THE  SOVEREIGNTY OF HUMAN DIGNITY
IN  CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND CONFLICT
RESOLUTION

Michele Trimarchi

Presented at

The  Fuschi Conversation
            Valencia (Spain),  September 21 – 25, 1992

XIXth  Round Table on Current Problems of
International  Humanitarian Law
            Sanremo (Italy), 29 August – 2 September,  1994

United  Nations
World  Conference on Population and Development
            Cairo (Egypt),  September 5 – 13, 1994

CSCE  Budapest Review  Conference
            10 October – 2 December,  1994

All  Polish and European Conference
Human  Rights Education on Academic Level
(including  the teaching of Bioethics)
            Torun (Poland),  14 – 16 October, 1994

FOREWORD

Human conflicts  in the political evolution of all societies worldwide have promoted studies and  research programs political authorities will have to refer to in order to  improve the quality of life and to carry into effect the universal principles  stated by the United Nations in 1948   in the Universal Decla­ration of Human Rights. In our  capacity as scientists in service of human evolution, we are going to face the  subject of conflict resolution from a scientific point of view, using an  integrated method, in order to give a contribution useful to conflict analysis,  evaluation as well as resolution, with respect to both their physiological and  pathological aspects. We are going to propose a method of approach for the  advancement of knowledge aimed at transforming present styles of conflict  management (oblig­ing, dominating, avoiding, compromising and integrating) into  a multidisciplinary system leading to a style of conflict resolution in which  the parties accept, with their free consent, the resolution adopted because  they deem it right and useful to the development and well-being of the whole  human community.
            In  synthesis, justice has to prevail over the logic that justifies selfishness and  the power of the strongest but not the respect for the sovereignty of Man's  (women's and men's) centrality and for their dignity regardless of their  country, race and color: Human Rights, in fact, identified the principle of the  sovereignty of Nations

ORIGINS OF  INTRAPERSONAL CONFLICT

Starting from  the dawn of civilizations, conflict and conflict resolution have represented  two peculiar phases of human evolution. The intrinsic mechan­isms regulating  these two evolutionary phases have a double nature: genetic, because the  relationship between the individual and the environment is controlled and  mediated by genetic laws aimed to maintain an energetic, dynamic homeos­tasis;  psychological, because the perception of the surrounding environment is  regulated by a continuous comparison between the individual's mnemonic and  experiential endowment (which is, as a consequence, strongly defended) and what  is new or alien to it. That is to say, all that is new can arouse both  curiosity and fear, according to the informational characteristics of the  novelty. Fear engenders intrapersonal conflict (in fact, such a conflict, too,  takes place between the individ­ual and his/her environment); curiosity pushes  toward a better knowledge of the perceived phenomenon (or of the novelty).  Therefore, at the basis of whatever kind of conflict we can find fear as the  defensive mechanism of the biological being's evolutionary dynamics.
