Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

146 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

as a new national or world government or central council of experts. Senate would be an alliance of individuals that shared the ability to view particular human problems and conflicts from a perspective that embraced a consciousness of the needs of the social organism or of humanity itself as a whole, and who would refrain from taking sides in any dispute.

How, then, would senate operate? What methods and techniques would senators bring to bear in a conflict situation that would enable the participants to reconcile their differences? Mitrinovi¢ depicted the senate method as that of Third Force. The first and second forces have been encountered already as the two principles underlying federation and devolution: the first force being the tendency to preserve unity and stability, the second force being the tendency to affirm the autonomy of the parts of a whole. In a conflict between two parties or forces, the argument can never be finally settled by throwing one’s support into one side as against another. If one side suffers a reversal, the resulting sense of resentment can lead to an intensification of the struggle at some later date. Mitrinovi¢ further maintained that intervening in a dispute in order to arrange a compromise in which each side agrees to give up some of their demands in exchange for similar sacrifices by others can also lead only to a temporary peace, as both sides will have lost and both will look for ways of regaining what they have forfeited. The approach of Third Force was not the ‘either-or of taking one side against another, but neither did it consist in locating the truth somewhere in between the two. Rather, the approach of Third Force to a problem of conflict resembles that of the Irishman who, after several unsuccessful attempts to direct a stranger to Cork, finally gave up and said, “If I were going to Cork I wouldn’t start from here.”

In other words Third Force does not attempt to solve a problem in the context in which it is immediately presented. It seeks to transform and widen the context of any conflict beyond the limits within which it is being considered to a wider one within which the points of view of the conflicting parties can be seen as co-related rather than contradictory. Mitrinovi¢ characterised Third Force as “above, between, and beyond the extremes and opposites of reality.” Drawing upon a faith in, or intuitive vision of, the organic unity of humanity, even if that unity has yet to be consciously attained, Third Force seeks to bring about the required balance between the parties in the light of this potential wholeness above and beyond the limits of the situation in which the conflict occurs.

In this sense the central role of senators, at whatever level they sought to exercise their function, was to maintain and convey to others their consciousness of the ultimate organic wholeness of humanity. Equipped with