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PUBLISHED DATE: - 30-09-2024
DOI: -
https://doi.org/10.37547/tajiir/Volume06Issue09-06
PAGE NO.: - 40-45
VIEWS OF POLITICAL CONFLICTS BY
WESTERN THINKERS
Sharofiddin Hasanov
Doctor of philosophy (PhD), associate professor, independent researcher,
Uzbekistan
INTRODUCTION
The issue of political conflict has attracted people's
attention since ancient times. You can find many
literary sources and art monuments that have
come down to us about political conflicts.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus believed
that everything in the world is caused by enmity
and enmity. conflicts, in his opinion, were
evaluated as an important feature, an
indispensable condition of public life, because
conflict, including war, "is the father and king of
everything." [1. ru.]
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus believed
that the disasters associated with endless wars
would eventually force people to live in perpetual
peace.
Famous thinkers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle,
also paid attention to the issue of political conflict.
According to them, a person is a creature with a
collective nature, and an individual is only a
component of a community. Human characteristics
allow him to understand and cooperate with other
people. At the same time, enmity, hatred and a
tendency to violence are not excluded. Plato and
Aristotle were the first to condemn political
conflict. Plato, in his dialogue-like work "The
State", approached political conflicts in a stratified
manner and divided violence and wars into "just"
and "unjust" groups. [2. С.50
-51]
According to Aristotle, quarrels and conflicts are
caused by the inequality of people in property
ownership and respect, as well as vices such as
arrogance, fear, indifference to each other, the use
of tricks, dissimilarity of character, excessive
praise of some individuals and humiliation of
others. originates [3. С.50
-51].
In the Middle Ages, collectivization meant
subordinating a person, an individual, to a feudal
state, a peasant community, a craft workshop, a
merchant guild, a knighthood, or a monastic order.
Only by the end of the Middle Ages did
individualism emerge as a force. It is expressed in
Western European humanism, the postulates of
Protestant Christians, the doctrine of natural law
and the social contract, as well as in the ideas of
early liberalism. Thomas More, Erasmus of
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Rotterdam, Francis Bacon and other humanists
strongly condemned the social disorder and blood
feuds of the Middle Ages.
[4. С.77
-95]. They
believed that peace and harmony among people is
a crucial factor for development [5. С.188
-194].
Even in the Middle Ages, when representatives of
the Christian religion put forward their view of
humanity based on the idea that everyone is equal
before God, it was impossible to achieve
permanent peace between people, moreover, they
believed that conflicts would continue not only
between believers and non-believers, but also
between representatives of the same religion.
Erasmus of Rotterdam says in this regard: "The
most absurd thing is that Jesus Christ himself exists
on both sides, as if he were fighting with himself."
[6.].
The issue of political conflicts can also be seen in
the views of Dante, one of the representatives of
Italian humanism. Dante dreamed of an Italy
where the peoples of the country could unite and
live happily in a just state free from conflicts, a
society where religion and the church did not
interfere in state affairs. [7. С.302]. He especially
hates the self-interested and traitors who
carelessly treat the life of the people, and the
nobles who disturb the peace and increase mutual
conflicts. The political conflicts intensified, the
struggle between the bourgeois class and the
feudal aristocracy, which was emerging on the
stage of history, the whole weight of these
contradictions fell on the working masses deprived
of elementary human rights, humiliated, injustice,
violence, arbitrariness of the upper class
representatives, hypocrisy of the religious figures
in front of the society of that time. the most urgent,
vital issues - religion, morality, science, philosophy,
politics, literature - are at the center of Dante's
"Divine Comedy".
In order to somehow explain and justify the
innumerable manifestations of evil in the world
created by God, religious philosophy developed a
special doctrine called "Justification of God" or
"Theodecy". The essence of this teaching was to
find out how there are various conflicts in the
world where there is a good and powerful God:
global disasters, brutal wars, deceit, human misery
and suffering. All this, G. In Heine's words,
"accursed questions" were among the sources of
impiety and genius. Therefore, various attempts to
answer these questions, which began in the early
days of Christianity, have not stopped even today.
To such questions, one of the Christian theologians,
Tertullian, answered that God's nature and
structure do not obey the human mind, and
therefore we have no choice but to blindly believe
in him. "I believe, because it is
nonsense", [8. С.448]
he used to say.