            Fear,  distress-suffering, conflict, competition, resolution (experience): these are  the phases through which the individual's consciousness develops, at both the  animal and human levels. As a result, conflict plays a major role in the  evolution of human consciousness. Since the moment of his/her birth, the  individual is subject to pressures and tensions of various kinds and this  causes biological and behavioral alterations to take place, which gradually  lead to modifying one's vision of the world, up to "wisdom11.  The "trial-and-error" strategy is also a part of this process, but  usually error is recognized only when the conflict between the individual and  the environment is solved by understanding the process that misled the  individual.
            But accepting  and understanding the error are not easy things to do, in that they depend on  several factors (e.g., age, seriousness of the error, number of effects  provoked). The fact is that the human brain can make actions - it is  facilitated in doing so - but it can hardly go back, that is, reconsider its  responsibilities, its errors in those actions. The obstacles to an individual's  action force him/her to change his/her behavior. Therefore, conflict resolution  - where opponent, antagonist forces are at stake - is possible only through  "victory" and, hence, the capitulation of the counterpart. In this  case, the "conditio sine qua non" for the resolution is either capitulating or  accepting the error, that is, the subjugation of one part over the other.
            Accepting the  error or capitulating occurs when the antagonist action jeopardizes the  individual's biological survival. This is based on a defensive mechanism of the  biological system which causes behavioral responses for keeping the system  itself integral. As a consequence, if on one hand a physiological drive exists  to self-affirmation over the environment, on the other we know that the  individual "a priori" defends his/her survival. All this is regulated  by genetic drives which are gradually altered and increasingly controlled by  experiences.
            The analytical  determination of the characteristics of conflicts is definitively necessary in  order to render justice to human evolution.
            A child,  restrained by a strongly coercive family system, processes avoiding strategies  that modify its physiological drives and finally make it deviate from social  rules. In this case, that child will be conditioned in the future to live its  relationships with other people in the same way and by the same strategies by  which it escaped the coercive system of its family. For handling its conflicts  it will resort to avoidance, thus escaping comparison. But such a style of  conflict man­agement is not adequate to attain an increasing knowledge of the  environment or of the world.
            On the  contrary, a child, facilitated by its family unexpressing its genetic potentials, will manage  comparison with its fellow men in a better way and, hence, will attain a better  cognitive growth. These aspects of human character are basically due to a  family educational transfer in the early stages of the individual's devel­opment.  The numberless ways of handling conflict on the part of the individual, as said  above, have given life to a multidisciplinary culture which complicates the  understanding of the evolutionary process that "justifies" human  conflicts for the purpose of cognitive growth, that is, of a better knowledge  of both oneself and the physical environment in which the individual lives.

