Resolving Conflict vs. Pursuing the Truth: A Moral Dilemma?

Perhaps you have been in a situation I am about to describe before at one point in your life. It is one of a dilemma between resolving conflict as quickly as possible by lying to the wrongdoer who inflected injustice upon you, the injustice of which the wrongdoer is wholly responsible of causing, and pursuing the truth by having the wrongdoer recognize the fact that he is wholly responsible for the wrong and correct the situation through proper remedy. Here, I do not include situations where the injustices arise through faulty actions of both.

     Perhaps the situation arose in conflicts between your spouse or other type of intimate partner, your friends, your family members, or other sort of loved ones. The benefit of lying when the conflict is wholly the other's fault is that you do not risk for the time being deteriorating the relationship, creating further conflict. In many cases, demanding the wrongdoer to recognize one's own wrongs will often sprout dormant arrogance out of the wrongdoer. The arrogance then would turn into anger toward you and distance oneself from you. The con, however, is that you are lying, a principally wrongful act. Another con is that you are enabling the wrongful acts of your loved one by not sifting through the warped perceptions and the sophistic arguments of the wrongdoer. If you truly care about the loved one at hand, it should displease you that the moral character of the wrongdoer will not be fixed for that person will not properly repent.

     Pursuing the truth, on the other hand, is one of the moral imperatives as human beings. Further, pursuing the truth in conflicts will help the wrongdoer recognize the wrongs, repent, and fix the wrongful disposition. In turn, you can grant sincere forgiveness. However, the result is uncertain for there is a risk of losing the relationship by triggering prideful actions, refusing to admit the wrongs.

     In between risking losing a valuable relationship and pursuing the inherent good that is the truth, there is thus a moral dilemma. Which of the two should one choose? I personally cannot balance the two through arithmetic means. Thus I, from a personal perspective, decided in recent years to pursue the truth in all cases and put my faith that a moral resolution will occur. So far, my faith in it has yet to be proven to be misplaced, all the ones involved in conflicts with me ultimately being resolved with me. In such cases, I strike two birds with one stone in that I do the principally correct act and the conflict becomes resolved. I do hope that my faith will never be proven to be displaced.

The Need to Find a Virtuous Community

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." - 1 Cor. 15:33

I think there are only a handful of more heartbreaking instances than when one can do nothing while his loved ones get washed away amongst bad influences. In some cases, a father watches his daughter give her dignity away for attention, too stubborn to listen to his advice. In other cases, a girlfriend watches her high school sweetheart of a boyfriend plunge into a culture of objectification and barbaric hedonism amongst his "brothers." In some other cases, a friend would watch one of his best friends swept away by her new set of friends, being turned into one of the most judgmental and spiteful person he knows, the kind the public would love to hate.

     In all these cases, the ones watching their loved ones corrupted by bad influences would be powerless in that they cannot hope to break the stubbornness of those being corrupted. The efforts to convince those who are being morally corrupted increases as they further plunge into the abyss. The more morally corrupt one gets, the more does one deprived of good conscience. How can a person judge one's own actions to be bad when one is deprived of correct conscience? In all these cases I have mentioned, the root cause is a vicious community.

     Through a vicious community, a daughter becomes rebellious to a point where she distances herself from one who gave her flesh and blood. Through a vicious community, a thought-to-be-soulmate turns into a deadend heartbreak. Through a vicious community, a friend who was one of the kindest person on earth turns into a spirit of hate. However, the biggest tragedy in these cases is perhaps the fact that, through deprived conscience, these individuals being corrupted cannot determine what is giving cause to their corruption.

     To avoid such tragedy, therefore, it is critical to have a knowledge of certain situations. To be situationally aware, one must let go of individualistic desires and start seeing the relationships one has as a whole. A daughter ought to see herself in relation to her father, a boyfriend to his girlfriend, and a friend to one's own closest friends. When one can do so, one will see just how much certain communities bring higher fulfilment than others, thus creating a heightened motivation to resist the temptations of other less adequate communities.

     In recognizing such superior  - virtuous - communities, a person is able to seek after better situations.