The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

ght the stakes are too high, Carol. That's why we have to go."
"No, Lou, that's why we have to stay. The stakes you're wor¬ried about, whatever they are, are high because of how we've been mostly tone-deaf to what we're starting to learn here. I'm not leaving, Lou.
"Okay, have it your way, Carol," he said, dismissing her with a quick flick of his wrist. "I'm leaving then."
Carol stood in silence. The hope that had developed within her through the morning was now fading. See him as a person, see him as a person, she repeated within. You've got to keep see¬ing him as a person.
"Lou — "
He stopped and turned to her. "Yeah?"
"If you leave here, Honey," she said, "I'll leave you."
"You'll what?"
In this moment, Carol was struck by how much she loved this man. Despite his belligerence, she was not raging within toward him. And his bullheadedness did not wash from her memory the many wonderful things he had done for her and for others. He wasn't a saint, to be sure, but there were times — espe¬cially during some of the private moments that make up most of life—that he cared and loved and acted in saintly ways. He was better in private than he was in the glare of public moments, which was just the opposite of many people she knew. And it seemed to her that his brand of private strength and public weakness showed more goodness and character than those who hid private weakness with conjured public strength. Yes, she
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thought to herself, I'd take him again if we had the chance to do everything over.
So she was surprised when she heard herself say again, "I'll leave you, Lou. And I mean it."
Lou stood for a moment in complete silence. Every muscle in his body had frozen still, as if afraid to move for where the movement might lead.
"Carol," he said finally, almost pleading, "you can't be seri¬ous."
Carol nodded slightly. "Yes, Lou, I'm afraid I am.
"Don't misunderstand," she added. "I don't want to leave you. But I will."
This knocked Lou completely out of sorts.
"Listen, Lou, I think we need this. I think Cory needs it from us. And I think we need it for him and for each other. You might need it for Zagrum too," she added. "And for Kate."
This last mention of Kate caught Lou, for it took him back to the feeling he had when he knew he needed to call her, which seemed like years ago.
He slumped his shoulders and heaved a heavy sigh.
"Okay, Carol," he said, forlornly. "You win. I'll stay."
Then he paused. "But only until tonight."
9 • The Beginning of an Idea
Lou picked at the Mexican food Carol had brought him while the group assembled back into the room. The mood was much lighter among them than it had been at the beginning, when they were sizing each other up. And the tension that had filled the interchange during much of the morning session seemed to have faded away. Gwyn, in fact, was deep in conver¬sation with Miguel and seemed to be enjoying it. Elizabeth and Carol were in the back of the room browsing a Camp Moriah leaflet together.
Just then, Pettis walked up to Lou from behind.
"So, Lou," he said, as if they were just picking up on a con¬versation that had been recently interrupted, "four years in 'Nam."
Lou nodded.
"Hat's off to you, my friend. I was there, but it's different fly¬ing above the jungle than it was down below. I know that."
Lou nodded appreciatively. In peacetime, pilots always think themselves superior to the so-called grunts on the ground. And the infantrymen carry around an inferiority complex about it as well, although they'd never admit it. In wartime, however, the psychology changes. The high-flying pilots quickly develop a deep admiration for their partners on the ground. And soldiers on the ground, although grateful for their cover when they hear the roar of supportive aircraft overhead, would tell you, if pressed, that those well-heeled flyboys never get their uniforms dirty enough or their vital parts close enough to the crosshairs of
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THE BEGINNING OF AN IDEA
• 77
the enemy to know real bravery—or fear for that matter. In Viet¬nam and elsewhere, the grunts receive the lion's share of the admiration and respect of fellow soldiers.
"Thanks, Pettis. It's good to be with a fellow vet. Tell me," he continued, "what is it you do in Texas?"
Five minutes or so later, Avi and Yusuf walked in the room, and everyone, Lou and Pettis included, took their seats. Lou looked across at Jenny's parents who appeared to be okay, a sur¬prise to him under the circumstances.
"Well, welcome back," Avi greeted them. "Before we move forward, does anyone have any questions about anything?"
Lou shot his hand up—the first time he hadn't just blurted out a comment. "What happened to Jenny?"
"Jenny is fine," Yusuf answered. "As some of you may know," he continued, "she took off running soon after we started this morning."
"Have you caught her?" Lou followed up.
"Actually, Lou, we're not trying to catch her," Yusuf an¬swered. "This is a voluntary program, so we won't force anyone into it. But we will make sure she stays safe. And we'll do that in a way that invites her, as much as possible, to choose to join with us."
Lou was perplexed. "So what does that mean you're doing?" he asked.
"It means two of our workers are following her, trying to engage her in meaningful conversation, and a truck with back¬up if needed is following behind but out of sight. Everything will be fine," he smiled. "Anything else?"
Lou raised his hand again.
"This whole 'see people as people or see them as objects' distinction," he said with a hint of disdain in his voice, "where does it come from?"
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Avi spoke first. "It comes out of an exploration in philoso¬phy," he said. "Perhaps it would help to give a brief overview." He looked over at Yusuf, who nodded.
Avi turned back to the group. "I hesitate doing philosophy with you," he said with an apologetic smirk. "Especially first thing after lunch. But I'll take a chance on it, for a minute or two anyway. If you're pretty sure you don't want any philosophy, just plug your ears for a minute." He looked around the room. "You are all familiar with the philosopher Rene Descartes?"
"Not a bad philosopher—for a Frenchman," Elizabeth cracked. Her hands were no longer clasped together, and she was leaning back comfortably in her chair.
"Not bad indeed," Avi grinned. Turning to the rest, he con¬tinued. "Descartes is the father of what is known as the modern period of philosophy, and he is famous still to this day for the starting point of his very ambitious philosophical theory, which he hoped would explain all of existence. His foundational as¬sumption was the famous line Cogito ergo sum —or, 'I think therefore I am.'"