OUTLINES OF  PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF CONFLICT

The interaction  between physical and biological systems produces dynamism: each interacting  system tends toward a dynamic equilibrium and, therefore, a physiological  interaction always takes place with the integration of new infor­mation.
            A conflict  between physical and biological systems arises when it is not possible to  quickly integrate new information. According to the information charac­teristics,  systems oppose a resistance that is directly proportional to the extent to  which information is far from the possibilities of integration of the receiving  system. Applying to the human being these physical principles, we see that  conflicts start in the same way, that is to say, when interaction does not  permit integrating new information. Therefore, the levels of conflict - within  certain limits - develop a dynamic work in the cerebral system aiming at  re-processing informa­tion in order to integrate it. The quantity of  information, its heterogeneity and physical characteristics as well as how it  is learnt (coactively, spontaneously), whether it is requested or imposed,  determine a dynamic cerebral "software" over time in compliance with  the physiological and biological laws regulating the genetic control activity  of the mechanisms of defense, attack, flight, aggressive­ness, acceptance,  submission, integration. Any individual, therefore, develops a specific  psychotypology which is necessary to understand in the interaction in order to  bring about a communication in tune one with the other, thus reducing the  amount of conflict. In this regard, conflict is born from the lack of either  understanding or associating/integrating different items of information. One of  the most important keys in communication we have always to bear in mind  suggests to never “a priori” deny others7 statements. In  doing so, one predisposes first of all one's own perceptual system to zero-sum  conflict and, as a consequence, to an exchange of information with greater  possibilities of integration.
            The complexity  of the human brain's higher functions is such that it would be necessary to  study them systematically for comprehending the scientific contents of the  above descriptions. In the present context, we can simplify by analyzing the main components  of perception. Anatomy and physiology show that two systems of perception may  take place in the brain, in the left hemisphere and in the right hemisphere  respectively. They communicate through a '"bridge" of nerve fibers  (the corpus callosum) devoted to keeping synergism of the global perceptual  system. From birth on, the information flow reaching the two hemispheres gives  rise to the grounds of personality, of temper, of intelligence, according to  the physical characteristics of the information. The global physiological  system - we can call it "genetic hardware" - determines the demands  necessary to the mainten­ance of the dynamic homeostasis of the individual as a  whole. At the moment of birth the two hemispheres communicate one with the  other physiologically and develop harmoniously as long as information starts to  "split" their perceptual activity functionally and dynamically. It is  information and its substantial con­tents, therefore, that begin to give life  to two different processes of perception and memorization in the individual.  Each piece of information imposed and implying the features of repetitivity  produces perceptual laterality; whenever an external stimulus evokes that piece  of information, the individual can do nothing but respond by repeating it.  Under such circumstances there is no synergistic activity between the two  hemispheres, insofar as the information stored in memory implies an automatic  response, so that no processing is requested: it is the classical robot-like  conditioning typical of computers. It is the left hemisphere, genetically  predisposed, that processes this kind of information. On the contrary, when the  information has not undergone symbolic codification, but is directly emitted by  the object or by the environment in the space, it does not cause an automatic  response pre-memorized in the left hemisphere, rather it is perceived and inte­grated  by a synergistic process between the two hemispheres.
            To avoid  hemispheric functional disconnection the ideal method is that of presenting  simultaneously - mainly during the early stages of children's develop­ment -  both the symbolic information and the object or situation linked to the symbol  or what it should identify. This allows a synergistic response in any moment  and with whatever kind of information, both objectual and symbolic (the symbol  recalls the substance, the substance permits communication by the sym­bol).
            The bases of  this knowledge should have to transform pedagogy, school and university  education, and this would free Man from that sort of repetitivity that, pushed  to paradox, makes him a virtual computer and splits him into two personalities:  the one, highly repetitive, the other - unknown to the former -emotional,  irrational, thus producing a continuous alteration of the mood accord­ing to  the prevalence of one or the other personality on the basis of circumstances  and interactions. This splitting fosters social conflict, dehumanizes the  individ­ual's personality and, mainly, gets rid of creativeness.
            Furthermore,  the individual takes part in that social competitiveness which often leads to a kind  of hardly solvable conflict. As a matter of fact, it is political and  social organization that attempts to plan the formation of individuals7  characters in order to make them homogeneous to social rules. Recognizing  oneself in these behavioral rules (rights and duties) means the individual is adapted to society and to its hierarchy of powers which ranks  him/her, in fact and not in right, as A, B, C, etc.,  class. But only a part of the brain, as we have seen, can be  instructed to social models; the other part escapes the control of behavioral  factors of activa­tion/inhibition determined by rules. On the contrary,  intrapersonal conflicts give rise to an unceasing transformation of such rules.  Therefore, we can shape political evolution of all Peoples in a form of  evolution that teaches the individual to limit as well as to handle conflict  within the framework of an organization that grad­ually "frees" Man  from the slavery of needs otherwise hard to meet.

