266 Addendum maintaining autonomy (of both) is the Transformative Dialogue. If one did not have the commitment to resolve that coordination problem, then one’s recognition of the other is conditional, or only present as long as the other has no conflicting commitments with one’s own self-understanding. However, that is not a mutual relationship of recognition. 3. This commitment to the Transformative Dialogue also applies universally, that is in relation to everyone. If the commitment were limited to one person, there could be manipulation. The only way to expose any manipulation and to guarantee autonomy is to be committed to the Transformative Dialogue in relation to everyone else. The practice of a transformative-deliberative society A philosophical theory in which stable and just solutions for IRMCs can be discerned is important. This provides a conceptual foundation for transformative initiatives and makes it possible to research the design and effectiveness of such initiatives in an unambiguous manner. This may lead to new insights to increase the effectiveness of such initiatives, enabling them to develop into robust and widely applicable interventions in the repertoire of conflict resolution methods. The hope is that this will cause existing IRMCs to disappear and new ones to be nipped in the bud at an early stage. At the same time, a theory is just a theory, and these are hopeful thoughts. Agonist critics might accuse the transformative approach of being as naive as the deliberative wishful thinkers who hope to resolve conflicts through the exchange of rational arguments. And indeed, the exercise of power and violence are still the order of the day in the world. The theory of the Transformative Dialogue is therefore not an end point, but a beginning. It marks the starting point for the invention and construction of a transformative-deliberative society. In chapter 7 I investigate how the Transformative Dialogue can be institutionalized in a transformative-deliberative society, and how oppressive exercise of power can be avoided. A transformative-deliberative society is a society in which social conflicts are resolved through rational argumentation or negotiation and, if they are identity-related, through the application of the Transformative Dialogue. In such a society, discerning each other’s self-understanding and transforming it, is as common an interaction as exchanging arguments. In order to solve IRMCs, it is therefore necessary to maintain the transformative skills that people possess naturally as children, also in their adulthood. To achieve this, innovations are needed in various institutions. The Transformative Dialogue can be embedded in the judiciary, political decision making and community building. This requires, for example, that sufficient process facilitators are trained and that children learn to distinguish their transformative skills and thus to lay the foundation for consciously using these skills as adults if a conflict situation or effective cooperation requires this. The required institutionalization demands an extensive and complex policy program. Parties that are influential through oppressive exercise of power benefit from maintaining the myth of a fixed identity and will resist this institutionalization. Moreover, this discredited idea of a fixed identity gives people something to hold on to in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing globalized world.
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