Neutrality

Wallace Warfield

Former CRS Mediator, New York and Washington, D.C. Offices; Associate Professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University

Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003


This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

For example, I think for many of us in this program, we are increasingly bolder in saying — and Cobb and Rifkin did this eleven years ago — saying that we feel that the notion that one is strictly adherent to neutrality is a sham. It's just simply not true, not even useful, and not even expected in the kind of conflicts that we're involved in. Understanding the fact that the field at large still holds on tenaciously to certain kinds of concepts and ethical values is important. You need to know where you depart from the field, because at some point, if you don't know that, you may find yourself having to answer to the inquisition coming out of the field about what you did. You need to know where you stand on that basis.