Thinking about conflict

Yascha Mounk wants us all to get along, somehow. He is a political scientist who has written urgently about the rise of populist, demagogic politics. He currently produces a podcast and a Substack devoted to trying to discern how we might moderate our political polarization. In a recent episode, he interviewed journalist Amanda Ripley about her concept (and new book) High Conflict whose premise seems to be that our divides are, if not created, at least exacerbated, by our being overrun by "conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries."

Ripley's "conflict entrepreneurs" seem to be people who in any situation enjoy acting as trolls. Like, for example, Donald Trump.

Goodness knows, this is a society which goes in for humiliation -- Ripley has also written about education, the venue in which too many of us are successfully taught they are "no good," stupid.

And then there are her "false binaries." Since I just wrote a post asking for more clarity in recognizing irreconcilable political binaries -- binaries I believe are anything but false -- Ripley's comments presented a challenge.

Here's a much abbreviated excerpt from the discussion between Mounk and Ripley:

Mounk:...  in [healthy] conflict, I might have a demand, I might have something that’s really important to me—I’m a worker who wants a raise, or I’m part of some identity group that feels inadequately recognized and valued—but there is a goal where if I make real progress towards it, or if I reach it completely, then I’m happy to stand down. Whereas in high conflict, it actually feels like the goal is hating the other person. ...

Ripley: In high conflict, emotion is driving the train. I admit to that myself. I remember, early on in Trump’s tenure, he did something—I can’t remember what it was, something about China. I remember having this sudden thought that, actually, that was not a bad idea—but not even wanting to have the thought in my head, let alone verbalize it. Then I realized I felt like if I gave him an inch, he’d take a mile—as if we were in a relationship. It’s a trick of the brain, as if he and I were in conversation, which we’re not. So, it’s a fear. It’s a lack of trust. It’s easier, in a way, to keep things binary: bad, good. ...

Mounk: ... It’s like you're desecrating the sacredness of your cause by thinking about how you might put it in a way that’ll actually attract support. Of course, we live in a democracy, and that means you have to think about majorities, and that can sometimes be a slightly dirty business. But if you actually cared about the cause, you would be willing to reframe your argument in the ways that makes it most likely for your cause to happen—whereas I think it’s an indication that you care more about being on the good side when you become reluctant to do that. ... 

Ripley: ... We keep seeing it like we cannot solve the problems we want to solve. ...The behavior is a fantasy that we carry, that the enemy will vanish from the face of the earth. It reminds me of how if you look at the research on emotion in conflict, anger is good because it assumes that you want the other side to be better. Hatred, contempt, is not easy to work with because it assumes that there is no redemption and annihilation is really the only logical solution. ... 

In high conflict, you’ll eventually start to mimic the behavior of your adversaries to different degrees. You’ll end up hurting the thing you hold most dear, most likely: In every high conflict I’ve looked at, that’s what happened. ...

Mounk: Do you think that there is a way out of high conflict—that it’s not easy, it’s not straightforward, but there are steps we can take to actually get out of it?

Ripley: ...What you’re trying to do is slow down conflict. ... Another thing is to investigate the understory. We talked about how there’s the thing you fight about and the thing it’s really about. Get really curious about what that thing is underneath it—not only for you, but also for the people on the other side. Most big controversial policy debates in the United States are about fear. But we don’t talk about that as much as we do the policy. At this level of conflict, the fear is driving the train.

This conversation didn't wean me from believing that some binaries need to be highlighted rather than defused. Racism, nationalism, empowered greed, gender rigidities -- these are simply wrong. I am not ashamed of sacralizing the struggle against them, though I take Ripley's (and most every moral philosopher's) point that the danger in such conflict is becoming more like the opponent. And also that it is worth remembering that the other side operates from within its terrors.

Yet it's an ethical imperative to say loudly what's so wrong. We are living under threat from a minority political party that would rather tear down the country than share it by majority rule with people who think differently.

Mounk's book on populism surprised me by recognizing the power of people in the streets in the struggle for democracy. He may have been more insightful in that than he seems to me in his current project.