Amanda Ripley's "High Conflict", with Ankur Delight [Ep. 33]

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping Podcast from Mediate.Com,
the podcast that explores socialconflict and what to do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May.
And today I have with me Ankur Delight.
Ankur is a mathematician, slashmediator, slash podcast host,
slash anarchist founder of a funkcollective, which is probably my

(00:30):
favorite part of that sentence.
Based in Washington nowadays,he's lived on every continent,
except probably Antarctica, butI mean, no one can say for sure.
His podcast is 10, 000 Heroes,and he wants to help humans be
the species they want to seein the world, so welcome Ankur.

Ankur Delight (00:48):
Hello.
Hello.
I'm so happy to be here.

Laura (00:51):
I am so happy to have you here because we're going to do something really
different for this podcast today becausewe're going to do a very chatty book
review of a book that I have not read.
And you're going to tell me all aboutthis book and I'm immensely looking
forward to it and the inevitable seguesand journeys that will go on on the way.
Just a minor heads up for listenersthat this episode does come with

(01:14):
a bit of a language warning, but Ihope you stick around to listen to
anyway, because we had a lot of fun.
And so firstly, what is thebook and what brought you to it?

Yeah.
Okay.
The book is called High Conflict.
It's by Amanda Ripley.
And I have a problem with books andlike a lot of people will say that,
oh, I have a problem with books.
I just read so many books, andI'm just addicted to books and
I'm just so good at reading.
That that is not my problem.

(01:46):
My problem is that I have these10 books I want to read and then
people recommend other books.
And I don't know why.
I say yes.
And I'm just like, Oh, it sounds cool.
You know, I just, I like people.
I want to connect.
Like you should read this book.
I'm like, well, okay, I'll read this book.
So I have no idea who recommended thisbook to me or why I read it, but it's

(02:08):
totally about what I want to learn about.
So it's, it's all, it's good.
You know, it's good for me to have readthis book, because I'm interested in
mediation and conflict, and really theinternals and the externals of conflict.
And how the conflict we see in theworld all around us is related to
what's going on in our own hearts.
And this book addresses that.
So, that's the best I can doin terms of how I got there.

Laura (02:32):
But I love that, but side note, it sounds more like you have a
friend problem than a book problem.
Like your friends recommending the booksare really the problem you have here.
You need less proactive friends.

God, that is just so accurate.
I have a friend problem.
I do.

Laura (02:48):
We're already getting to the heart of things, you know, you said just now
we're getting to the conflict and howit comes to our heart and vice versa
and we're going straight for the 'youhave too many friends and you have a
book problem' so we're starting with thepersonal stuff and then going to the book.
But tell me about this book thoughi mean what is the general idea
that Ripley's trying to convey?

So, everyone in this space of conflict resolution, I've
noticed, has their own term forwhat I would call 'shitty conflict'.
You know what I'm talking about?

Laura May (03:18):
yeah i do just i

So some people are like, oh, there's constructive conflict.
And then there's destructive conflictor there's, conflict that is
life giving and life enhancing andthere's conflict that just sucks.
And her term is high conflictand it's conflict where we
start demonizing the other side.
We're entrenched into teams.
I don't believe anything you say.
It's all lies.

(03:41):
There's, the fundamental attributionerror, all that stuff comes out.
And that's what she's talking aboutis how people get into that vortex
of, of conflict, which she calls highconflict and how we can get out of it.

Laura (03:55):
Okay.
And so I understand as well, Ripley'sbackground is a journalist, right?
Rather than an academic or aconflict practitioner per se.
I was actually at an online eventa couple of years ago where she
launched this book, weirdly enough.
And I was in this strange moment of nothaving read the book, not knowing who
she was or what it was about, but havingthis book presented to me in a slide.

(04:18):
So I did buy it.
I didn't read it.
So you are a better person thanI is really the takeaway here.
Cause even having the authorin front of me didn't compel
me to actually do the reading.

Yeah, I mean, I think what we've learned throughout this call is that
I'm a better person than you in many ways.

Laura (04:33):
wow.

One of the ways is that I read it, but didn't buy it
because I got it from the library
and I'm also drinking tea andyou're drinking a cocktail.
So,

Laura (04:42):
I mean, to be fair, we are at different ends of the day.
It's 6pm here.
It's 9am there, but I feel like we'rejust having our appropriate drinks.
That's the story.
Okay.
So take your moral judgments away from me.
Or we'll end up in a high conflict
and so when you're reading thisbook , I mean you've already expressed
a certain amount of cynicism aroundrelabeling a thing that we already

(05:05):
are aware of, right, this concept ofgood and bad conflict or whatever,
because we also love to dichotomizeand to put things into two buckets
.But setting that cynicism aside for a moment, are there things
that you learned from this book?
What were your key takeaways?