THE ROLE OF  CONFLICT IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION

The group turns  human conflict, with its thousands of shades, into a form of social  conflict. Group and social organization is, hence, aimed, on one hand, to  reduce the individual's evolutionary conflict, on the other, to permit a faster  development of individual consciousness by means of social interaction.  Conflict management can take place at different levels: the first step consists  of the work of parents in the family. Bringing into operation the rules imposed  by the society they live in, they train, form the early levels of consciousness  of their children, who learn to avoid and manage both intrapersonal and  interpersonal conflicts thanks to the education they receive. This stresses  that human evolution - at the level of both individuals and groups - goes on  just because of conflict management.
            The different  forms of civilization can be related to a better and better conflict  management. As a consequence, we can hypothesize that the amount of conflict is  inversely proportional to the degree of civilization or evolution in  individuals, groups and societies. The political development of all societies  of the world, if on one hand has managed conflict with coercions and  impositions of various kinds, on the other hand has guided human beings towards  higher and higher levels of freedom and evolution. Citizens' rights and duties  as sanctioned by the Constitu­tions of the different countries show, in fact,  the spaces of liberty in which they are allowed to act and beyond which  conditions of interpersonal and intergroup conflict may occur. Then, there are  the supranational Organizations that control the good course of relationships  among States or between State and citizens, such as the UN, EEC, the Council of  Europe and so on. A State's subscription to international rules contributes  reducing more and more conflict of interests be­tween States and, at the same  time, helps evolve and harmonize all human beings of the world. However, in the  light of present events, it seems that more social freedoms do produce more  conflict among individuals and between public and private powers. We believe  that the cause of such a seeming contradiction lays in the States' democratic  evolution, that induces citizen hood to shoulder the respon­sibility for its  political choices. Individuals are, therefore, asked to use the attained level  of consciousness in order to improve their social organization. Unfortu­nately,  incomprehension take place between the State's political organization and  citizen hood since institutions do not transfer to the consciousness of this  latter constitutional values in the appropriate way and time. Thus,  dysfunctions arise between the value of democratic laws and citizens' chaotic  expectations. The subsequent feedback causes an increased amount of conflict  and a greater chaos within the State's political system. This mechanism,  however, forms part of the evolutionary process: passing from a strongly  coercive system - as in the case of a dictatorship - to a democratic system,  that is, acquiring rights without knowing profoundly one's duties, gives birth  to heavy disequilibria in societal evolution. Someone thinks that such  conflicts can be solved by strengthening the State's coercive power; many  States, in fact, still provide for capital punishment as a means of deterrence  against criminal behaviors. But this neither restrains nor solves social  conflicts which rather increase. Thus, it is necessary to deeply reflect in  search of the causes.
            Dictatorships  maintain domestic order by repressive systems contrary to demo­cratic  principles. If it may be true that such a form of government reduces social  conflict by improving order between public and private powers, between State  and citizen hood, it is not true at all that an imposed public order eliminates  intrapersonal conflict. In this case, the individual experiences distress and  tensions because of the fear of coercion; beyond certain limits, these feelings  explode in collective actions that initially threaten the dictatorial system  and subsequently, should coercion levels not decrease, attempt to sweep away  the system itself to achieve higher and higher democratic levels. However,  sudden and traumatic transitions from one form of government to another make  entropy, imbalance, chaos, increase: therefore, the new political system must  act in a suitable way to reduce unbalances, toward an order where each  individual becomes responsible for the good course of the whole community.
            In most cases,  political actions within a democratic system help the groups (such as political  parties, trade-unions, etc.) more than the individual. As a result, leaders'  opinion - once transferred into the awareness of the single associates -limits,  in fact, that 'global" vision the State should give citizens. Conflict is,  hence, developed among parties (i.e., groups), and the individual is nothing  but a reinforcement to struggles among parties. This increases the system's  conflict and creates subsystems for collective actions: as a consequence, the  individual's con­sciousness, that should be as large as possible in a  democratic system, is filtered and restricted because of the interests of the  group. Ideological principles are too often sacrificed in favor of interests  which stimulate social conflict in that they privilege someone to the detriment  of the others. Ideological principles usually call for justice as a tool to  foster human evolution, but unfortunately the individual, when conflicting,  competing and fighting, often loses sight of the guidelines provided by those  globalizing principles he claims to believe in. In short, theory and practice  contradict each other. Those phenomena, pointed out more or less in all  political systems of the world, emphasize the role played by conflict at the  political level: it forces citizens to continuously verify their own levels of  con­sciousness in order to search, through conflict itself, for those  principles of justice toward which anyone should tend.
