Finding Meaning in Conflict: An Interview with Lord Alderdice

I had the pleasure of interviewing John Alderdice recently for my forthcoming book 'Finding Meaning in Conflict The Story of Northern Ireland'.

John is a retired Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, former Leader of the Alliance Party, first Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and Director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at the University of Oxford:

I asked John how his journey from childhood, growing up in a conflicted and volatile part of the world, fostered a deep and abiding interest in people, leading to his involvement in politics and psychiatry..

Here is a very short excerpt from our interview:

What was it that was going on, that perfectly decent, reasonable, good people on both sides couldn't engage with each other in a straightforwardly harmonious way?

And of course, what I was seeing there was also occurring in other parts of the world, and in our relations with other parts of the world and different religions.

And I guess from my parents was there was something about how it was very important to try insofar as you could, to transcend those things. And at the same time, there were limits. Yes, there were certain things you could do or not do in society. So that was a very important part of it for me. It was what I inherited from my parents genetically, of course, but also environmentally. And I guess I continued on that thinking and tussling with questions and engaging in society and trying to work for things to be better and in a way that people could disagree without killing each other: to constructively engage with each other.

And that's why I then I went into medicine, psychology and psychoanalysis to a substantial degree, because it seemed to me that the explanations that political science was giving for the destruction didn't answer the questions.

What I was trying to understand was the psychology of people, why people did things that were not in their best interests. As I did, it became apparent to me that and that this was not just true of individuals, it was true of communities, and that the psychology of communities, and the psychology of individuals were not identical.

There was a link, but they weren't exactly the same thing. And therefore, you had to try to understand the issues with individual people. But then you also have to understand that at the level of the community, as small groups and families and so on, and even the kinds of communities of thousands or even millions of people.

So that’s the direction of that things has been for me. And of course, there is a religious, or spiritual, or faith point of view. Whilst one's sense of conviction about things can go to and fro, I've always had a sense that there was something very important about this idea and the experience of the transcendent, of that which goes beyond me, beyond my individual self, beyond my community, my time. There's something there, and it's not something which is I use the word impersonal because I can't think of another word. But it's not something that's cold, distant, uncaring, meaningless. It's something that gives meaning, that has the warmth of positiveness about it. And therefore, we talk in terms of personality when we speak about God, for lack of a better term, rather, because that actually contains what we're trying to struggle towards’.

I am incredibly grateful to John, and the nineteen other interviewees, for their time and insight. It has been a very humbling and inspiring journey for me, one that continues as I edit each interview.

Take care,

Scott

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