Special 500/0 Discount for Subscribers to The Responsive Community! COMMUNITARIANISM from Rowman & Littlefield THE ESSENTIAL REPENTANCE Managing Confrontations: Lessons from Abroad COMMUNITARIAN A Comparative Perspective Deborah Tannen READER EDITED BY AMITAI ETZIONI WITH DAVID E. CARNEY EDITED BY AMITAI ETZIONI ·Once again, Aroitai Etzioni deserves our It is almost an article of faith for many Americans that disputes 'Communitarianism promises to shape a gratitude. Repentance is avaluable contri­ should be settled by the disputing parties without outside interfer­ new political era in the way progressivism bution to the emerging debate on civil soci­ reshaped our nation a century ago.' ety.· -David Blankenhorn, President, ence. Parents often send their children back to the playroom or -Senator Bill Bradley Institute for American Values playground withinstructions to settle fights for themselves. Relatives Contributors: Benjamin R. Barber, Ronald Contributors: Mahmoud AYOUb, Guy L. Beck, Bayer, Daniel A. Beli, Robert N. Bellah, Harold O.J. Brown, Harvey Cox, Malcolm and friends can be heard to say, "It's between the two of you. I'm not Senator Bill Bradley, Senator Dan Coats, David Eckel, Amitai Etzioni, John lyden, getting inthemiddle./I TheWesternview ofintermediariesisreflected Roger L Conner, Ralf Dahrendorf, John J. Jeffrie G. Murphy, Jacob Neusner, Robert Dj/ulio, Jr., William J. Doherty, Jean Bethke Wuthnow. inthefate ofMercutio inShakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet: Whenhe tries Eishtain, Aroitai Etzioni, James S. Fishkin, William Galston, Mary Ann Glendon, Robert 1997, 204 pages to break up a sword fight between his friend Romeo and Romeo's E. Goodin, Peter Katz, Mark Kleiman, Judith paper $18.95/ Discount Price $9.50 enemy Tybalt, Mercutio is accidentally speared and killed, living just Martin, Damn H. Oaks, Diane Ravitch, Philip Selznick, Fred Siegel, Thomas A. Spragens, long enough to utter the now-famous curse, IIA plague on both your Jr., Charles Taylor, Daniel J. Tichenor, Linda houses!" Even psychologists tend to regard it as a sign of maturity J. Waite, Alan Wolfe. Forthcoming... whensomeonesettles disputes without third parties, whose interven­ January 1998, 300 pages paper $16.95/ Discount Price $8.50 COMMUNITY JUSTICE tion may be regarded as unhealthy and inappropriate enmeshment. An Emerging Field NATIONAL PARKS: RIGHTS Yet many people of the world expect conflicts to be resolved by EDITED BY DAVID R. KARP intermediaries.Thisreflects anemphasisonharmonyandinterdepen­ AND THE Contributors: Gordon Bazemore, Susan F. Bennett, COMMON GOOD Barbara Boland, John Braithwaite, Michael E. Buerger, dence: the tendency to see individuals as located inextricably in a A Communitarian Perspective David M. Chavis, Todd R. Clear, Catherine M. Coles, socialnetwork,incontrast to Americans' tendency to glorifyindepen­ Amitai Etzioni, Randolph M. Grine, Suzanne BY FRANCIS N. LOVETT Goldsmith-Hirsch, David R. Karp, George L Kelling, dence and see the individual as the fundamental human unit. To INTRODUCTION BY Stephen Mugford, Dennis P. Rosenbaum, Robert J. manage disputes ranging from private family matters to public con­ AMITAr ETZIONI. Sampson, Wesley G. Skogan, William Julius Wilson. flicts between villages, cultures develop both habitual ethics and March 1998, 144 pages July 1998, 384 pages paper $21.95/ Discount Price $11.00 paper $26.95/ Discount Price $13.50 formal proceedings, just as we have assumptions about how to fight fair as well as legal trials. Some cultures have ways of settling private TO ORDER: Call toll free (800) 462-6420 Please mention this ad when ordering to receive the 50% discount. disputes thatinvolve theparticipationofothers; these canbeformally ritualized events or informal ways of involving the community in ROWMAN & L:fITLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. settling disputes. We cannot simply adopt the rituals of another An Independent Publisherfor the 21st Century culture, but thinking about them can give us pause and perhaps even 4720 Boston Way • Lanham, • MD 20706 ideas for devising our o"m new ways to manage conflict. Managll1g:'COlt"ft9nt~tions 33 32 The Responsive Community • Spring 1998 The Calming Power of Intermediaries hierarchical social relations are key. The ritual is presided over by a senior family member, who brings the weight of his standing to the Takie Sugiyama Lebra explains the many benefits that the Japa­ peace-making mission and also emphasizes both his own stature and nese see in using intermediaries to settle disputes. For one thing, the seriousness of the event by speaking in a formal, high rhetoric to intermediaries provide a motivation to settle the conflict: to save face exhort the disputants to end their conflict. for them. A go-between