Nature

[DREJESKI]

So I am writing a paper for english and my ultimate thesis is that nature in it's entirety is the ultimate shaper of conflict (ie starts it, makes an outcome and ends it). Do you guys agree or is there another force at the root of conflict?

[balthasarnostri]

Well, if by nature you mean the entirety of the physical world and its laws, then I see no escape from this statement, but if you mean by nature, the opposite of cities and populated areas, then I believe human beings and society can be great shapers of conflict, and it is usually in cities where the most violence resides (gangs, muggings, etc). I guess what I would need to know and what you should definitely explain in your paper is what you mean by nature. Existence? Flora and Fauna? Human nature?

[cafolini]

Well, if by nature you mean the entirety of the physical world and its laws, then I see no escape from this statement, but if you mean by nature, the opposite of cities and populated areas, then I believe human beings and society can be great shapers of conflict, and it is usually in cities where the most violence resides (gangs, muggings, etc). I guess what I would need to know and what you should definitely explain in your paper is what you mean by nature. Existence? Flora and Fauna? Human nature?

That's because you didn't meet the serial killer of the Argentine Pampas.

Anything is natural, including the so-called artificial or not natural? Otherwise it wouldn't happen.

[Cunninglinguist]

You're going to encounter numerous problems with this thesis. The concepts are too broad, the words too ambiguous, and the things to which they refer too equivocal. As mentioned, the word nature and the "force" of nature is so ambiguous that your thesis is virtually meaningless. Also, conflict needs some further definition and, for that matter, what constitutes nonconflict. Are conflict and nonconflict measured by actions and events such as wars, oppression, crime, etc. or feelings such as sadness, hatred, bigotry, etc. (in which case I would call it suffering) or both (in which case I would call it evil) or something else? How you use your words isn't of critical importance so long as you ensure that your audience understands what you're referring to with them. These things said, it's for multiple reasons always easier (especially in any non-philosophy course) to discuss more or less concrete terms (such as war, crime, etc.) with precise definitions than it is to use highly abstracted concepts with rather moot definitions, such as nature, artificial, evil, goodness, badness, etc.. If your teacher has not instructed you to write about these concepts it's probably best that you do not put them at the center of your argument.

[cafolini]

So I am writing a paper for english and my ultimate thesis is that nature in it's entirety is the ultimate shaper of conflict (ie starts it, makes an outcome and ends it). Do you guys agree or is there another force at the root of conflict?

I think a view of the totality of nature is theistic and hence, a thesis. However, I don't know what the value of such proposition would be. It would be strictly philosopical. But I think that as far as we people are concerned, it is a very long ways before anything can get philosophical, if ever. From the point of view of a postmodernist like I am, conflict is intrinsic to nature. It would be an unjustified leap to say that nature is the shaper of it intentionally as it would have to be implied by such a thesis. How would you deal with accident, coincidences, the unexpected. You wouldn't be able to do it with justification, except sophistry.
You would have to claim that there are no coincidences and eventually get into an even thicker theism. The moment you place intention in the behaviour of the totality you end up with a God you could never grasp.