HIGH CONFLICT

A revealing study of “high conflict,” the intractable sort that seems to be running like a virus through American society.

In a society, useful conflict helps advance social causes and proves “a force that pushes us to be better people.” Journalist Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World, contrasts this with “high conflict,” the kind that leads practitioners to label their foes as evil rather than merely opposed, that causes us to think differently—and not for the better. “We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side,” writes the author, who adds that it is possible to teach ourselves to deescalate before high conflict results in violence, which is not inevitable but is all too often how such friction works out. Ripley’s observations are provocative, and she introduces us to ideas of mediation and problem-solving that would make many people less miserable if put into practice. Sometimes, however, in the manner of magazine stories, the human-interest anecdotes feel like padding. Other times, the illustrative stories are right on point, as with Ripley’s account of a group of largely conservative Michiganders and largely liberal New Yorkers who met, talked, met and talked more, and realized that they had commonalities enough to help them work through their differences: “Despite everything, in defiance of all the forces keeping them in conflict, they wanted to make sense of each other.” The author adds that this happy result was ephemeral. When the two camps went back home, it didn’t take long before each was entrenched in their former oppositional position, some members even more radicalized. This means, she concludes, that everyone involved has to put in the work: “To keep conflict healthy in an adversarial world, the encounters can’t end.”

Students of mediation, social psychology, and conflict resolution will find much of value here.