Oh, yeah, totally.
Totally.
I know I learned a lot and Iactually really, I enjoyed it.
I was just being a little snarkyabout it because it is true.
And it's a, it's a branding thing,
You know, like the, the next bookthat I read after this, is called
Against Empathy and it's just like,it's just a terrible and inaccurate

(05:41):
title and I think the title of itis going to do a lot of harm in the
world, but it's a branding thing.
Like, the book is really about,let's moderate the use of empathy
in public policy decision making.
And, I think he's just totallyright on with that because it's
really detrimental to use empathyin public policy decision making.
But you can't sell a book and get to theNew York Times bestsellers with that.

(06:05):
So you got to call itAgainst Empathy, right?
Just to create the source ofcontroversy and gain attention.
Anyhow, that's the part I'ma little bit, but the actual
content of the book is great.
I wonder, would you like to hearjust the insights or do you want to
hear a little bit about each of thechapters to bring out the flavor
and kind of summarize the book?

Laura (06:24):
Let's do that.
Let's have some flavor so it cango alongside my Aperol spritz and
have some tasty mental food as well.

Yeah, no, it's good.
I mean the book, it's, it's goingto, she's a journalist, so I think
she knows how to tell stories andpick stories that are interesting.
So, and I'll, I'll just, I'll go overit briefly, but the first chapter, is
about a guy, his name is Gary Friedman.
And apparently, according to her,it's just according to the book,
so I'm not like doing my ownresearch here, was one of the people
that invented divorce mediation.

(06:54):
And he was a lawyer in Marin County.
Two people came to him, married people.
And they were like, yo,we want to get a divorce.
We need you to help us.
And he's like, he'slike, dude, I'm a lawyer.
I can help one you.
I'm not going to help both of you.
I can help one of you.
This is how I'd roll.
And they're like, no, no, wewant you to help both of us.
He's like, no, I don't play that.
It's just like now how this works,

(07:15):
But they, they, I don'tknow how long this took.
They eventually convinced him.
And he kind of invented or reinventeddivorce mediation with, it seems like
a really heart centered storytellingfocused approach of like, you know,
tell me and the other person whyyou got together in the first place,

(07:35):
like really starting the beginning.
And trying to get all of their their storyand their pain on the table and whatever.
I bought his book actually,haven't read it yet,

Laura (07:46):
oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
I love that.
You're like, you know, you started thisoff saying, I'm a better person than you.
And then you're like, yeah,they're in this pain, but whatever.
but sure, carry on.
Okay, good.
So you bought a new book.
So the pile of booksalso continues to grow.
That's very helpful for you too.

Well, we can, we can, we can get into my problems or now
and later, but this guy, he did thisreally successfully for 30 years.
He's like this amazing mediator.
Everyone in his life is like, Ohmy God, Gary, you're so great.
You're so mediation, blah, blah, blah.
And then for some reason he decidesto run for office in his small town.

(08:23):
It's like a 300 person town and some,some little town in Marin County.
And it's not even a paid position.
It's something like volunteer utilityboard, like the water board or I'm not
going to the electricity company, whichI know could be triggering for you.

Laura (08:36):
Yes, because as you know, I'm in a high conflict with my electricity company.
So thank you for not bringing that up,

Yeah.
I think it was the water board.
So I think you're safe.

Laura (08:46):
you're safe.
I

But what happens, when he runs for election.
He switches into this high conflictmode and just becomes a total asshole.
And during the election afterwards, hewins the way he treats the other people
in the town who did not vote for himor do not agree with his new ideas.
It's just it's the oppositeof what you would expect.

(09:08):
The guy who like reinvented or inventeddivorce mediation and his whole family is
like, man, something is wrong with you.
And, and so the, that chapter is abouthow this guy got into that way of being,
even though he was maybe one of theworld's expert in not getting sucked into
high conflict and then how he got out.

Laura (09:28):
It's interesting, but it also makes me reflect because I don't know
if you've noticed this in your workwith mediators . But a lot of the time,
mediators are kind of high conflictpeople, they're drawn to the conflict,
like not all of them, you know, there'ssort of a few different flavors of
mediator, but there's a bunch of them thatjust can't stay away from conflict, and
so when they're helping other people withit , they're not emotionally involved.

