The Himalayas as seen from space. This formidable mountain range was created by the collision of unyielding forces: two huge plates on the earth’s crust, the Indian and the Eurasian. [Image from www.nepalvista.com]

   A problem can be defined as the significance and consideration assigned to the confrontation between two equal but opposing efforts, intentions, goals, forces or postulates. At the point of confrontation is a ridge of solidified energies, having mass as well as significance and consideration. This ridge of energies does not change and seems to float in time. The evolution of the problem situation "stops" at this point of equalization, resulting in indecision and the inability to resolve the situation, with the energy of all parties being devoted to pushing against the energy of the opposing side. Every problem can be defined and graphed in this way:

    Mountains are the physical mass, the  ridge of solid energy created when two tectonic plates of the earth push against each other, neither giving way to the other. Now imagine that these two plates had consciousness and were striving to achieve equal, but opposing, goals.

   Consideration and significance are all that the definition of "problem" lack in this example.

   The mass is not always as solid as mountain ridges. If you take two streams of water under equal pressure from two identical hoses and direct them at each other, a ridge will instantly form where the opposing forces meet.
   Socially, the energy ridges are even less solid and are generally visible only in the unpleasant emotions and lack of progress in solving recalcitrant and important issues, such as abortion, universal health care, rent control, etc. Even though the ridges are invisible, the problems can still be graphed as if they were as solid as mountains. The word "solution" will not be used in this essay because it is traditionally used improperly. The word "solve" derives from the Latin solvere, to loosen, free, release, dissolve. Human beings often do the opposite in their approach to problem solving. In clarification and to distinguish from typical problem solving, the verb dissolve will be used, as it more accurately connotes the intended meaning.
   Human beings usually "solve" their problems through the use of force. Even attempting to ignore a problem is using force as one is postulating that the problem does not exist (while at the same time acknowledging its existence). After all, you cannot ignore something that is not there. This error in logic is known as the fallacy of the stolen concept.

    The fallacy of the stolen concept, which is a term found in objectivist philosophy and has been defined by Leonard Peikoff as "the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends. “

    For example, there are those who would claim that you cannot prove that you exist or that you are conscious or able to know anything, ignoring the fact that "proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge:  [i.e.] the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved."

    Force is defined as physical power, violence, power to control, physical coercion. As a verb it means to compel, constrain or oblige someone to do something, to drive or propel against resistance, to extort. In physics, force is an influence producing a change in movement, shape, direction, etc.

    The only ethical uses of force are those which do not degrade or harm the survival of living organisms. In truth, there is no purely ethical use of force as all uses of force degrade. Force is necessary to creation in the physical universe; the laws of the conservation of energy and matter prove we cannot create something without uncreating something else, i.e., "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The egg must give up its potential for the creation of a new life in order to become material for the nourishment of a completely different life form.

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF USING FORCE

    By using force to "solve" a problem, we create new problems without dissolving the old one. Remember the ridge of energies floating in time? Using force merely suppresses the ridge of energies, thereby creating different manifestations; the ridge is still there, it has not dissolved. Examples abound. Many elderly people do not have a decent living standard; poor women with children live lives of poverty and degradation; unfair working conditions and tyrannical bosses exist; ignorance abounds; Israelis still do not live in peace in a Jewish homeland. These conditions prevail in spite of the "solutions" of Social Security, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, labor unions, public education, war.

    The use of force in war is obvious, but how does the use of force occur with public education? In the definition of the underlying problem there is the consideration that the public was ignorant and needed to be educated, but education was too expensive for everyone. In order to "solve" the problem of getting a free education for an ignorant population, force is used against property owners, levying in the form of property taxes, confiscating what is theirs if they fail to cooperate, even if they have no children. Children are forced to go to schools filled with violence and an education irrelevant to their needs. The federal government has set up a bureaucracy to formulate standards that every local public school is coerced (through the threat of withheld funding) to meet in this very large and diverse nation.

    How well does this enforced public education work? Even if we agree for the sake of argument that the end justifies the means, are we getting what is paid for? Today, a high school diploma means merely that the student managed to keep a chair warm enough long enough. The new social problems created manifest in increased poverty in this technological age, in an increasingly more unqualified labor pool for industry and business, in once eager minds stultified into apathy, in crime, in fewer teachers who know what they are doing so that this tide can be turned around, etc. Public education has failed to "solve" the problem, and has gone further to add new dimensions to the underlying ignorance it was trying to correct. We now have ignorant students who hate school and are unwilling to learn and the cookie-cutter mediocrity of teachers who are deadened by bureaucracy. The problem is even more difficult to handle than it was before public education when at least everyone was bright and eager and willing to get the job done.

    Many elderly persons eat dog food because that is the only nourishment they can afford after the rent is paid, in spite of having been forced to contribute to Social Security. Not only were they forced to contribute, so were their employers. Yet the problem still exists of poverty-stricken elderly. The problem floats in time, defying solution. New and potential problems have been created by this use of force. Fewer Americans save for retirement because they believe that Social Security will take care of them. Churches are no longer organized to take care of the needy, feeling that this is now the province of the government. Not many families are able to help their elders because little money is left over after ever-increasing income taxes (most of which is Social Security contribution). Employers hire fewer people because of the cost in payroll contributions to Social Security.

