I think part of the problem in our relationships is that our expectations about relationships may be faulty. We expect there to be no conflict; we want everyone to agree on everything. That’s a fantasy. We are each individual people with differing points of views who come from different backgrounds. When we try to enact that fantasy, we limit ourselves to only people who already agree with us. But eventually we will come to disagree with everyone at least some of the time. We are individuals, with our own unique viewpoint, our own unique pattern. We need to change our expectations to take into account the idea that people will often disagree but that we can work toward resolving those conflicts in a positive way. We need to work to toward healthy conflict. A healthy conflict? Conflict can be good? That’s a shocking idea. I think we believe all conflict is bad, that we should never have conflict. Indeed, when a group I was in was asked for words to describe conflict, the responses were mostly negative. The group was surprised at the end when one person used the word healthy. In her book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How to Get Out, journalist and author Amanda Ripley describes what a healthy conflict is. In her words: “In healthy conflict, there is movement. Questions get asked. Curiosity exists. There can be yelling too. But healthy conflict leads somewhere. It feels more interesting to get to the other side than to stay in it.” She contrasts this with a different type of conflict, what she calls “high conflict,” which “is the destination. There’s nowhere else to go.” And it can hold us in a “trance” that we have to break in order to get out. So maybe when we think negatively about conflict, we are only thinking about high conflict. Social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership Jonathan Haidt says that if we don’t engage with those we disagree with, “we become stupid.” That’s because healthy conflict is conflict that we learn from. We can have healthy conflict when we feel that those we disagree with have something to offer to us. When we want to be challenged, it’s because we want to be better people and to solve our big problems. The ones we disagree with have a different point of view that can help us solve the difficult problems of our world. We need their ideas. And we do have wicked problems to solve! If we continue to stay in high conflict, then we’ll never learn what others can teach us. We’ll never solve those wicked problems. I try to learn from every conflict I’m in. It isn’t easy, but it is worth it. I’m definitely a better person because of it. I learn about myself, and I learn about other world views. We need to learn the skills that help us turn high conflict into healthy conflict. Let’s break the trance and deliberately work on getting to the other side. Let’s get smarter. Let’s have a holiday dinner with healthy conflict, not high conflict.
Quaker Karen left a career in corporate America to go to seminary to study religion. Since then she has written a book on how we can talk to each other in a new way that is more respectful and can help us solve our political differences: Persuade, Don't Preach.
