High Conflict by Amanda Ripley

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped And How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley is a self-help book published in 2021.

Conflict, like fire, is vital – we need some heat to illuminate what we’ve gotten wrong, understand each other, improve our current processes, and ultimately progress as humanity. However, when a disagreement shifts into high conflict, it can burn down the whole house.

High conflict is when a dispute morphs into an us-versus-them mindset. Scientifically, our brain behaves differently in these environments… and is not pretty. Without a tolerance for differences, people cannot work together in large numbers to solve complex problems, making progress impossible.

Whether ideological disputes, political feuds, or gang vendettas, Ripley defines how high conflict starts and how to escape it, using real-world examples.

Purchase the book by clicking this link!

Enjoy!

Part I – Into Conflict
Part II – Out Of Conflict
Appendix I — how to recognize high conflict in the world
Appendix II — how to recognize high conflict in yourself
Appendix III — how to prevent high conflict

Part I – Into Conflict

The Understory Of Conflict

The problem is not the subject, yelling, or emotion – it’s the stagnation
- Healthy Conflict → movement, questions, curiosity → leads somewhere
- High Conflict → doesn’t lead anywhere, conflict IS the destination
Expand the categorization of “us” and work across differences to make progress
Understand the underlying forces (“understory”)
- Even disagreeing, you loosen your grip on “winning”
Understanding requires listening
- When don’t feel heard → anxious, defensive, oversimplify statements – the walls go up
- When feel heard → more flexible, make coherent points, acknowledge inconsistencies
“Looping”
- Ask a summarizing question like “so it sounds like… is that right?”

The Power Of The Binary

We want to belong in a group
- The easiest way to bond is at the expense of another group
When people are sorted into oppositional categories, high conflict becomes more likely
- New World vs England
- Democrat vs Republican
Categories blur out important details
- How do you divide the complex world into 2 oversimplified categories
- Republicans / Democrats → don’t generalize 100 million people you don’t know
Don’t oversimplify & keep groups flexible
- There is no “good team” & “bad team”, need a back-and-forth
Communication is one of the largest intrapersonal problems
- We think we have conveyed our intentions & desires clearly when we haven’t
- We don’t really know what our intentions & desires are

The Fire Starters

Fire accelerants speed & spread conflict + make it more meaningful (& therefore harder to interrupt)
- Group Identities
- Conflict Entrepreneurs
- Humiliation
- Corruption
Powerful group identities make conflict far more volatile
- When someone in our group feels pain, we biologically feel that pain too
- Groups are harder to control – it only takes 1 or 2 rogues to create mayhem
- Groups never let you forget the conflict
Conflict entrepreneurs intentionally stoke rival identities to boost popularity / power
- Without them, it’s harder to feel like there’s an “us”
- Turns neighbors against neighbors
- Modi in India, Trump in United States
Humiliation is one of the largest social pains – poses threat to our feeling of worth

Part II – Out Of Conflict

Buying Time

Saturation Point — where losses finally seem heavier than the gains (not worth it)
- Suffering → Saturation Point → Slight distancing from conflict → Opportunity for change
The key to leaving high conflict = Time & Space
- To leave high conflict, you need a new identity
- Distance (in form of time & space) needed to cultivate new identity
- People can struggle between identities for years
When you spend time & get to know someone, they become harder to categorize & generalize, as long as:
- Everyone has equal status (at least in encounter)
- Respected authority supports get-together
- Don’t just talk, but work together on common problem
- Everyone involved wants to be there
Relationships change more than facts
- Many conflicts are about belonging – finding a sense of identity in the group
- You can’t just change laws, you have to change people’s hearts

Making Space

There is no “winning”
- The goal of healthy conflict is to make us all better
Compromising / complying is not the answer (no conflict = no progression)
Free space by disrupting conflicts feedback loops
- Switch Up Group Identities
  - No one is just a white man or black man – we are also sports fans, churchgoers, dog owners, parents, etc
- Magic Ratio
  - Relationships with healthy conflict had 5x daily positive interactions than negative (5:1)
- Speak the other side’s moral language
  - Ex — “protect the purity of nature” vs “caring for the planet”
- Keep it complex – don’t collapse into good vs evil, us vs them
  - There is rarely complete & permanent separation

