Alejandro Hernandez G.

11ª

Is it bad?
Conflict? Wars? Ideals? Is all that real? Is everything as we think?
Since the start of humanity conflicts have existed, they are something present in all stages
of our history, but are they really understood?
Well, conflict is an ambiguous term, because it can be having a fence in your backyard so
that your neighbor doesn’t trespasses, and invades your backyard, this being a conflict; but
it could also be the deadliest war in all history. The definition of the term covers many
situation and possibilities; for example Cambridge dictionary defines conflict as
“an active disagreement between people with opposing opinions or principles”; while the
Merriam webster dictionary defines it as fight, battle, war. So here we can see how a
simple word has a lot of different meanings. But how could we understand conflict, well,
that depends on the situation is occurring, because for example in a global context this
could be understood as a weaponized war, or economic barriers among others, while in a
local perspective it could be the competition of two or more sectors such as tourism,
farming, etc., this because they have different ideals, and those ideals are opposed, so they
are competing to be the one who earns more and has more active terrain. Also a conflict
could be understood in a community level, because when you form part of a community
there’s a democracy, but when two ideals, people, or sectors of this community have
opposing points of view then a conflict arises, so this are some of the ways that the term
conflict covers.
Conflicts are bad, aren’t they? Well, I think that conflicts are good, up to one point, because
no one wants deaths. If conflicts are without weapons, and can be solved through mediation
and talking then they have a positive outcome, not necessarily a fair one, but when weapons
are introduced, the one with the best ideals or the most politically correct ones doesn’t
wins, the one who wins is the most powerful in a military, economic and social way, this
leading to unfair endings which only makes richer the rich and poorer the poor.
But you might be thinking, well, not all armed conflicts lead to bad points, neither do
deaths, one clear example was pearl harbor, and the consequent attacks made by U.S.A,
these attacks were deadly and costed a lot of money; but now we see how developed are
Japan and U.S.A, so were they that bad?
So, what can we gather, the first thing is that conflict is a very ambiguous term, this one
having a lot of cases in which it can be applied, even though these ones are completely
different. The second thing is that conflicts aren’t that bad, yeah, they might lead to bad
situations in some cases, but in others they lead to good situations, and that the term
conflict isn’t only for war as a lot of people think.

“I don't think avoiding conflict is not caring.”

Ai Yazawa

Alejandro Hernandez G. 11ª