(09:50):
But then the moment they're in an argumentwith someone else, they go full rage.
It's like they see red.
And so I'm actually not totallysurprised that you said this because
I have, I have seen it happen.

Yeah.
I, I haven't experienced it personally,but I'm also haven't been in the
field nearly as long as you have.
So I, it, it makes sense.
You know, it's just like, okay,we're attracted to something.
We can, we can satisfy that attractionin a constructive way by being a
part of someone else's conflict.
But if we don't havethat outlet, it's like.
Well, I guess I got to create a conflict.

Laura (10:22):
That's really interesting though.
I mean, but I, I wonder, cause Imean, I definitely am occasionally
conflictual as a human being, mostlywhen it comes to electricity companies.
But obviously that's not how I amwhen I am mediating a conflict.
But what about yourself?
Because you're a trained mediator,you're stepping into the mediation
world and getting amongst that.

(10:42):
I mean, do you notice a differenceyourself between when you're
mediating and when you're havingyour own personal conflict?

Oh, yeah.
I mean, the whole thing withmediation, or helping other people
in any way, really, is It's allgreat until you get triggered.
And so it's really easy not to gettriggered when you're helping other
people because it's not about you.
But if, if they say anything that makesit about you, then it's not easy anymore.

(11:11):
So I was, observing, I was justobserving a mediation on a parenting
plan between two divorced parents.
And the child in questionwas a five year old girl.
I have a six year old girl.
And I got really triggered by theway that they were talking about
this child and treating this child.
And I, I just felt reallyconcerned for the quality of

(11:32):
life this child would have.
And it, it really, it tookme out of being present.
That was just an observer.
You know, if I were mediating it,it would have been even harder.
But here's my main thing about conflict.
If you can know when you're in the paniczone, if you can know when you should stop
having the conversation, like you win.

Laura (11:54):
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.

And most of the time we just don't know that.
And like, I'm involved in adiscussion with my wife, you
know, becomes an argument.
This probably happens like every week.
Yeah.
And, and before I know it, I'm like sayingthings that I just should not be saying.
And, and it's because I am notaware that I'm in the panic zone.
And that, that awareness oflike, Oh, I flipped a switch and

(12:19):
nothing I say or do is going tobe constructive in this moment.
And I should just stopand get a little space.
It is so hard to have that awareness.
And , when you're watching otherpeople fight, it's like, it's not
hard because you're not triggered.
But that, that to me is like the essentialthing that I think I am working on.

(12:41):
And that we all probably need to work on.

Laura (12:45):
hmm.
And I wonder, because I mean,you mentioned that you're
observing this mediation thatwas also triggering for you.
I wonder if it actually would in someways be easier if you were the mediator
because you're in that mediationmode of reflecting and summarizing
and it's not about you as opposed tothis sort of independent third party
who is just watching and they havethe space for emotional responses and

(13:08):
to be their full selves as opposedto mediator, mediator of the day.
Interesting.
I can't remember the last timeI really lost it at somebody.
I really can't remember.
It'd be a very long time.
I think I'm, I'm not eventhat chill of a person.
I just, maybe I'm more emotionallystable than I thought I was.
Except when it comes toelectricity companies.

Yeah.
Maybe, maybe you're like, maybe you'reexactly what we need on this planet.
Maybe all of my comments about you beinga bad person because you bought books
you didn't read and are drinking Aperol.
Maybe that was all just bullshit.

Laura (13:38):
Yeah.
That was all projection.
That was all you unleashing your owninsecurities on me to bring me down.
Oh my goodness.
All right.
So that's chapter one.

So chapter two is about a guy in Chicago.
His name is Curtis.
And he grew up to be a gang leader,which is really It's an entrepreneur

Laura (14:00):
Like, leadership role?
Good on you!

Definitely a leadership role.
Definitely a lot of responsibility,definitely selling a lot of drugs involved
a lot of violence, you know, but he'sa conflict entrepreneur in a way.
And that's another term she usesa lot is conflict entrepreneur.
People who like start conflicts.
And.
I actually think that'sa pretty good term.
It, it complexifies entrepreneurship.

(14:23):
Cause entrepreneurship, you know, inthe last four years, I was like starting
my own business and it was a very,like in this entrepreneurial world.
And entrepreneurship is very positive.
And I really liked that.
It's like, it is.
I mean, you know, like many things,it's a tool, it's an energy.
It's a way of being in the world.
It can be used for alot of different things.
And you can be an entrepreneur oflike a normal legal weapons company,

(14:46):
or you can be an entrepreneur in likean illegal weapons company and they're,
they're not, you know, in my mind,neither of those is like very positive.
Or you can be an entrepreneur that'sdoing something really positive.
So it complexifies the term.

