3 Review(s)

In times such as ours when conflict is the order of the day and the potential of technology offers more to fear than to hope, social and political theory face their gravest challenge. Theoretical political systems have grown increasingly suspect and intellectual formulations tend less to challenge than repel. The low standard, that are approved of and followed in Conflict resolution tend progressively to lower our moral standards. Why is this so ? It is because humanity has so far been trying to solve conflicts by means through which they can never be solved. Evil cannot be cured by evil, nor hate conquered by hate. ‘Satan cannot be exorcized by Satan’. There is a great demand for solutions to the problems of conflict—not for theoretically systems of end-structure and aimed at ultimately eliminating conflict, but for ways of conducting conflict when it arises: ways which are constructive and not destructive. Such a demand must be met by a theory of process and of means and not of further concern for structure, for pattern and for ends. Basic to such a theory is a philosophy of satyagraha. It believed in the brotherhood of man. It rejects the biological concept of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. It rather believes in love, mutual aid and cooperation as the basis for social action and human progress.