. The peace-bringers’ only real friends are the peace-yearners, though the complicit and the troublemakers will sometimes join in or fail to join in, as the circumstance warrants.
Clever incumbents will be able to use troublemakers to take out rivals who challenge the “peace,” and devious war-bringers will fool the complicit into appeasement or believing that war is peace. Incumbents and war-bringers can find common cause in decimating the true friends of peace, or the peace-loving friends of truth.
9. Ambiguous conversation
In a just and simple world, it would be easy to tell who was who. People would announce their intentions and everyone could receive a t-shirt marked with their type. Red t-shirts for the Team Destruction, light green for Team Complicit.
Unfortunately, this whole circumstance is predicated on the idea that people can lie about goodness. So sometimes you’ll find people on Team Incumbent wearing the t-shirts of Team Peace-Yearner. (“Of course I want things to change! Just not now. Not like this.”) Or people on Team Destruction will be wearing the t-shirts of Team Peace-Bringer. (“If we don’t destroy them completely, the problem will never really go away.”)
More generally, it is often very difficult to tell which “team” each person is on, i.e., what type they are in the model, simply by listening to what words they say. “Is fighting really necessary?” could be said by a strategic incumbent trying to seduce a peace-yearner into inactivity, or by a peace-bringer trying to talk a troublemaker down. “I think so-and-so is just trying to start trouble,” could be said by one of the complicit about a peace-bringer, or by two peace-yearners warning each other about a war-bringer.
10. Peace and conflict, the personality quiz
The ambiguity of conversation is a barrier to figuring out who’s who. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to tell, or at least make estimates. Let’s take a look at a few of those ways.
First up, a personality quiz. What type of conflict person are you? Are you more like Aragorn the Ranger or Théoden King? Katniss Everdeen or Harley Quinn?
Here are a few questions to get you started:
(1) Do you ever start conflicts? If so, you may be a bringer of peace, bringer of war, or (maybe) someone on the right side of either the “yearns for destruction” or “yearns for peace” spectrum.
(2) Do you ever act to prevent conflicts? Congratulations, you may be a strategic incumbent, a peace-bringer, or (perhaps) someone on the right side of the “years for peace” spectrum.
(3) Is conflict aversive or exciting? The more aversive, the more likely you are to be one of the complicit, though you may be a yearner for peace. The more exciting, the further to the right on the spectrum you might be.
(4) Do you yearn for peace? No seriously, this will feel like a yearning. Feeling this means you’re a peace-bringer, peace-yearner, one of the complicit, or an incumbent.
(5) Do you actually have power? Troublemakers and destruction-yearners are less likely to acquire power. The complicit often have power, given to them by incumbents.
These questions are meant to be suggestive; it’s hard to be definitive when the model itself is obviously a simplification. Plus, there are people who act as one type in some contexts and another type in others.
Better than thinking of this as a personality test and trying to categorize yourself, it might be better to find people who exemplify each category so you can identify the pattern. This is what strategic incumbent behavior looks like. This is what a destruction-yearning behavior looks like.
11. Common blindspots
Understanding what type you are is made harder by the possibility of self-deception and the existence of blindspots. Not everyone wants to see themselves as they actually are, and even if you do, it’s not always easy.
Hence, it may be helpful to point out some of the more common ways that each of the types misunderstand themselves and suggest some questions it may be fruitful to ask.
Strategic incumbents. These guys sometimes forget—or “forget”—that they have power. Or they call it something other than “power.” If this is you, try using some objective measures of power. How much money? How much influence? Are people afraid of you? Are they literally on your payroll?
The complicit. The complicit most frequently confuse themselves with the peace-yearners, or even the peace-bringers. In fact, it’s more of a spectrum stretching from the left side of complicit over to the right side of peace-bringer, rather than three distinct types. The challenge here is figuring out why you oppose conflict. How tortured does your reasoning get? How convenient are your answers for you?
Those who yearn for peace. Peace-yearners may confuse themselves for peace-bringers. This is another shade of the problem with the complicit, and the questions to ask are the same. Ask also how informed you actually are. How solid is your view that conflict is unnecessary? How much have you actually thought about it, and how much information have you gathered?
Bringers of peace. Peace-bringers typically know who they are, but may fail to recognize shades of the other types in themselves. Are you a little too excited about “bringing peace”? Are you a little too determined to bring conflict to an end and move on? You might just have shades of troublemaker, destruction-seeker, or war-bringer in you, or else shades of the complicit.
Troublemakers. Troublemakers can get confused about whether they are starting a conflict or helping to bring it to an end. “This is a productive contribution,” they may say, throwing a tenth stone. One question to ask yourself is how novel your contribution to a given conflict is. The more novel, the less likely you’re just a troublemaker. The less novel, the more you’re just adding fuel to a pre-existing fire.
