High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley is a book about the trap of high conflict. It’s described as a guideline to reconnect with our enemies and opponents while allowing us to revive our curiosity as we continue to advance our own beliefs. The book illustrates how people can escape the high conflict characteristics of indignation and recrimination. It is expertly defined as a mind-opening, new way to understand high conflict and help us transform our acts and responses.
High conflict is that moment in time when discord evolves into good vs. evil, and that is when the conflict itself takes over and our brains begin to function very differently. At the other end of the spectrum, good conflict is the necessary disagreements that force us to become better human beings.
One of our greatest challenges in the United States is the binary system. It seems that almost all parts of our belief systems are set up in a way that force us to take sides. Be it in a divorce, labor strikes, neighborhood feuds, or our political parties, we are forced into a specific camp, and all those other positive things that connect us and that make us care about each other are pushed aside as the high conflict takes over.
As a country, we have fallen into this binary trap, one that Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Adams all warned us against, a two-party system. Over 330,000,000 Americans are being pushed to one side or the other, good vs. bad, and we then generalize about either side. We are primarily forced into them vs. us. It’s like a giant gang war where, even if we disagree only about specific aspects of either party’s philosophy, we are in an all or nothing situation, a conflict trap. We know we have much more in common than not, but we become either a Blood or a Crip.
The most disturbing part of high conflict is its magnetic pull. We get sucked into it, and, not unlike the thousands of animals who died in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, it’s almost impossible to get out. When we fight, we have spikes of cortisol, but when we are in high conflict, cortisol can become a recurring phenomenon that over time impairs memory, concentration and even the immune system. It also contributes to the onset of disease.
There are plenty of individuals who have become very rich by feeding conflict. These conflict entrepreneurs and fire starters like Alex Jones who made $800,000 a day could not care less about us, our beliefs or our future. They care only about their income and power. Like the military-industrial complex, there is a conflict-industrial complex that benefits tremendously by keeping us separated.
The other things that pull us into high conflict are public humiliation, false binaries, the human tendency to blame other people’s behavior on natural character flaws, and the always present truth that the problem is never the problem.
By some estimates, 38 million Americans stopped talking to a family member or friend due to the current politics of the United States. The book points out platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and their trolls, plus media sensationalism as fire starters that fuel endless conflict loops by design. They convert outrage into profit. But there was much more to this than just those areas mentioned. “Technological change, demographic shifts, globalization, badly regulated markets, and rapid social change have caused waves of anxiety and suspicion. Humans do not seem wired to manage change at this pace.”
In summary, these are a few ways Ripley suggests to begin to get out of high conflict. Use looping, a form of interactive listening technique where the listener reflects back what the person seems to have said to check to see if the summary was correct. Magic ratio – remember that a five to one ratio of positive interactions between people will significantly outweigh the negative. Use mediators who ask these types of questions. Imagine your lives ten years in the future, visualize the kinds of relationships you want to have with your kids and with each other. Find new purpose and new goals.
“Remember that anger holds out the possibility for resolution, but hatred’s logical outcome is annihilation.”
Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi in the 13th century said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
It was a very interesting article. It opened my mind to high conflict situations.