            We have seen so  far that whatever kind of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, social,  religious, etc., conflict, it is a propaedeutic element of the evolution of  human consciousness towards the principles of freedom, justice, cooperation and  love to which Mankind, even if "unaware", aims. We have also said  that families, groups, nations, organize themselves politically for the purpose  of helping a more serene evolution of Mankind, controlling more and more the  conflict deriving from the animal world that pushes, by evolutionary need, the  bigger fish to eat the smaller, as well as wolves to eat lambs, lions to eat  gazelles, in synthesis, leading to the survival of the strongest ones. In this  sense, Darwinian evolutionism teaches us.
            By his/her  cultural evolution, the human being achieves overtime and in space that project  potentially held in his/her genetic endowment. Conflict and the gradual increasing  in consciousness are the main tools for this achievement, using principles,  such as good and evil, equity, justice; means, such as punishment, "an eye  for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"; taking into account ideological goals  such as the equality of all citizens before the law, the respect for the  dignity of all human beings of the planet, the right to psychophysical and  social well-being, the right to education, the protection of the weakest strata  of population, the freedom of creed and faith, that is, spiritual  transcendence: in a few words, the right to evolve serenely, without conflicts  and negative competitions leading to "wars" among citizens, among  States. Religious strives represent the utmost contradiction of the values  expressed by religions themselves.
            The biggest  enigma for Mankind, for scholars but mainly for psychological scientist lays at  the basis of the above, insofar as conflict is due to the certainty of the  truth the individual, group or nation feel to possess and, hence, to the  "impossibility" to integrate what is different from, or alien to,  one's evolution, ideas and interests.
            As we can  notice, individual, social, political, divine justice have not yet for Man, in  the concrete reality, a universal "profile", that is, efficient and  valid for all human beings and for all Peoples. National and international  positive law, in fact, plays a 'Vicarious" role as to justice, but is not  yet Justice, given that the evolution of human consciousness tends to a better  and better understanding of one's own psychophysical, spiritual and social  identity.
            The evolution  of law, in fact, follows human consciousness dynamics and evol­ution, so that  juridical rules are modified as the resolution of individual and social  conflict needs laws and standards ever fitter for rendering "justice"  to citizens.
            We have  analyzed so far conflict's origins, physiological and pathological mech­anisms,  as well as its utility in Peoples' cultural evolution. Society, however, with  its political organizational structures takes it really into account only when  conflict manifestations overstep the level of "normality", that is,  when the individual's behavior degenerates beyond the limits of law. Civil and  criminal rules determine the resolution of both individual and social conflicts  by economic sanctions, the restriction of personal freedom, and in some  countries by capital punishment. It is as if conflict resolution calls for a  price the one who caused it has to pay and this does suffice to bring back the  course of social life into the boundaries of "nor­mality". Political  systems apply this method of approach to social conflict resolu­tion through  the agencies of "justice". These agencies, managed by judges and  lawyers, could let us think that real conflict management can be developed  through a better and deeper training of judges, lawyers and judicial  structures. Unfortunately, this corresponds only in part to truth, since the  limits imposed to both judges and lawyers depend in fact upon the abstractness  of laws and juridical rules, which say little of the existential dynamics of  Man's psychophysical and spiritual development. Can we affirm nowadays that  lawyers and judges are really able to mediate - and not to punish - conflict  between persons or between individuals and society? Yet, the agencies of  justice within a democratic frame­work should be the most sophisticated means  to improve society, increasing citizens' consciousness thanks to a just  resolution of individual and social conflict. In order to do so, it is  necessary to bear in mind that the individual - confronted with stimuli he/she  does not consider fair - reacts, in abnormal ways sometimes, to incur judicial  actions. The worst is that he/she ignores the conceptual and educational value  of the rules to respect, since in present national and international education  systems these are not decoded in a way fit for teaching and producing citizens'  social consciousness.