Laura (14:57):
So what happens with Curtis?
Where does he go from this?
Conflict entrepreneurialism.
What happens next?
Mm

Yeah.
So she's telling the story.
She wants you to have empathy for Curtis.
So it just talks about his difficultchildhood, how he didn't want to
be a gang person, blah, blah, blah.
He ends up being the gang leader.
But the part that's relevant tothe story is that at some point
he's like, I need to get out.
This is too dangerous for me.
He's got a family at this point.
It's too dangerous for my family.
He's got all this like cash,money, cars, guns, and all this.

(15:25):
But he's like, I just.
I need to get out.
And it's really hard for him to get out.
And that's one of thethemes of the book.
I have these six things I wanted toshare with you, like what I learned.
And I'll just go into this,this one right now, because it's
really appropriate to Curtis.
Is that his sense of identity.
We all have many identities.

(15:47):
We all have multiple identities.
And his identities have kind of beencollapsed into gang leader, both
personally for him is how he sees himself,but also how the rest of society sees him.

Laura (15:58):
Hmm

And or so it becomes very difficult for him both internally and
externally to expand those identities.
And it's not just gang leader,it's leader of a specific gang.
So if someone else is anothergang, they're not like, Hey,
you're a fellow gang leader.
Let's go to our weeklygang leader meeting park.
No, it's like, I'm going to kill you.
You know, it's really not, it's the,the identities are so narrow, right?

(16:21):
if he's trying to get a jobsomewhere, they're like, dude, you're
a gang person, we don't want you.
And so both from his own belief systemand his colleagues or competitors and
just the rest of society, that's notinvolved in the gang thing at all.
He's a, he's a gang leaderof this specific gang.
And it's like, well, we almostdon't allow him or he doesn't
allow himself to behave in a waythat is outside of those bounds.

(16:45):
And so it's very, it'svery difficult for him.
And there's this beautiful storywhere he quits and then he moves
to a different part of town.
Which is basically, he chooses toexile himself from everyone he's ever
known, except for his wife and child,because they're all in this gang world.
And so he can either hang out with peoplehe knows and get back in the gang thing

(17:07):
or leave and then not have any friends.
So he does that, which to me, given myfriend problem would be very difficult.
So I'm like, man, That'sa difficult move, Curtis.
Props, you know, that's, that's good.
And then his cousin shows up at hishouse, I don't know, six months
later, Curtis can't find a job.
He's almost going bankruptand all this stuff.

(17:27):
And his cousin shows up with some sortof fancy, some fancy car and opens
a trunk and it's just full of drugs.
And he's like, Hey, I just, this is toomany drugs for me to sell on my own.

Laura (17:39):
This trunk of drugs is too many drugs.

It's too many drugs, can you help me sell this trunk of drugs.
And it's like, he's got no friends.
He's got no money.
It's a very difficult decisionfor him at that point.
And I'm not going to say whathappens because that would be a
spoiler, but that chapter is aboutthe difficulty of exiting conflict.
Mm.

Laura (18:02):
It kind of reminds me of the story of Derek Black.
He was the, I want to say the godsonof the leader of the KKK in the U.
S.
And he led like a youth radio showthat was super obviously racist and
everything ist for a really long time.
Cause he grew up in that kind of field.
And there's actually afantastic book about him by a

Oh no.
Oh no.
Now I'm going to have to read this book.

Laura (18:29):
I'm one of the friends with the problem.
But it's a fantastic, it's a reallyfantastic book and it talks about
this exact issue of escaping.
So you see the change between whensomeone starts to, this is kind of
spoiler, but it's really obvious whereit goes cause this is in the blurb.
And so when someone starts toquestion, why am I like this?
What are the other ways of thinkingand then taking small steps out,

(18:52):
but it is difficult because youhave to make big choices about
who you cut out of your life.
But especially if it's been like alifelong thing, as it was with Curtis,
as it was with Derek in this other book.
Of course it takes anabsolutely mammoth effort.
So yeah, huge, huge.
Well, I'm assuming, I don't know.
Props to Curtis, not props to Curtis.
I don't know what he didwith the trunk of drugs.