Those who yearn for destruction. Destruction-yearners are more likely to confuse their death-wish with a healthy desire for excitement and fun. A good question to ask here is whether peace, harmony, and the slow building of good things are also exciting and fun. If not, it’s worth asking why.
Bringers of war. The war-bringers, like the yearners for destruction, often fail to understand exactly what they’re aiming for. Are you Daenerys, breaker of chains, or Daenerys, destroyer of King’s landing? Are they really so different? A great question to ask here is what positive vision you have for the future. War-bringers are often motivated, in part, by the desire to do good by destroying actually bad things. But if your plans involve wiping the slate clean, dumping all of your resources out onto a radioactive desert, or something similar, you may want to reconsider what precisely you’re really aiming at.
12. Reasons for this essay
The dynamics of conflict frequently depend upon information asymmetries. The complicit don’t know they’re being taken in by the strategic incumbents, or at least, they don’t fully know. Those who yearn for peace may not know there even are people who want to see the world burn. Making certain facts about the dynamics of conflict more transparent brings with it the possibility of changing the landscape of conflict, ideally for the better.
Reason #1: benefits to many types from self-awareness
In this case, there are two major benefits that might come from reflection on the above model. The first is that not everyone actually wants to be doing what they are doing and helping them understand themselves can be a first step to giving them a way out. As hardened as “strategic incumbents” may seem to be, or psychopathic the “bringers of war,” these are still people, with feelings and complex motivations. In some cases, a person taking seriously that maybe they’re unjustly defending their power or blindly aiming to tear everything down may give them enough space to consider alternatives. Likewise with “the complicit” or the “troublemakers.” Putting a name to something often makes it easier to think about and then, perhaps, reconsider.
Reason #2: benefits to peace-yearners from preparedness
The second major benefit, and the original reason for this essay, pertains to the peace-yearners. The active destruction-yearners, at least at this point in history, are relatively few. There are even fewer war-bringers. This yields a spectrum much more tilted towards peace and/or the maintenance of the status quo.
This diagram is like the second “good guys/bad guys” diagram from the beginning of the essay, and encodes the intuition that many more people prefer to avoid conflict rather than engage in it.
The dynamics of specific conflicts will then mostly involve strategic incumbents defending their turf, with occasional challenges being launched by the peace-bringers or the war-bringers. Troublemakers and destruction-yearners will join in where they can and act as amplifiers of conflict. The complicit will act as dampeners, and happily switch to whichever side appears to be winning.
The remaining question is who the peace-yearners side with. This comes down to a very difficult decision of judgment. Is the status quo actually good? Is conflict necessary to change things? Who truly seeks a just peace, who is apt to defend an unjust present, and who secretly wants to watch it all burn?
One of the main challenges peace-yearners face is that their aversion to conflict frequently leaves them having thought too little about any of these questions. They may not have thought much about which elements of the status quo are just or unjust, or which dimensions of conflict are called for or not. The peace-yearners would be ready to act in defense of peace, either by engaging in conflict or seeking to prevent it… but they may not actually be prepared to make sharp or consequential decisions right now. This makes it easier for them to slip into being complicit, and harder for them to join the bringers of peace in times of need.
The result can be a sort of tug-of-war over the peace-yearners, where the complicit (or strategic incumbents) tell them one thing, and the peace-bringers tell them something else. And since the yearners for peace may not have thought through the relevant conflicts very closely, they may find themselves pretty squarely reliant on the advice of their friends… which may be composed of peace-bringers, the complicit, and even bringers of war in disguise.
As far as interventions, peace-yearners can think a bit more about conflicts, so as to render themselves more ready for action should the need arise. Peace-bringers can communicate more clearly, including in advance, in order to make their views easier to understand. And both can understand better the actual dynamics that arise in conflict, thereby making it easier for everyone to make better choices.
13. Wrapping up
Some tips:
- Don’t take the above model for either more or less than it’s worth.
- The terminology is clunky on purpose. It’s not meant to be copied verbatim.
- Obviously everyone will think they’re in one of the good categories. But if you’re worried you’re not, maybe think about that?
Many questions remain. The above does not tell you how to distinguish good from bad incumbents, good from bad conflict, or the false “peace” of static oppression from the real peace of actual harmony. It also does not cover every type of conflict. Incumbents can oppose each other, as can truth-bringers, as can war-bringers, as can everyone else, depending on their different views of the world. The model presented in this essay is just a piece of the puzzle, and there are many more such pieces.
