The Congregation for Reconciliation has, throughout its life, attempted
to induce or encourage social change by calling business, service, and
governmental organizations to public accountability. A number of
features distinguish their manner of action and need to be identified
and analyzed. First, they have typically operated in the public
arena. Seldom have they privately approached individuals and in effect said,
"Hey, this is a community problem for which we believe your organization
bears some responsibility. Why don't you go talk with your board and see
if you can't do thus and so?" Rather, with the skillful use of the
media, they have taken on organizations in full view of the total
community. This means, secondly, that they have willfully placed
themselves in an adversary relationship with organizations they consider
to be in need of change. This, in turn, has placed representatives of
the organizations under attack in a position of (a) attempting to ignore
the charges, (b) defending their policies, or (c) launching a
counteroffensive against the Congregation. As a result of deliberately
generating such adversary relationships, the Congregation has created
community conflict.
America, perhaps more than other nations, has difficulty in dealing with
conflict as a "normal" or "healthy" social process. We tend to view
conflict as a breakdown of everyday social relationships, an abnormal
interruption of man's normal state of being, cooperation. Conflict thus
is a condition demanding quick remedy, lest the social order be
threatened and torn asunder. There are some peculiar ironies about this
cultural attitude
toward conflict. First of all, democratic governments invariably include
structures deliberately created to provide legitimate processes for the
resolution of conflict. The very nature of democracy assumes the
existence of diverse interests struggling for scarce resources and a
voice in public policy. Only tyrannical power, squelching all
opposition, suppresses conflict.
Our founding fathers not only assumed conflict as normal but also wanted
to assure its inevitability. Those-gentlemen, in forging the
Constitution of this nation, themselves struggled to protect vested
interests while at the same time they compromised to assure the
institutionalization of the ongoing struggle so as not to give one side
an unchallengeable advantage. At stake in the conflict in Philadelphia
was the democratic process itself; they assumed that men of divergent
interests and origins would make conflicting claims to status, power,
and resources, that the existing arrangements of power and authority
were not permanent.
Conflict pervades our history. Sometimes it has been a means for forging
unity out of discord and disharmony. Sometimes it has erupted into
violent attempts to annihilate the opposition, scarring our heritage.
But, amazingly, no group has ever managed to gain sufficient advantage
to silence the opposition permanently and thereby terminate conflict.
This, we believe, results from an ingenious constitutional system which
regulates the parameters of conflict. Between the lines, the Bill of
Rights protects an individual's right to engage in legitimate conflict
in the pursuit of his own interests, without fear of tyrannical exercise
of power by government, neighbor, or adversary. Strange, therefore, that
we should come to regard conflict as disruptive, dysfunctional, and
abnormal, rather than as inherent in social process.
There is another irony in our cultural attitude toward conflict. In
contrast to our uneasiness about conflict, competition is a revered
cultural value. Competition is the sacred potion which kindles the
spirit of free enterprise, capitalism, and the National Football League.
Without competition, we are taught to believe, the furnaces in
Pittsburgh, the assembly lines in Detroit, and the stockyards in Omaha
would grind to a halt. Stifle competition and you strangle initiative,
the backbone of our way of life. If anything rivals apple pie as
Americana, most assuredly it is the spirit of competition.
At base, competition and conflict are both forms of struggle. But, as
Kenneth Burke succinctly says, "the names for things and operations
smuggle in connotations of good and bad-a noun tends to carry with it a
kind of invisible adjective, and a verb an invisible adverb."
[1]
Competition carries desirable connotations in our society and is
sometimes used to launder abuses and distortions of power in business
and government; conflict bears innuendos and is used to describe threats
to our social stability, as in marital conflict and the Vietnam
conflict. The former implies a fair, and perhaps even friendly,
struggle; the latter suggests hostility and foul play.
As a nation, we condone and support such maxims as "May the best man
win" and "First among equals." But in the reality of any contest, be it
for power, prestige, or resources, we reject such an objective,
nonpartisan stance. We define good guys and bad guys. And we also define
the nature of the struggle along the spectrum from competition to
conflict, thus imposing a judgment on the controversy. Obviously, the
attachment of such value-laden words can affect our normative response
and distort our perception of the struggle itself. Just as "healthy
political competition" is a grossly inappropriate description of the
activities of the Committee to Re-Elect the President in 1972, so
too is "instigating community conflict" a misnomer, as normally
understood, for the activities of the Congregation for Reconciliation.
They play by the rules, honor their commitments, and genuinely respect,
perhaps even love, their adversaries. They just happen also to disagree
with some aspects of the status quo and are engaged in competition to
effect social change. Persons who rock boats are seldom very popular,
but, in being labeled as engaging in conflict, the Congregation has had
the job of communicating the justice and legitimacy of its goals made
even more difficult.
Conflict, as we have conceptualized it, and not as it has been
culturally defined, can be a positive rather than a negative social
process. Rather than being itself disruptive and dysfunctional, it may
help to resolve dysfunctional, disruptive, and inequitable social
arrangements. "Rubbing raw the sores of discontent," as the late Saul
Alinsky used to put it, may well heal social wounds which might
otherwise fester and eventually produce far greater social ills.
Few in our society today challenge the proposition that significant
inequities and injustices exist. The bone of contention usually
revolves around the question of means to effect social change. The
argument advanced by the Congregation for Reconciliation, as well as by
most groups engaged in so-called direct action or confrontation tactics,
is that conflict offers an effective means to move otherwise
recalcitrant, reluctant, and resistant institutions. Confrontation is
the means, they argue, whereby otherwise powerless change-oriented
groups can pressure much more powerful groups to initiate change in the
public interest.
The strike or threat of strike is the labor union's institutionally
legitimized weapon to pressure corporate structures in the ongoing
struggle to foster the interests of labor. Governments threaten banks,
corporations, and other governments with economic sanctions to achieve
their will in the struggle to determine domestic and foreign policy.
Parents threaten children by withholding rewards to gain compliance with
their will. Members of voluntary associations threaten to withhold
financial contributions to convince leaders to pursue policies consonant
with rank and file expectations. There are hundreds of ways individuals
and organizations struggle with other individuals and organizations to
achieve their will. Usually, however, we use words like negotiation,
competition, exercise of proper authority, and the like to describe the
process of struggle. Individuals and organizations, whether implicitly
or explicitly stated, unconsciously or consciously, seek out effective
means (strategies) for getting what they want. The Congregation for
Reconciliation has chosen conflict in the public arena precisely because
they believe it to be an effective means for achieving their goals.
In this chapter we shall examine their conflict strategy within a
framework of dramaturgical social theory.
[2]
Our approach is neither polemical nor intended to attempt to legitimize their approach to social
change. Rather, we seek only to provide a theoretical model which both
"makes sense" of their action and can explain their measure of success.
Having explored their strategy, we will then examine their own perceived
link to a theological rationale. Are the Christian goals of love and
reconciliation compatible with their conflict strategy? And finally, we
will present a verbatim interview with Righter which reveals some
thing about the value presuppositions informing his style of social
ministry.
