Conflict scholar John Burton in
Conflict Resolution: The Human Dimension points out that in determining the
source
of conflicts, there is indeed a basic question that we need to confront.
Is it true, he asks that conflicts at all social levels the result of “inherent
human
aggressiveness, especially male aggressiveness, derived from the
consequences of evolution and survival-of-the-fittest struggles?”
Or
are conflicts due to the emergence of inappropriate social institutions and
norms that reasonably would seem to be well within human capacities to alter,
to which the person has problems in adjustment?
It
is this human
dimension that Burton
and a whole new generation of conflict theorists, scholars and planners have
been exploring because it provides for a deeper understanding of the complex
layers that often make up a conflict. The distinctions that they have
uncovered, often within the terms and concepts of the idea itself have helped
immensely in the sense that on one important level, the conflict also exists on
contextual and verbal confusion.