Familiarity shown in the eyes of most in the room.
"You will notice there are big assumptions in Descartes' starting point," Avi continued. "The biggest of these is the as¬sumption of the primacy of the separate human consciousness— what Descartes called the I.
"Hundreds of years after Descartes, a series of philosophers began to call into question the modern philosophical argu¬ments that Descartes started in motion, in particular this central individualistic assumption that undergirded Descartes' work. One of these philosophers was a man named Martin Heidegger. If Heidegger had been a contemporary of Descartes, he might have asked him this question: 'Rene, tell me — from where did
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you acquire the language that enabled you to formulate the thought "I think therefore I am"?'"
Avi looked around the group to let that question settle on them. "Of course," he continued, "Descartes acquired those words, and the ability to think with them, from others. Which is to say, he did not conjure them from a separate, individualized I.
"Consider what this means for Descartes' theory," he con¬tinued. "There is a kind of brute fact that just is—the fact of be¬ing in the world with others. Descartes was able to postulate that the separate self was what was most fundamental only because he acquired language in a world with others."
"Ah," Elizabeth interjected, "so being in the world with oth¬ers, and not the idea of a separate self, is what is fundamental. Is that what you are suggesting?"
"Exactly," Avi agreed. "Descartes' foundational assumption is disproved by the conditions that made it possible for him to state it in the first place. So Heidegger, among others," he con¬tinued, "with his attack on individualism, shifted the focus of the philosophical world away from the separate self and onto the idea of being with others.
"A contemporary of Heidegger named Martin Buber, whom I mentioned this morning, agreed with Heidegger that way of being in the world is what is most fundamental to human expe¬rience. He observed that there are basically two ways of being in the world: we can be in the world seeing others as people or we can be in the world seeing others as objects. He called the first way of being the I-Thou way and the second the I-It way, and he argued that we are always, in every moment, being either I-Thou or I-It—seeing others as people or seeing others as objects.
"So, Lou," he said, turning to face him, "that is a long way of saying that it was Martin Buber who first observed these two
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basic ways of being, or at least formulated them that way. He was the first to articulate the differences in human experience when we are seeing others as objects as opposed to seeing them as they are, as people." Looking around at the rest of the group, he said, "Okay, it's safe to unplug your ears now."
"Well, almost," Yusuf interjected with a smile. "Let me add one more thought. Buber's observation of these two ways of being raised the question of how we move from one way of be¬ing to another—from seeing people as people, for example, to seeing others as objects, and vice versa. But this is a question Buber never answered. He simply observed the two ways of be¬ing and their differences. It is left to us, now, to figure out how we can change our way of being—if we want to, that is.
"For our purposes," he continued, "the question Buber did not address is the question we must answer. We have been sug¬gesting that the foundational problem in our homes, our work¬places, and our battlefields is that our hearts are too often at war—that is, we too often insist on seeing people as objects. And we have seen how one warring heart invites more 'object-seeing' and war in others. It follows from this that in order to find peace, we must first understand how we and others have foregone peace and chosen war."
"Sometimes we don't choose war," Lou butted in. "Rather, it chooses us."
"Yes, Lou," Yusuf agreed. "Sometimes we might be forced to defend ourselves, you're exactly right. But that is a different thing than saying that we are forced to despise, to rage, to deni¬grate, to belittle. No one can force a warring heart upon us. When our hearts go to war, we ourselves have chosen it."
"How?" Lou asked.
"That is exactly what we will now explore," Yusuf answered.
10 • Choosing War
"I was raised," Yusuf began, "in a village of rock-walled homes in the hills on the western edge of Jerusalem. The village, called Deir Yassin, had been my family's home for at least two centuries. But that all ended early on the morning of April 9, 1948, at the height of the Arab-Jewish fighting surrounding the establishment of Israel. I was just five years old at the time. I remember being awakened by shouting and gunfire. Our village was being attacked by what I later learned were members of a Jewish underground military group. My father grabbed me from bed and thrust me and my two sisters into my parents' room. He then pulled a rifle from under his mattress and, pulling on his boots, ran out of the house. 'Stay inside!' he yelled to us. 'Don't come out for anyone, you hear? Until I return, God willing.'
"Those were the last words I ever heard my father speak. When it was over and we left the protection of our stone walls, bodies and exploded body parts littered the streets. My father was among the dead."
"How terrible," Ria said.
"It was many years ago," Yusuf responded. "Those days and the years that followed were difficult for me and my family, I won't deny it. But we weren't the only ones that suffered tragedy."
Elizabeth spoke up. "I was going to say, I have some Jewish friends that have similar stories to tell."
"I'm sure you do," Yusuf said, "as do I. A Jewish village called Kfar Etzion was attacked by Arab forces at around the same time,
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for example. The entire village was basically massacred, so I can hardly say that my fate was worse than theirs. By telling my story, I did not mean to imply that Arabs are the only ones that have suffered unjustly. I'm sorry if it seemed that way. Avi's father, for example, was killed while defending his country against an Arab attack. That hurt him as much as losing my father hurt me. Over the years and centuries, violence has been hurled hatefully in all directions. That is the tragic, bloody truth."
Lou was glad to hear Yusuf own up to Arab atrocities, but he felt uneasy all the same. It seemed to Lou that Yusuf was too quick to equate Arab and Israeli suffering when in Lou's mind the scales of unjustified suffering clearly leaned in the Israeli di-rection. Lou wasn't sure, but he thought he might have an ally in this belief in Elizabeth Wingfield.
"After my father died," Yusuf continued, "my mother moved us from village to village until we finally found refuge in Jordan, or what was then called Transjordan. We settled in