The neuroscience of social conflict | Tim Phillips | TEDxBoston

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
How can the latest breakthroughs in brain science stop violence?
Tim Phillips is a pioneer in the field of conflict resolution and reconciliation and co-founder of Beyond Conflict, a global non-profit initiative founded in 1992. Using the unique approach of shared experience, Beyond Conflict helped catalyze the field of transitional justice and is internationally recognized for contributions to peace and reconciliation in several countries worldwide.

As we look around the world today,

we see horrendous violence
in the Middle East,

we see Russia invading Ukraine
and threatening its neighbors,

and we see a growing desire
by many to identify by set

ethnicity and ideology
over any shared sense of nationhood.

We wonder: is this just
the worst instincts of human nature

that we repeat
generation after generation?

Or can we change our behavior?

Can we move away
from these destructive mindsets

to live more peacefully
with our communities and ourselves?

I've spent the last 25 years

working on conflict
and reconciliation around the world,

and I want to tell you about
two incredible individuals who did change.

Roelf Meyer was the Minister of Defense
during apartheid in South Africa.

David Ervine was a loyalist
or a protestant paramilitary

in Northern Ireland.

These two men experienced
a profound transformation

that not only liberated them
from destructive mindsets and behaviors

but through their transformation

help liberate millions
from violence and repression.

And through their story we'll see
that profound change is indeed possible.

I met Roelf in 1994
when I invited him to Belfast

to help share his experience
and help end apartheid

with leaders there
who were struggling with change.

Roelf was the senior politician
in South Africa.

Everybody thought
he would be the next president.

He actually grew up thinking

that apartheid was not only good
for whites but for blacks as well.

He built his entire career
in the service of the apartheid state.

But along the way,
something happened to him.

He came to realize

that the system he served and defended
was corrupt and immoral and had to end.

David Ervine spent a decade in prison;
many people called him a terrorist.

I later came to call him a friend.

He joined the UBF paramilitaries
when, as a young teenager,

another teenager of the same age
and same last name was killed

by an air-raid bomb.

David felt that everything
that he and his community stood for

was under a mortal threat.

He felt that the best defense
was a good offense.

But like Roelf,
something happened to David.

He came to realize
that the grievance and fear

that justified the use of violence
against his neighbors

had become a vicious trap.

He had gone from killing
to live to living to kill

and had to find a way
to break out of that.

How did David and Roelf get to that point?

When Roelf was Minister of Defense,
he interviewed a young ANC combatant,

and asked him:
"Why did you join the gorilla movement?"

The young man told him
that when he was a young child,

his family worked for an Africano farmer.

One day, while sitting
in the back of the farmer's pickup truck

with the farmer's dog,
it started to rain heavily.

The farmer got out of the car,
went into the back, took the dog,

put it in the cabin, and left
the young child in the downpour.

This unbelievable disregard
for an another human being, a young child,

so shocked Roelf that it began to question
the very system he served and defended.

David Ervine told me

that he and his other loyalist prisoners
learned Irish in prison

so that they could understand
what the IRA prisoners were saying.

In time, he came to understand
that he had more in common

with these working class Catholics
than many in his own community.

He felt that their shared experience
of exclusion was a far deeper bond

that what divided them
as Catholics and Protestants.

David and Roelf shared a journey

in which they realized they were stuck
in mindsets that had to end.

Roelf went on to convince F. W. de Klerk
to release Nelson Mandela from prison,

and he led the negotiations
to end apartheid.

David Ervine became
a principal negotiator,

and as former senator,
George Mitchell said:

"Helped bring the loyalist paramilitaries
out of the Dark Ages into peace."

Is their story unusual?

Over these 25 years, I've come to believe
that while every country will have

its own unique experience
with conflict and repression,

people respond
to those experiences as humans.

It's the same around the world.

I know from my own experience

what fear, rejection,
and humiliation feels like.

These emotions know
no geographic boundaries.

Being bullied by your schoolmates is
biologically, and fundamentally,

no different than being humiliated
in Belfast or Johannesburg.

In fact, neuroscience is now showing us
that we are deeply emotional beings

that we need to feel safe and acknowledged
to engage fully in the world.

