Introduction: Welcome to the War Hotel

Whether we are up close in the clutches of violent conflict or at a distance watching TV, we are active players, often without realizing it. Human nature is the fuel. Even treasured parts of our nature get stirred to inflame, silence and polarize us into violence.

While teaching one afternoon, I had a realization. The field of conflict resolution may be relatively small, but there have always been people – political leaders and warlords – who are expert in their understanding of psychological dynamics of conflict. There are those who know how loyalty and righteousness can polarize communities and lead us to acts of genocide in the name of justice. There are those who use their understanding of human nature to develop torture methods that stretch the boundaries of endurance, and to design terror tactics to dominate their own nation or neighbours. There are those who know how our need to stop the pain of historical trauma can be turned into a deadly replay of the nightmare. There are those who understand how our longing to sense the divine and a bond with humanity can fan nationalism and violence. These (fellow) ‘experts’ calculate that our naivety and even our urge to awaken can be knitted into war.

When we imagine that our psychology is separate from politics, we support
violent conflict. In fact a central assumption of war makers is that this expertise will remain their private turf.

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