Aurelius Augustine in his work "The Divine City" is
not the process itself, but its purpose [9. С.204]
says. That is, it states that if all human needs are
satisfied, then he should not allow conflict.
Niccolò Machiavelli evaluated the political conflict
as a general sign of society arising from human
weakness and was the first to propose a systematic
analysis of political conflicts. [10. С.80]. In the
process of analyzing Machiavelli's thoughts, it can
be understood that as long as the goals of the
members of the society are different based on their
capabilities, the elimination of political conflicts
remains a problem. Its solution is to identify the
root cause of political conflict and find a way to
eliminate it.
The teaching of German scientists is a direct
continuation of Aristotle's ideas and has a special
place in the development of European science.
Hegel, unlike the thinkers of his contemporaries,
did not express the manifestation of the concept of
"political conflict" for a certain period, but also
described the mechanism of its operation in the
process of understanding.
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John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, representatives of
the Western philosophical school, believed that
man is a sacred being, for whom other creatures
are just a condition of existence. The individual has
priority over society. The natural state of social
relations is a "war of all against all," in which
people act as enemies or partners.
Adam Smith, the author of the book "Theory of
Moral Sentiments", advocated a certain level of
selfishness, that is, "self-love". He believed that the
harmony of individual interests with the common
aspirations of people to achieve prosperity and
happiness leads to the development of society. The
goal of a person's desire to improve his social
status is to distinguish himself from others, to
attract the attention of others, to get praise from
others, approval of his behavior, sympathy or
certain privileges. [11. С.352].
Smith prioritized economic interests over moral
relationships between people. "Our well-being," he
wrote, "calls us to caution, and the well-being of
our loved ones to justice and humanity." Justice
keeps us away from things that harm the
happiness of our loved ones, and humanity invites
us to things tha
t contribute to it. [12. С.352]. Here
we can see that justice is presented as an effective
way to resolve political conflicts.
Scientists have thought a lot about the struggle
between people, classes and states in the New Age,
when contradictions in nature, society and
thought, and political conflicts have intensified. F.
Bacon and T. Hobbs, J. Rousseau and I. Kant, G.
Hegel and K. Marks, W. Solovyov and N. Scholars
such as Berdyaev expressed their opinions about
the nature of political conflicts.
As a result of our analysis, two different
approaches to understanding the essence of
political conflict, pessimistic and optimistic views
were revealed. The pessimistic approach is based
on the English philosopher T. Elucidated more
clearly by Hobbes. In the book "Leviathan" he
made a negative assessment of human nature.
Allama believed that man is selfish, jealous and
lazy by nature. Therefore, he assessed the first
state of human society as "war against all".
When this situation becomes unbearable for
people, they make a pact among themselves to
create a state, relying on their enormous power to
save people from misery, the power of which is
equal to the power of Leviathan, a creature
mentioned only in the Bible. [12. С.731]. Thus, T.
who gave a negative assessment of human nature.
Hobbes believed that the state had no choice but to
use force to eliminate the immorality of people.
The optimistic approach was proposed by the
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He,
unlike Hobbes, believed that man was naturally
kind and was created to live peacefully and
happily. According to him, the source of political
conflicts in modern society is errors and
shortcomings in establishing social life, first of all,
people's loyalty to private property. An important
means of restoring the peaceful relations that are
natural for people is the establishment of a
democratic state based on their mutual agreement,
based on human nature, free from violence, and
based on educational means.[13. С.535].
Улардан кейин яшаб ижод қилган олимлар
мазкур
икки
тушунчадан
бирига
асосланганлар ёки улар синтезининг у ёки бу
шаклини ишлаб чиққанлар.
German classical philosopher I. According to Kant,
peace between neighboring people is not a natural
state, on the contrary, there is a state of permanent
war between them, that is, non-permanent acts of
war, a constant threat [14. С.266] considered. I.
Kant like T. Like Hobbes, he sees war as a natural
state for people, but, at the same time, J. J. Rousseau
expressed hope that it would be possible to achieve
the "state of peace".