Reverse Engineering

Millions would leave high conflict if only they could see a way out
To help people out of conflict at scale, make a clear path that is safe, legitimate, and easy-to-find
- Ex — why pardons worked for converting pirates
- Ex — Colombia’s FARC demobilization ads during national soccer games had more success than the 2016 formal peace treaty
Don’t ask people to betray remaining identities
- Nelson Mandela — “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
- Help people by keeping the new identity alive
The public matters just as much as governments / organizations
- If communities don’t welcome former combatants, they will go where they feel they belong – which is usually back to the conflict

Complicating The Narrative

When you avoid differences, you miss the opportunity to grow intellectually & emotionally
- Be curious & keep an open mind – try to learn
- Don’t let a narrative be the grounds for a decision about people
Complicate the narrative early & often to cultivate healthy conflict
- Aware of the complexity of issues → see the world as less binary (not only right & wrong) → allows you to be more curious & open to information → healthy conflict
Separation often leads to prejudice
- In segregated societies, encounters won’t happen naturally → you won’t learn about / understand the other side → negative stereotypes magnify & distrust accumulates → limited interaction that does happen becomes awkward
- Ex — British officers colonizing India
- Ex — The American home is the ultimate echo chamber – people increasingly live, date, and marry in their own political tribes

Appendix I — how to recognize high conflict in the world

Language To Listen For:
- Do people use sweeping, grandiose, or violent language to describe this conflict?
  - Language seems disproportionate to conflict – everything is magnified in high conflict
- Are rumors, myths, or conspiracy theories present?
  - High conflict tends to erupt in places of low trust → hard to create consensus about the facts → easy for conflict entrepreneurs to inflame situation further
Actions To Watch For:
- Do other people withdraw from the conflict, leading to the appearance of just two binary extremes?
  - The most extreme are the most vocal & complexity collapses → most helpful flee the situation → leaves only 2 options, a false binary
- Does the conflict seem to have its own momentum?
  - Us-versus-them takes over — actual differences of opinion became less important than the conflict itself

Appendix II — how to recognize high conflict in yourself

Good Conflict	High Conflict
Humility	Certainty
Fluidity	Rigidity
Many Different Emotions	Same Emotions
Complexity	Simplicity
Novelty	Predictability
Passion	Righteousness
Spikes in Stress, Followed by Recovery	Chronic Stress
Curiosity	Assumption
Questions	Advocacy
All Sides Want Solution	One / All Sides Don’t Want Solution – Want To Fight
Feelings of sadness when bad things happen to other side	Feelings of happiness when bad things happen to other side
Non-zero-sum Thinking	Zero-sum Thinking
Violence Unlikely	Violence More Likely

If you answered “yes” to 5+ questions, you may be in high conflict
- Do you lose sleep thinking about this issue?
- Do you feel good when something bad happens to the other person / side, even if it doesn’t directly benefit you?
- If the other side were to do something you actually agreed with, some small act, would it feel very uncomfortable to acknowledge this out loud?
- Does it feel like the other side is brainwashed beyond the reach of moral reasoning?
- Do you ever feel stuck? Like your brain keeps spinning, ruminating over the same grievances, over and over again, without ever uncovering any new insights?
- When you talk about the conflict with people who agree with you, do you say the same things over and over?
- Has someone who knows you very well told you they don’t recognize you anymore?
- Do you ever find yourself defending your own side by pointing out that the other side does the same thing or worse?
- Do you see different people on the other side as essentially interchangeable?
- Do you use words like “always,” “good,” “bad,” “us” and “them,” or “war” when you talk about the conflict?
- Do you find it hard to feel genuine curiosity about the other side’s thoughts, intentions, or actions?

Appendix III — how to prevent high conflict

Investigate The Understory
- Possibly need a third party
- Vulnerability is commonly the underlying issue
Reduce The Binary
- Try not to form unnecessary groups – if necessary, have more than two
- Don’t let complexity collapse into competition
Marginalize The Fire Starters
- Who tries to bond with other people over shared grievances against another group? Which leaders use the language of war to motivate their followers when there is no war?
- It’s not who has moderate ideas, it’s who are the conflict entrepreneurs – you can have radical beliefs BUT not hold an us-versus-them mindset
Buy Time & Make Space
- “Go To The Balcony” → think from an outsider’s perspective
- Create a shock absorber & when conflict arises, it won’t escalate quickly
Complicate The Narrative
- If you are really curious about people who disagree with you, conflict is healthier almost immediately
- Requires humility & security

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