Religion and conflict

In recent book (The God Delusion), Richard Dawson takes a hard line as not just an atheist but as an anti-theist. He regards religious beliefs as dangerous in themselves for a variety of reasons which need not be considered here.

He seems to think the world would be a better place without religion. He would regard religion as a source of the worst conflicts, the poorest quality of thinking and the cause of the prevalence of non-humanist values. He might well think we would have fewer conflicts in a more skeptical world. I think he is an optimist. As a psychologist I understand that conflicts between groups, sometimes in the name of religion, result in widespread conflict and war. I don't agree with him that religion causes these phenomena.

Instead I think intergroup conflicts are an essential part of human group conduct. Religion, like politics or race, can be enlisted in the aid of group formation and inter-group conflict. In my opinion we would have precisely the same conflicts without religion, under different heading and flying different flags. Conflict is what we humans do to establish our membership in our group. The existence of other groups is necessary so that ours can have conflicts to strengthen our boundaries. We use religion to justify this set of boundary operations, but we can and do use lots of other justifications.

In my opinion, the presence or absence of religion has little effect on intergroup conflict, which is part of the human condition, at least in this stage of our development. Religion, in fact, is essentially irrelevant even though it sometimes promulgates benevolent ideas. It's unfortunate that the majority of people professing religious beliefs don't act on or embody those beliefs, so their religion is just something to make them feel more comfortable personally. The people who talk the loudest about the religious life and religious values don't seem to have any better moral sense than non-religious people. From my standpoint religion is pretty silly, and I'm sorry to see money wasted on religious items (such as churches) when such funds could be put to much better use helping the poor or improving medical treatment or research.

If we didn't kill each other in the name of religion, we'd just find some other excuse.

Passive resistance

"I forgot".
"I was busy."
"I didn't feel well."
"Huh?"
"You never told me to.. like... do it."
"You didn't tell me what you wanted".

We call this behavior "passive-aggressive", and in past years treated it as if it were a psychological disorder. People who did this a lot were described as "passive-aggressive personalities", or even "passive aggressive personality disorders". Over a period of years, however, we began to recognize that such behaviors, while immature in manner, are part of our regular repertory of behavior, and that we all use passive-aggressive behaviors at certain times. As a diagnosis, it's not included in the current DSM.

When do we observe passive-aggressive behavior, with its characteristic body postures, voice tone and facial expressions? The first and most obvious examples are easily seen in most teen-agers. Whatever they were told to do, they didn't do it, and they have a "reason" for not being compliant. The reasons are transparently dishonest in adolescents, but when adults use them they are not so transparent.

Passive-aggressive behavior is also easily observed in a variety of situations with adults. In jails and penitientiaries the prisoners use such excuses to the people in power. The guards use them with their bosses. Office workers may use this behavior with supervisors. Soldiers use this with their superiors.

What do these situations have in common? In all of the above there is a perceived strong power differential between the person giving the "order" and the person receiving it. This power differential includes the power to punish, and the person receiving the order does not feel able or willing to openly resist. The resistance, as manifested in passive-aggressive behavior, is indirect. It is designed to provide an "excuse" so that the non-compliant person doesn't get punished or have to directly oppose the person in power. In situations in which the "power person" is reluctant to punish or is ambivalent about punishing, the "excuse" plays on that ambivalence to give the power person an "out".

In couples counseling I often see passive-aggressive behavior on the part of one of the partners. A great deal of resentment builds up in both members of the partnership. Usually the passive-aggressive partner is reluctant to deal with the issue, and for exactly the same reason they are passive-aggressive: they fear retaliation, physical or emotional.

Passive-aggressive behavior is specific to a particular relationship or set of relationships. The same person who is passive-aggressive toward his wife may not be so toward other adults. The p-a behavior is in response to a perceived power differential, in which one partner is seen as having most of the power, even as being a bully. "Bullying", in this context, may mean physical mistreatment or emotional mistreatment in the form of rage, temper tantrums, tears, threats, or withdrawal.

The problem to solve is not in attempting to change the passive-aggressive behavior. It can only be solved by directly addressing the perceived power differential and confronting it. It is surprisingly difficult to get this issue to the surface, as cultural norms do not allow adults to admit easily that they fear being bullied, especially emotionally, by their partner.

Mid-life crises

While we are young, we lack the imagination to see ourselves at the end of our lives. Our parents and teachers inadvertently teach us a rosy picture of the future: They tell us we are capable of endless achievement and unlimited options. If we work hard and do right, finally we will be rewarded with happiness. The reward at the end of the rainbow is the pot of gold that keeps us striving without too much thought about our day-to-day lives. We are on the tracks leading to a golden sunset, and all we have to do is keep on keeping on, hang on through difficult times, keep our heads down and cope with problems as they come to us.

Many of us, as we reach the latter part of our lives, become increasingly restless. We are more and more aware of the passage of time, and of how little time remains to us. We begin to see the arc of our lives, and instead of going upward forever we see it levelling out, and even glimpse the downward sweep to the end. The promise of limitless possibility no longer exists. We are forced to recognize the limits of our accomplishments. We find ourselves thinking, "Is this all there is?" Where is the pot of gold? Where is happiness and when will it be granted to us?

Even more importantly, we recognize how unimportant our lives are in the "grand scheme of things', and that we, like everyone, must end the same way, facing the dark, knowing that we leave nothing of importance behind. We fear or deny finality, limits, death, loneliness, meaninglessness, while at the same time our recognition of their reality becomes more and more unavoidable.

To avoid this awareness we thrash about, sometimes desperately and frequently unwisely. We want off the tracks down which our personal train is traveling. This is the time of life when people have affairs, not because our sexual drive has increased, but because we desperately long for new possibilites, a different life, a different outcome. We imagine or buy the famous red sports car or something else captivating to the child within us, something to calm our fears and distract our minds. We seek distraction through sex or a religion that seems to offer us an escape from the finality of death. Some chase fame or recognition, hoping to make a mark on the sands, all the while knowing how meaningless and brief such marks are.

Our existential despair is real and is frequently accompanied by anger. We have done all the "right things" without having given much thought to our alternatives. We have lived on automatic with our eyes fixed on the future without much thought. Suddenly the end of the line looms ahead and we feel cheated of our promised rewards. Where is the happiness we sought? How did we miss our opportunities? Were there other roads we could have taken that would not lead here?

There is no cure for the limits of life. Whatever path we take leads to the same terminal. We all grow old, we lose our health and our friends. We realize how little and unimportant our contributions have been, and we die. Much of our anger comes from the realization that whatever joy and happiness we have were on the way, not waiting at the end of the road.

The thoughtlessness, the automatic choices we made all along, make us realize how little power over our lives we have actually exerted. We didn't make conscious choices, and as a result we feel powerless and cheated of our opportunities. Even at this point, we can consciously begin choosing our lives, and recognizing and owning our past choices. We can recover our sense of ownership and power, even though we cannot change the end. We can know that even when we were on automatic pilot, we were making the choices that created our lives, and that we have shaped them all along. Whatever happiness and satisfaction we have, we have ourselves created. We stop being disappointed because we no longer carry the illusions of eventual reward. Our lives are our creation. They belong to us and to no-one else, and that has to be enough.