Change is an inevitable part of human existence, a fundamental component of our history that has so often been bolstered and revolutionised by war and conflict. Like change, conflict and by extension, war, are seemingly inevitable to our existence, events and ideas that are intrinsic to human nature, deeply interwoven into our psyche. As a species, humans have a gory and gruesome history, riddled with corruption and both internal and external contention, conflict coming in many forms and contexts relevant to the society of it’s time. Conflict has always been heavily impacted by the state of society at the time and the circumstances, lifestyle and opinions of the communities in the midst of it, and it is ideas that challenge the status quo that initiate civil or global unrest.
Conflict acts as a catalyst for change. It’s through the contention of opposing perspectives, the status quo challenged by people who’ve been called to action and are ready to fight for what they believe in, opposing the powers that be, such as is being seen in America at present, the reform arising from people who’ve decided enough is enough. In our contemporary society, civil unrest is more easily executed due to the geopolitical world shift of our modern society. Because of the international relations between countries and also the recent, wide dispersal of citizens between countries compared to during previous global conflicts, the commencement of a hypothetical World War III would be catastrophic and have tremendous implications for our global society.
By comparison, civil conflict is able to fester and transpire in the same manner it has been seen to in the past. A depiction of history’s habit of recurrence. The fact that history that isn’t learnt from is bound to repeat itself in future similar circumstances that present themselves. The BLM movement occurring in America particularly exemplifies this, the move for necessary change, to try once and for all to remedy systemic racism and purge it from society and achieve equity for all, is one that without restraint could swiftly turn macabre and bloody, more so than it already is. America is heading towards a potential civil war, public revolt against governing states is met with military resistance, the people of a state or country meant to be unified turned against one another. Events similar to this have transpired all throughout history, from all cultures such as The American Civil War and the French Revolution, and they’ll happen again so long as minorities are oppressed by majorities with close minded views.
The somewhat despondent, and thus far, unchallenged truth behind societal reform is that conflict seems to be the peerless way of ultimately achieving peace, or at the very least for society to progress forward. Furor for piety; war for peace. They’re two conflicting ideas whose successful existence relies upon the failure of the other, a cycle of concord and conflict, fundamental towards the societal development and cultural change of a place, a country or the world as a whole.
I think this is a really interesting point that you’ve brought up. I can’t think of a single case where change occured without conflict. Particularly in regards to the way in which we have conflict – it is often violent, and there is always more than one story, with different groups having their own ulterior motives or political agendas. It will certainly be interesting to see how the BLM movement in America plays out.
This is a thoughtful analysis but I think a simplified approach to appeal to a narrative for violence. The purpose of democratic systems is that they permit value consensus development of the law in accordance with a majority (generally representative) political thought. To assume conflict (which I inferred is illegal action against the state) is the only means of socio-political progress is either to invalidate the systems of legitimate democracy or to argue ethically against democracy. Though concerns of the former have existed since the governments inception in America, privileging the powerful and reinforcing hegemonies; this does not exclude cultural shifts from occurring through legal activism. The latter I believe is a dangerous philosophy that invites novel dominances of political thought and by excluding ideas from political discourse justified the suppression of responsive protest.