High Conflict Quotes

“1. What is oversimplified about this conflict?
2. What do you want to understand about the other side?
3. What do you want the other side to understand about you?
4. What would it feel like if you woke up and this problem was solved?
5. What's the question nobody's asking?
6. What do you want to know about this controversy that you don't already know?
7. Where do you feel torn?
8. Tell me more.”
― Amanda Ripley, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out

“In her search for solutions [to high conflict], [Amanda] Ripley shows that the process of escaping these situations usually involves five steps. Participants in the conflict, she suggests, need to “investigate the understory” that made them so invested in the first place. They should “reduce the binary,” recognizing that they may share more values and interests with their adversaries than they realize. They must “marginalize the fire starters,” ceasing to listen to those who seem to get a thrill out of the fight. They should “buy time and make space,” stopping themselves from escalating when they feel triggered. Most important, they need to “complicate the narrative,” recognizing that any story in which one side consists of pure heroes and the other of cartoonish villains is unlikely to be altogether accurate.”
― Yascha Mounk

“Many people do not want a solution if it offends their other ideas of what is safe and pure--or if it means they will have to let go of an apocalyptic narrative that has become part of their identity.”
― Amanda Ripley, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out