Palmer applies this distinction between competition and conflict to the world of learning and education, but I think it has wider applicability.  I think many of the problems our nation faces stem from a mindset of competition between individuals or interest groups in society rather than a mindset of conflict.  In so many areas, we see dualistic, competition-based logic: politics, culture war issues, economic issues, church policies, etc.  The list could go on.

In order for us to disagree more productively, I think we need to move past a competition mindset to a conflict mindset.  To do so requires not only changing how we think about disagreement, but how we think about a couple of other things as well.  There are two additional assumptions upon which I think competition thinking rests that I’d like to point out today.

The first assumption is a scarcity mindset as opposed to an abundance mindset.  Here, all resources are assumed to be scarce and limited.  When we assume that we’re fighting for a slice of a pie of a fixed size, then our win must be someone else’s loss.  I know I’ve written posts in the past critiquing modernity’s assumption that there are no limits to anything, but there are pitfalls to assuming there’s only a limited amount of desirable things to go around.  Of course, for some things there are only a limited amount: there are only a certain amount of government jobs or seaside properties.  But in many other cases, there are more than enough things to go around: sense of security, satisfaction, prestige, etc.  If we reject a notion of scarcity and believe instead in abundance, then our win need not be someone else’s loss if instead we find a way together to make the pie bigger.

The second assumption is a closed mindset as opposed to an open mindset.  This is a “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” attitude.  In a closed mindset, one is not receptive to being enriched by other sides in a debate.  One assumes one knows all that’s necessary to know and there’s no possibility of learning from or getting insights from others.  If one makes this assumption, then there must be competition rather than conflict because either your ideas prevail or the other side’s ideas do.  There’s no possibility for both sides learning and coming to a deeper understanding or finding a plan that incorporates positive aspects and insights from all sides.  Yet if one instead embraces a position of openness, it is possible to generate solutions to social positions that are better than any of the initial proposals because they use different approaches to refine one another.  Another way of saying this might be that a closed mindset takes an all-or-nothing approach, whereas a more open mindset is willing to seek compromise.

Compromise, it used to be said, is the spirit of American democracy.  You don’t hear that phrase thrown around as much anymore.  I wonder if that’s because we have become too stuck in a competition mindset, where we are not open to benefitting from other positions, instead seeing them as competitors for portions of fixed economic, social, and religious pies.  Yet we need not take such an attitude.  Another path is possible.  This other path is not without conflict, for that is endemic to the human race, but does believe that not all conflict need end with only one winner and all others as losers, that mutually beneficial compromise is possible.

According to Palmer, in the objectivist (or, I might say, modernist) view of truth, there are objects out there that can be fully known as they actually are by experts.  Here, truth is a proposition.  In the process of discovering truth, experts study the objects, a process in which the experts do various things, but the objects are inert.  These objects really exist, and it is possible for the understanding the experts have in their heads of these objects to match up perfectly with those objects as they actually are.  These experts can then relay their knowledge of the truth about these objects to others.

Palmer doesn’t spend as much time talking about relativism, but it’s worth relating that model here.  In the relativist (or, I might say, post-modern) view of truth, truth doesn’t depend upon objects that are really out there.  Instead, truth relies solely upon what goes on inside the head or heads of the person or groups who knows something.  Here, truth is an experience or a belief.  Truth isn’t discovered, it’s constructed.  A person might study things or might talk about others about something, but what’s important is not what a thing is actually like or what other people say it’s like, but what each individual thinks a thing is like.  Because truth is inherently subjective, one can never really convey one’s understanding of truth to another.

The model of truth for which Parker advocates, he names the relational model of truth, or knowing in community.  In this model, the individual knower, the community, and the thing known all contribute to the formation of a set of relationships that defines truth.  This model does not say that truth is whatever a community defines it to be.  That’s just a less individualistic version of the relativist model.  Instead, truth is not an individual or group belief; it’s a relationship between the individual, the community, and the thing known.  The thing that’s known is an important and active part of the process that shapes and guides the path to truth.  Yet, there’s no assumption that we can know all there is to know about the thing “as it is” in a way which can be boiled down to a set of propositions.

I believe this relational view of truth represents the emerging view among what-comes-next.  It rejects the relativism of postmodernity without going back to the absolutism of modernity.  It acknowledges the reality of the things known while still recognizing the limitations of our knowledge and the ways in which personal and communal factors influence our understandings.  It focuses on community and relationships, which I think will be important parts of the ethos of what-comes-next.  Because of its focus on community and relationships, I think it also fits well with a dynamic understanding of truth.  I think what-comes-next needs to have some dynamic, creative force to it which isn’t just critical, as postmodernity has mainly been.  Yet a focus on community and relationship, while accounting for growth and change, is less oriented toward a particular understanding of the end goal of that change than modernity usually is.  I think what-comes-next needs to be more open to many possibilities for the future so that many people with diverse beliefs and values can buy into the system and all have a creative part to play.

Right now, I think Palmer’s view of truth is a minority.  But I don’t think Palmer is alone in putting forth such ideas.  Instead, I think he’s a sign of what’s to come in terms of how we may increasingly come to think about truth.