K. According to Marx, political conflicts are
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characteristic of all stages of social life. K. V. who
supported Marx's theory. I. Lenin and his followers
supplemented these theories with the driving
force of socialism, the art of preparing and carrying
out armed uprisings, and the methods of
establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. For
Marxists, revolutionary violence is the main
method of solving social conflicts, and reforms and
compromise are considered negative.
Some scientists J. Rousseau and K. Based on the
ideas of Marx, it is believed that man is a rational
being, aggression and cruelty occur as a forced
adaptation to the conditions of his life. According
to them, the human mind and psyche is formed
under the influence of certain social conditions; the
reformation
and improvement
of
social
institutions lead to the inevitable elimination of
political conflict and war.
The German scientist Sigmund Freud made a great
contribution to the study of political conflict
situations. He considers the main source of
conflicts to be the main source of conflicts, which
are the main cause of mental breakdowns and
tensions, the conflicts between emotions,
unknown
aspirations,
especially
sexual
inclinations, and the requirements of moral and
legal norms [15.С.38
-41]. Freud's ideas later
served as a psychological basis for the analysis of
political conflicts. Despite the fact that much
effective work was done on the essence of political
conflict in the social system, the following
shortcomings were allowed in the analysis of this
issue until the end of the 19th century:
the specificity of political conflicts was not studied
at all, only some of their economic, political,
cultural and spiritual manifestations were
expressed in research;
only the macro-level conflicts between classes,
nations, and states were investigated, while the
conflicts between small social groups and
individuals were ignored by scientists;
political conflicts were not studied as a
phenomenon of social life, as a result, conflictology
was not formed as an independent theory or
science.Макс According to Weber, society is a set
of social groups that differ in their status, the
incompatibility of interests causes social conflicts
in society, so the hope that it is possible to be free
of conflicts in the life of society is unrealistic
[16.С.38
-41]. Therefore, it is necessary to
recognize the inevitability of eternal struggle
between one group and another. At the same time,
people's interests are not only conflicting, but also
compatible to a certain extent. This is the basis for
the balance of power and allows for compromise.
German sociologist G. Simmel is rightfully
considered the founder of the functional theory of
conflicts. According to him, conflict is a universal
phenomenon, and it is completely inconceivable
that a society with a completely integrated,
uniform and harmonious positive mentality can
exist.
G. In "Conflict in Modern Culture" and other similar
works [16.С.10], Simmel revealed that the egoistic
groups in society are not separated from each
other, but on the contrary, they are strongly and
closely connected with each other. This
interdependence of group interests serves as a
basis for mitigating conflict and ensuring the
stability of democratic societies. However,
conflicts cannot be completely eliminated in
society, because they are a universal, common
feature for a number of areas of social life, such as
power, the market, and the social contract.
Followers of Zimmel's ideas tried to prove in their
research that it is an important practical task of
sociology to ensure the transition of conflicts to
cooperation. Thanks to Simmel's works, a new
branch of science appeared in sociology -
"Sociology of Conflicts".
The sociology of conflict was further developed by
the Anglo-German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf and
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the American sociologist Lewis Coser. For example,
R. In "Classes and Class Conflicts in Industrial
Society", "Modern Social Conflict" and other works,
Darendorf estimated conflicts as the main category
of sociology and put forward his sociological
concept of conflicts. According to his theory, the
presence of conflicts is a natural state of society,
and on the contrary, the absence of them is some
kind of surprising and abnormal situation. Conflict
is not always dangerous for the social system, but,
on the contrary, serves to reform society and make
positive changes in it.
Thus, the above analysis of the opinions of Western
thinkers of different eras on the issue of political
conflict showed that among the philosophers who
lived and created in the Ancient, Middle and New
periods, there was no consensus in understanding
conflict, struggle and their place in social life. Some
of the ancient scholars expressed utopian ideas,
hoping to create a society in which all
contradictions and conflicts would be eliminated.
The main reason for the diversity of views in this
regard is the social life existing in different periods
and the approach of each thinker to the issue of
political conflict from the point of view of his time.
A number of factors, such as the development of
science, the improvement of production, and the
acceleration of relations between states, led to the
manifestation of political conflicts in a wider scope.
Therefore, it is appropriate to analyze the issue of
political conflict directly from the historical point
of view.
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