can also offer the needed apology without the principal losing face and can absorb rejections without taking them Oneof the mostintriguing accounts ofhow disputes are settled in personally. Thisbenefitis particularlyclearin the use ofmatchmakers this part of the world, described by Lamont Lindstrom, is found on the ormarriagebrokers, a practicecommoninmanycultures ofthe world: island of Tanna in the South Pacific. Conflicts among villagers or it avoids the risk of a potential bride (or her family) rejecting a suitor between villages are discussed publicly by groups of adult men at to his face. Finally, intermediaries can put pressure on someone to act specialmeetings thatlastall day. These meetings differ strikinglyfrom properly without risking the direct conflict that can ensue when ouridea ofconflict resolution inthatthey are notdesigned to reconcile people make demands for their own benefit, as when neighbors theindividualaccounts ofdisputingpartiesand elicit the truthofwhat pressure a son or daughter-in-law to stop neglecting a parent or happened. Instead, all the people present, disputants as well as others, parent-in-law. Inotherwords, community pressure takes the place of come to a publicagreement aboutwhathappened andhow theconflict a humiliating one-on-one confrontation: /lYou never call me!" should be settled. They speak of these events not as competitions or Using third parties to settle disputes is not limited to Asian warfare among opposing interests but as voyages through space in societies. Many cultures of the Pacific also make habitual use of this which they all take part-jointvoyagesinwhich all travelers reach the practice, often in the form of rituals in the sense that they are formal­ same destination. They perceive the conclusion not as a balancing of ized enough to have names and standard structures or rules. As in competingindividualinterests oreven a compromise butofa consen­ Asian culture, they typically draw on hierarchical relations to main­ susflowingfrom theinteractionofall. Here, too, hierarchyplaysa role, tain harmony. as the ones who begin to articulate the sense of the group tend to be thosewith greatersocialstanding. Thesemeetings donotalwayssettle In native Hawaiian culture, for example, there is a word, disputes once and for all, but the very participation of the disputants ho'oponopono (to set things right), for a ceremony in which family overcomes adegree ofantagonism and displays a willingness to come membersinvite anelderorotherhigh-rankingmediatorto oversee the to some meeting of minds. resolution of a dispute. As described by Stephen Boggs and Malcolm Naea Chun, the leader invites disputants to air their feelings and A Fijian Indiancommunity offersyet another contrast. According encourages them to apologize and forgive each other. Theleader calls toDonaldBrenneis,itisnotcommoninthis culturefor outsidersto get on a higher power-God and Church-to offer forgiveness, too. involved in settling disputes. But there are times when disputes arise Hierarchical social relations playa major role, as they do in another amongmenthatothersfeel are seriousenoughto requireintervention. ritual, holopapa, a verbal contest of wits and insults that can be played A committee is fonned that interviews disputants and witnesses either for fun or in earnest combat, to establish superiority between beforehand, in order to compare accounts and to formulate questions rivals. But in the case of the dispute resolution ritual, there is no to ask attheformal proceeding, called a panacayat. Like nemawashi, the competition for superiority among the disputants, who are equal in Japanese custom of consulting individuals in private prior to a meet­ their subordination to the elder who brokers the truce. ing, this seems a much better way of gathering information than Karen Watson-Gegeo and David Gegeo describe a similar ritual forcing people to speakina high-pressure public event. Typically, one among the Kwara'ae of the Solomon Islands. Fa'amanata'anga is held party is not blamed; instead it is shown that both parties are guilty of at home, in private, within a family, often after a meal. Here, too, minor errors and no one is seriously at fault. A common comment on 34 The Responsive Community • Spring 1998 Managing Confrontations 35 -~~._~~~~~~2~ ~~~~:~~0~~ ~_.~._._c~~~~_~~i ~~ _~ _ the process is /lThere were two wrongs and now it is right," an People are expected to bet on the cocks of their kin against the interesting variation on our /lTwo wrongs don't make a right." cocks of their enemies. But if a cockfight is held in a different village, everyoneis expected to beton the cock from his ownvillage-and this All these examples show that the intervention of others can be is one way that solidarity can be created among former enemies. If