Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide

Front Cover
SAGE, Mar 20, 1997 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 234 pages

Moral Conflict, the subject of this book is passionate and difficult to resolve. Responses that are normally effective such as explaining, persuading, and compromising can make matters worse and drive people further apart in such conflicts. Moral conflicts occur when incommensurate social realities come to clash. Disputes about abortion, religion in politics and education, legal rights for homosexuals, and environmental politics are issues in which well-intentioned parties have created polarized and diverse patterns of communication. The most virtuous actions of each side not only fail, but widen the schism. Such conflicts require us to find forms of communication that go beyond our normal ways of dealing with disagreement. In an original synthesis of communication theory and their own research, W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn describe a dialectical tension between the expression and suppression of conflict that can be transcended in ways that lead to personal growth and productive patterns of social action. In Moral Conflict several projects are described as practical examples of these new ways of working through difficult struggles.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Discovering Moral Conflict
3
Understanding Conflict
29
The Problem of Moral Conflict
48
The Quality of Public Discourse
85
Patterns of Expressing Difference
107
Fighting and Making Peace
126
New Forms of Eloquence
151
Model Projects in Transcendent Discourse
168
Achieving Transcendence
211
Transformative Conversation
215
Subject Index
229
Copyright

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Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide
W. Barnett Pearce,Stephen W. Littlejohn
Snippet view - 1997

Common terms and phrases

abortion actions activists Alinsky appreciative inquiry argument asked become believe choices Christian Right citizens clash commitment context create creation science critical culture culture wars debate deliberative democracy democracy deontic logic develop diatribe discussed disputants emotions example experience explore expression and suppression facilitators forms of communication gay rights goals grammar human ideas important incommensurate individuals interests involved Kaleidoscope session Kegan Littlejohn managing means mediators moral conflict moral difference moral order move National Issues Forums normal discourse one's opponents options participants patterns of communication patterns of interaction peacemaking Pearce perspective persuasion political position possible postmodernism pro-choice problem programs Public Conversations Project public discourse quality of public questions reality relationship Religious Right resolution response rhetorical Robert Kegan shared side situations social worlds society sometimes stories talk things tion tradition transcendent discourse transcendent eloquence transformative understand values violence worldviews

References to this book

About the author (1997)

Stephen Littlejohn (Ph.D., University of Utah), is a conflict management consultant, mediator, facilitator, and trainer. He is consultant for the Public Dialogue Consortium and a partner in Domenici Littlejohn, Inc. Stephen is co-author of Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (Sage, 1997) and has written numerous other books and articles on communication and conflict. He was a professor of communication at Humboldt State University in California and is currently Adjunct Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico. He has done research on mediation and conflict management for 19 years and has been an active mediator for eight. Stephen has been a consultant for such clients as the Waco Youth Summit, the Alliance for Constructive Communication, the City of Cupertino, Columbia Basin College, and Washington State University.

Bibliographic information

TitleMoral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide
AuthorsW. Barnett Pearce, Stephen W. Littlejohn
PublisherSAGE, 1997
ISBN0761900535, 9780761900535
Length234 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies
Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory
Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy
Psychology / Interpersonal Relations
Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
Social Science / Violence in Society
  
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