    Firearms and crimes committed with them are rampant in Washington, D.C, despite its strict gun-control laws forcing law-abiding citizens to do without firearms. Not only do gun-control laws not work, they create a black market in firearms, thus adding a profit motive to their proliferation in a city with one of the highest murder rates in the nation.

INDIVIDUAL CONSEQUENCES OF USING FORCE

    The degradation of an individual who is the effect of physical force such as rape, torture, mugging, etc. is obvious. The victim feels that life is not in his or her control, suffering greatly from a loss of self-esteem, perhaps even the inability to recover and live a meaningful life. The degradation of the perpetrator of the force is equally as obvious, for here is an individual who has decreased his or her ability to indulge in loving and voluntary relationships with others.

    Individuals also suffer these same psychological effects from the "softer" uses of force against them. For example, have you not felt angry and helpless or apathetic when, looking at your paycheck, you see how much money the government has forced from you for projects and products that are beyond your control and are ineffective or injurious?  When you see how much of that money is wasted or lost to corruption?  Your resentment against the government increases, your willingness to be socially cooperative diminishes, thus laying in the potential for future problems. Your swelling emotional upset obscures your perception of alternatives to taking care of the problems that taxation is supposed to be solving. Otherwise-intelligent people become so upset by the present coercive system that they cannot think straight and exclaim that there is no alternative. The problem floats in time. Indecision befogs the parties who have the potential to alter the situation for the better.

    The use of force in "solving" problems degrades everyone, on both sides of the problem. The use of force is nothing more than an unreasoning attempt to nullify the other side. It communicates to the opposition that you believe it to be unworthy to exist.

    The police chief refers to gang members as punks and animals. Americans become the Great Satan and the Koreans and Iranians the Evil Empire. In war, the enemy becomes a Kraut, a Gook, a Raghead -- less than human, not to be respected.

ETHICAL PROBLEM SOLVING

    To dissolve problems ethically, we must serve the survival interests of both sides. We have seen that the use of force diminishes the survival potential of both parties to the problem.

    Ethical problem dissolving, therefore, needs the greatest spiritual and intellectual growth imaginable -- especially if you are part of the problem!  Jesus said, "Love thine enemy as thyself."  He was not being ethereal in this statement, for he realized that by doing so you serve the interests of all. It is ultimately the most practical of approaches, too.

    Ethical problem dissolving can require fantastic amounts of imagination, soul searching, character building and hard work. For example, the war on drugs, based on the use of force, is failing miserably. Not only do people continue to use drugs in massive quantities, perpetuating the attendant social ills, but new problems have been created in the form of a lucrative black market that is corrupting law enforcement, and prisons that are overflowing.

    The energy used to push against the other side, the drug users and dealers, is not used to dissolve the sources of the problem -- ignorance, apathy, poverty, stress. It is much easier to hire police, pass laws and build prisons (force).

    Social problems can be incredibly difficult. If both sides of a conflict can be served and are agreeable, then they will cease to create the opposing energies which are holding the problem in place. A truce, as it were. The Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall (a ridge manifested) was torn down, the Soviets and Americans began to disarm. But it is not always so simple. The arms dealer will work against ending a war, as will the banker who is loaning money to both sides to fight the war. The cigarette manufacturer will work against ending tobacco subsidies, the National Education Association against a voucher system for private schooling or choice within a public school system.
    Thus we can theorize that:

    (1) A problem “solved” with the use of force will not disappear, rather it will float in time.

    (2) It will serve to create new problems in the future.

    (3) The added layer of force will cause further indecisiveness, thus perpetuating and worsening the unwanted situation with unconfrontable new complexities.

    (4) Those who have unjustly benefited from a problem forcefully “solved” will work against dissolution of the mechanisms of force.

    The amount of personal integrity existing on both sides and willingness to change without feeling wrong will determine the ease with which a problem can be dissolved. Because of the previous use of force, both sides have been somewhat or greatly degraded. Dissolution requires that this be confronted and that the justification of the necessity of the use of force cease, that forgiveness and trust be given. As peace began to erupt all over our planet after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we could see this at work. And we can see the exalting effects. Think of the Velvet Revolution when the Czechs and Slovaks peacefully threw off the chains of Communist occupation.

    An interesting phenomenon manifests as the layers of force are peeled off: the previous problem that the use of force was supposed to solve is revived. The Serbs and Croats are fighting again. The Armenians and Azerbaijanis are dramatizing their hatreds once more. Centuries-old ethnic disputes that were "solved" with Communist tanks have flared up as if they never went away -- in truth they didn't!  Floating in time, they were merely suppressed and now must be dissolved, as they should have been in the first place. It will be a fascinating study as old problems continue to revivify when the overlying layer of the force of old "solutions" is properly dissolved. This is precisely what is happening in Iraq now that Saddam’s brutal regime is gone, no longer “unifying” the Shiites and Sunnis.

    One of the greatest tools in dissolving problems is sincere communication. The advent of electronic mass media has brought about on our planet the realization of common humanity like nothing else. We can look hopefully into a future of rapid change and the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the human race, as old habits (such as the addiction to the use of force in attaining social and political goals) fall to more workable and enlightened methods.

See related essay, “A Universal Objective System of Ethics is Vital and Practical.”