CONFLICT  MANAGEMENT AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

A  comprehensive classification of the phenomenology linked to cause/effect  principle is indispensable in order to determine methological aspects of  both conflict management and conflict resolution. It permits a sort of dynamic  ration­alization that, as such, allows a scientific approach to the phenomenon  itself.
            As we have  stated, dealing with conflict physiology and pathology, it is possible,  regardless of the interests causing conflict, to circumscribe the phenomenon  within the single individual and multiply it, if the same interests involve  many persons, by the number of persons sharing the situation underway. Thus, it  will be easier to understand the phenomena at the basis of conflict, because  the rousing elements contradict the common "rules" of the group  (moral, ethical, economic and social rules). Therefore, resolution, too, is  possible through an action that restores the "sovereignty" of the  principles ruling the equilibrium of the group itself.
            When dealing  with conflict physiology we have also seen how nations control societal  dynamics by laws, juridical rules and public functions. In this context,  society organizes itself in groups, associations, etc., that share ideas and  strategies that they compare to each other in order to reach higher levels of  wellbeing and social justice. Conflict is, therefore, allowed within the limits  of non-violence. But competition is not always held within the limits of  legality and the resulting bias engenders dissatisfactions which, in their  turn, restrain individual and social development.
            This is why  conflict management and conflict resolution on the part of govern­ments call  for a better scientific knowledge of Man, in order to prevent those  institutional dysfunctions which are the warning signs of more generalized con­flicts.
            In the last few  years, in particular, we have been able to see how governments have much  difficulty in giving up the old styles of conflict management, where the law of  the strongest was in force to settle disputes, this causing new conflicts -  within and among nations - between the desire to live in peace of younger  generations and the hegemonic instinct men and nations still bring in  themselves.
            A real peace -  consisting of the respect for Human Rights, where each human being's dignity,  development and conscience must be protected and granted - is possible only by  a worldwide teaching of these values, and not by mere declara­tions of intents  or demagogic statements in favor of social and human justice. Resorting to  weapons will never render justice to human dignity, but rather it legitimates  overwhelming weaker people to the detriment of Human Rights. This principle  leads to a profound reflection useful for seeking methods of conflict  resolution in tune with the aims of the States that agree on Human Rights.
            The State's  sovereignty according to the international agreements has played a role in  Peoples7 evolution that has been a determinant of economic and  social development. However, nowadays, it is in contradiction with the  principles inherent in Human Rights. As a matter of fact, these principles  sanction at a planetary level the sovereignty of human dignity, universally  recognized by all Peoples of the Earth. The first task of the United Nations,  therefore, is not the protection of the sovereignty of the nation, but that of  human dignity, of the woman-man nucleus, giving at the same time all  nations of the world "laws" in accordance with the protection and  development of all those values which render justice to the sovereignty of  human life.
            These are the  outlines of a scientific, multidisciplinar^, integrated method for  solving individual and social conflict and for eliminating, at the same time,  the imposing manipulation of information that, unfortunately, pushes to  overwhelm the weaker in favor of the stronger, be it an individual, a group, or  a nation.
            When States  conform themselves to the principle of sovereignty of Man's (woman-man)  centrality and of their dignity, their political axis will shift towards a new  constitutional address: institutions (i.e., school, university, justice,  health, economic, etc., agencies) will aim their studies and all their energies  to carry into effect actions able to motivate the individual to live for  achieving a gradual self-management of his/her own dignity and creative  potentialities useful to strengthen a kind of harmonious socialization  integrating human experiential diversities of all nations.
