Doodle One

This doodle captures the image of a single line in time, very much like a slow-rising bell curve with a shaper descent on the end. Though it suggests that conflict evolves over time, the impression it leaves is of conflict in an eye blink. We easily lose a sense of time in this particular picture. The rise of conflict happens over long periods of time, but the images of the peace accord and the post-accord are often seen in much shorter periods.

The conflict as an escalation and de-escalation line poses a certain way of looking at change and a particular level of conflict that is being addressed. To a large degree the image focuses on the rise of violence, an agreement that stops it, and the de-escalation that follows the accord. This places primary emphasis on negotiation of the symptomatic, or more visible and often destructive expressions of the conflict, but not on the relational context that lies at the epicenter of what generates the fighting.