Our brain processes
are deeply unconscious;

they blend emotion and cognition
in the service of survival.

Our brains are plastic; they can change,

and we can overcome
deep-seated fear, bias, and trauma

to live more peacefully within ourselves
and within our own communities.

This is a universal experience.

Some recent findings in neuroscience
help illustrate this very powerfully.

And I believe that we can begin
to take what we're finding,

match it with experience

and begin to address
the challenges we face in the world.

A number of years ago,

some social scientists discovered
the concept of sacred values.

Those values that help shape
our core identity;

they are really important to who we are.

For some it could be
a deep religious belief,

the protection of one's child,
or a deep love of country.

Neuroimaging is now showing us
that we process sacred values

in different regions of the brain
than cost-benefit calculations;

that we respond with moral outrage,

show aggression, and hold on
more deeply to those sacred values

when we feel
that we're under threat.

To millions of Americans,

the Second Amendment
is a deeply felt sacred value;

it's core to their identity;
it helps shape who they are in the world.

It's not just about the right to be armed;

it's tied to notions of freedom, heritage,

and the ability to protect
what's really important to them.

Let's look what happened after Sandy Hook.

Rather than seeing an increase
in gun control across the country,

we've been seeing
a loosening of gun legislation.

And many believers in the Second Amendment
responded with outrage.

They became aggressive, and they held
onto their sacred beliefs more deeply,

and with what we know about sacred values,
this shouldn't be a surprise.

It was a core threat to their identity.

We are more polarized
on this issue than ever.

And the question is: can we apply

what neuroscience is telling us
about sacred values to this issue?

What research shows us is
that sacred values have to be recognized.

We have to let somebody know

that we acknowledge
how important this is to them.

We don't have to share
those sacred values,

but we do have to acknowledge

that they exist and are important
to that individual.

Only then can we get to common ground;
only then can that individual not feel

that what's sacred to them
is under threat,

and we can begin to have a conversation
about one of these most difficult issues.

When we look at the world around us

and we wonder if we can change,

we can look at other insights
that neuroscience is providing us.

When we look at the rise of ISIS
in Iraq and Syria, we wonder

how did this small group
of fanatics rise so quickly

and take over so many large segments
of this country of Iraq, and in Syria?

They could not have gotten
there on their own;

they could not have done that

unless they tapped into the humiliation,
explotion, and exclusion

that many Sunnis felt

under the Shia-dominated government
of Prime Minister al-Maliki.

I know from my own experience

that exclusion is
the main driver of conflict.

When we feel excluded,
we don't feel safe.

When we feel excluded,
we feel that we can't really engage

to do what's normal to us,
for ourselves or for our communities.

Now we have
a biological basis for exclusion.

Some recent neuroimaging shows

that we experience
social rejection as physical pain,

that that part of our brain
that registers trauma

can not fully differentiate
between emotional and physical trauma.

We share that with other mammals.

Think of that animal that's pulled
from the safety of the herd by a predator.

That's a direct threat to their survival,
and we experience that the same way.

Our capacity to think rationally
is depended on feeling safe.

So, when we think
of these challenges in the world,

it's important to remember

that we have to recognize
what drives us as behavior.

When I think of David Ervine,
he said to me:

"Terrorists have to come from somewhere,

and exclusion and injustice
is a powerful place to come from."

David went on to say
that he felt that his capacity

to protect what is sacred
to him and his community

- his religion and being British -
could only be fully realized

in a country that recognized
what was sacred to those around him.

Roelf Meyer came to see

that a system built
on exclusion would never last.

What this tells us is

that we have to build relationships
and governments of inclusion.

Without that, we will drive

more and more of our communities
into violence and division.

As we look around the world,

and we see deepening conflict,
increasing division,

and we make disappear,

I think it's important to keep in mind
that people can change;

that people can fundamentally change,

and to see someone like David,
and to see someone like Roelf

is empowering and liberating.

We now know that we can rewire our brains,
that change is possible,

and that by combing what we know
of these insights, and with practice,

we can begin to reframe
the challenges we face in the world.

And I believe, to begin to live
in a more peaceful world.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)