            Literature on  conflict management and conflict resolution shows that conflict can be: covert  or overt; direct or indirect; non-violent or violent; with superiors,  subordinates, peers. Conflict phenomenology can occur between interests and/or  values within both personality development and groups or nations. Interests are  of economic, hegemonic, etc., nature; values can be ideological, religious,  ethical, cultural and so forth. Much has been said of the various forms of  conflicts and we have also analyzed how a "covert" conflict can turn  in a short time into a generalized conflict. The different styles of conflict  management have been classified as: avoiding, compromising, obliging,  dominating and integrating. We believe that whatever style of resolution that  does not apply the integrating method and that does not protect the integral  dignity of all single individuals, is only fictitious and postpones the problem  to further forms of conflict. One must, therefore, create conditions to bring  about studies and research in order to conceive a new method of approach for  conflict resolution that takes into account:
1.Man's centrality, dignity, and sovereignty in  his physical and social habitat;
2.that no resolution will be such if the  parties do not exercise their free consensus to the resolution itself;
            3. that those who manage conflict mediation must  consider first of all the objective reality in which conflict took place as  well as its causes, making the parties aw are of the respect due to their own  dignity and to that of the other parties subject to that conflict resolution;
            4. that the interests of the parties will be  legitimate only on the condition that they are useful to improve the quality of  life, attaching utmost emphasis to the development of values and to the  qualitative expression of human potentials.
            We are really  able to achieve a new "civilization" today, where the human being must rise to  the role of protagonist, and this calls for a serious sense of responsi­bility  on the part of political authorities who, as is clear by now, manage the lives  of millions and billions people. All of them are entitled to the right to live  and to develop serenely, without those conflicts that depress the existence of  the whole planet. Political authorities of the States can launch first of all a  constitutional reform of the system, taking into consideration that the  Constitution is a project whose sole aim is to gradually permit the highest expression  of Man's potentials, by now scientifically classified in psychophysical and  spiritual human poten­tialities. For this inherent potential to be expressed,  it has to be known by both political authorities and pedagogic, scientific,  economic, social and cultural in­stitutions. Public functions, too, need a  humanizing requalification in the respect due to Man's centrality.
            The  State's agencies of justice deserve specific attention, insofar as they are  appointed to solve conflicts particularly relevant to society and to re-educate  the ones who deviate from penal rules. Judicial structures will have to be fair  so that no one suffers in vain and each one can understand, through  "judgment", one's errors and increase one's consciousness levels.  Civil and criminal sanctions must always take into account human dignity. Every  phase of both inquiry and trial violates in fact the individual's fundamental  freedoms ratified and protected by Constitutions. And if, on one hand, present  methods still find a justification in social chaos and conflict, on the other  they stress that States know little about Man and his inherent values and  dignity. As a matter of fact, inquiry and evidence evaluation are too often  left to the arbitrary discretion of individuals whose technical or scientific  training and human conscience are often unsatisfactory. This is mainly due to  judging commissions: they, too, lack the means to evaluate and identify the  levels of consciousness needed to perform the duties of judge, lawyer, etc.  Justice cannot be and will never be only "technique" in that Man - as  said above - implies a dignity acquired by birth and the State's goal is that  of making him aware of it, and of defending and protecting it within society.  Social conflicts, therefore, come from the violation of Human Rights committed  because of the ignorance, selfishness and thirst for power still reigning all  over the world, where economic and hegemonic interests are pursued even by  compromises and actions contrary to the sense of responsibility each one of us  should feel, in accordance with the values of a loyal, honest, coherent and  just consciousness. On the contrary, the technical value of juridical rules is  often correct in the abstract, but it does not consider the dynamics of  reality, the reason whereby the work of both judges and lawyers compresses  reality in that technicality to the detriment of "truth". Legal  sciences, therefore, and Human Rights must be integrated in order to give a  sole vision of Man's psychophysical and spiritual integrity in all its dynamics  and, chiefly, of the hard process that subjects people to severe trials along  the whole span of their existence.

FINAL COMMENTS

An analytical synthesis of  Peoples' political and cultural evolution shows a sort of predetermination  gradually leading to give life to human conscious­ness, aimed at freeing Man  from cerebral defensive mechanisms devoted to protect, through conflict, the  mnemonic, experiential capital inherited by his family, society and history.  This stresses once more that "natura non facit saltus", a lot of  energy is wasted in looking for faults which, at the present step of human  evolution, are of no use for solving problems jeopardizing the future course of  life on the Earth. We remind you that the past lives in the present and  prearranges the future. Therefore, we must solve problems in the present if we  wish a future that deserves to be lived.
            Methods for conflict  resolution shall have to be scientific, multidisciplinary and integrated, since  the concrete reality is dynamic and interdependent and its explanation, as a  result, needs contributions from all scientific branches. What is disintegrated  is just the knowledge one has of reality. Conflict resolution and problem  solving, therefore, call for an in-depth knowledge of reality and not for  abstract theories which do not render justice to truth.
            We  stated that conflicts are mainly due to a lack of integration of what is  different from us. We have to universalize knowledge in the fields of pedagogy,  psycho­logy, ecology, economics and legal sciences, orienting them all to  understanding human evolutionary dynamics. This is the "conditio sine qua  non" for implement­ing policies freeing Man from the slavery of his  conditioning, which drives him to compete, to fight and to refuse what could be  analyzed, integrated and even accepted if only Man's mind were adequately  trained to search for new values and experiences in order to enrich unceasingly  his consciousness. Education must, therefore, predispose human beings to look  for new values, accepting fair com­parisons, and not raising a paroxysmal  defense of one's schemes, models, notions or ideas reinforced and repeated over  time 4s the only existing truth. It is a matter of methodological planning so  that Education can prepare brains to keep their perceptual and integrative  functions "free". This is possible only by a scientific integrated  method that analyses all aspects of phenomena, understands their intrinsic  dynamics, and goes back to their causes. This is why a scientific, political  and cultural reconstruction of the situation underway renders justice to all  parties involved in the resolution. The conceptual bases have to be sought in  the higher functions of the human brain and in the fundamental characteristics  of the interacting information. All the rest is chaos, across which we evolve  and where "chance" rules over conflicting situations: dramas,  sufferings, wars - even fratrici­dal wars - arise from them. Let us not regret,  therefore, the ecological and human catastrophe underway if in conflict  resolution "honest" people still apply the method of war to achieve  peace. To reverse such a mentality it is necessary to study and understand how to turn the principle of the fact of  being obligatory, into a principle of integration  that leads to manage and solve conflicts with justice, so that no party  involved comes out of the conflict as a loser, but always as a  "winner". We invite you to reflect on this point we wish that no one  would think that justice discrimi­nates, stifles or kills. It will be fair only  when that resolution gives everyone the possibility to understand one's errors  and to go on one's evolution, toward the self-determination of each individual  of the Earth, thus making human life master of itself.

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FROM THE FINAL DECLARATION

Of the international  Convention ‘EDUCATION FOR HUMAN DIGNITY’

A scientific methodology to  express the universal potentialities of human genome

That unanimously approved  the prologue of prof. Michele Trimarchi, psychologist

Rome, Senate, Palazzo Giustiniani – Sala dei  Presidenti, February 23rd 2006

In consideration of all of the above, and on the base of the knowledge  provided by Neuropsychophysiology about the processes that rule the development  of the conscience within the human brain, we state as follows:

• The       education is a continuous and constant act aiming to a gradual achievement       of its primary goal to make every individual conscious of the worth of       one’s existence and uniqueness as dignity of the being that never can be       violated, altered, commercialized.
• The       education has to gradually bring the individual to a conscience raising of       all his bio-physical, psychological, cognitive potentialities.
• The       education has to teach self-esteem giving the opportunity of self-criticism,       and promoting the overcoming of every obstacle limiting the growth of the       conscience and its expression.
• The       education forms the ‘I’ of the child through the impartial and objective       knowledge of reality, i.e. the identification of the reasons why everything       exists and its substantial utility.
• The child,       since birth, asks to know ‘why’ and ‘how’ of oneself and all that is       around.
• Self-esteem,       autonomy, self-confidence must be total at the moment of puberty.
• Biological       gender identity promotes the expression and the creative utilization, by       the ‘I’, of one’s own body and brain
• The ‘I’       must verify every information in its substantial contents and ask for       knowledge and in-depth examination.
• The ‘I’ of       the child has a brain which has endless opportunities: there are no limits       to its capability to perceive, understand, experiment and express all that       freely informs it; on the contrary, any imposition conditions and limits       the expression of its cognitive and creative potentialities.
• Nobody is       born ‘good’ or ‘bad’; everybody is born with a brain ready to generate a       conscious wise and right ‘I’.
• Every brain       contains within in power dignity, freedom, justice, love as fundamental       genetic pulses, and it’s able to verify what is harmonic or disharmonic,       true or false.

Children are always  available to know, but they reject all that violates their natural right to the  respect of their dignity and freedom to understand and choose what is useful  and right.