(19:13):
So no, no spoilers in this.
But it's fascinating for sure.
But something else you saidreally struck me as well.
And that's where you mentionedthis collapse of identity.
That kind of experience whereeveryone's almost just this one thing.
Cause yeah, we see that really alot in situations of polarization
of whatever kind, where it's just,you are this or you are that, team

(19:36):
A, team B, whatever, whatever.
But it also really reminds me, andthis is going to trigger some people,
but like of toxic masculinity.
Where there's only one way to be a man andbe valid and everything else is inferior.
And so we see this same issue ofsimplified identities being a problem in
many, many different spheres, actually.
But it's also easier, it's moredifficult to complexify and start to

(20:00):
appreciate nuance of things, whetherit's your own identity was the
identities of other people as well.
But I'm feeling like this is wherewe're heading to with Ripley's book in
that we need to be able to complexifyto get away from high conflict.

100%.
Yeah, her takeaway is this collapse frommultiple identities into a single identity
is a tool of conflict entrepreneursand reinforces high conflict.
It makes it very difficultfor us to escape.
And so to escape, we have tobreak down and they're illusions.
They're totally illusions thatwe're all one identity, even

(20:36):
on a super political issue.
Like I was on a boat catching shrimpwith some friends the other day.
And we had this whole discussion,of, the Black Lives Matter, Defund
the Police movement, and you know,it really starts with these slogans,
which are often just very silly.
But what was really beautiful in thatconversation is that there's this

(20:57):
one guy who I don't know that well,and he, to me, was almost like some
sort of weird, avatar idol example ofbeing able to complexify it because
every sentence he was going back andforth with like real understanding
of all of the different sides.
And in one sentence, he was reallyempathizing with police officers and
firefighters, people he knows that haveto deal with all of the like fentanyl

(21:19):
stuff that's going down right nowthat it's just like super messed up.
And then on the otherside being like, yeah.
And you see the videos of peoplejust getting murdered basically
by our public safety officialsand how messed up that is.
And, and really able to belike, not in any box and that
guy has multiple identities.
That guy is in solidaritywith multiple different groups

(21:40):
of people at the same time.
And I think the essence of what AmandaRipley is talking about is why do we
have to just understand one perspective?
Why do we have to only have one identitythat's like, I'm on this team where we
were born being on so many different,we're born being on all the teams.

Laura (22:01):
or none of the teams.
It depends which way you look at it.
I guess.

Totally.
Totally.
And then there's this otherpart that the way that collapse
of identity informs community.
And so I'll get into that.
This is a chapter three.
It's about, yeah the FARC inColombia and the paramilitaries
in Colombia and the Colombiancivil war for the last X decades.

(22:26):
And this one woman, Sandra, who at somepoint basically grows up in this village.
Her relatives are killed by theselike right wing paramilitaries.
She ends up joining the FARC, getsinvolved with stuff she really
doesn't want to be involved with.
You know, her family is killed.
A lot of people are killed at some point.
She escapes and she's like,okay, I need to find a way out.

(22:48):
And it's really hard for her to finda way out, even though the Colombian
government for years has had thesedemobilization programs and these ads
they put on during soccer games andon the radio of like, come in, turning
your guns, no matter what side you'reon, we'll help you rebuild life.
And so the chapters about how great thatis and kind of how effective that can be

(23:08):
and then how limited it is and how thereshould be like more things like that.
And part of it is this community aspect.
And it's a little bit like theCurtis thing of if people know
that you're an ex combatant,they don't want to deal with you.
And the people who you left, likeyour FARC group, if you left them,
they don't want to deal with you.
You're just, you're just kind ofalone and assaulted on all sides

(23:32):
when you betray your single collapsedidentity and you betray the community
that's based on that identity.

Laura (23:39):
It's funny you should say that, because I recorded an episode last
April with Solveig Richter and LauraCamila Barrios, and it was exactly about
this, and it was about Colombia and theongoing security issues as a result of
failed demobilization and what-have-you.
So you can add that toyour listening list.
All right.
But yeah, it sounds like a really,a really difficult situation

(24:02):
and it's, and it's so complex.
Beautiful country though.
It's strongly recommended.
Definitely go visit it.
But you probably havevisited Colombia, right?
Because you visited all the places,

Yes.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah.
I'm just going to get fromfrom a fruitarian perspective.
I just want to highlight it for theaudience that Colombia is very special
in that they have these pineappleswith a red outside that are totally
sweet and have no acidity that I'venever found anywhere else in the world.

Laura (24:29):
There are so many weird fruits in Colombia.
Like I went and stayed, this isyears ago now, I went and stayed
with an indigenous group for a weekin the, in the Colombian Amazon.
And you know, I was vegetarian,so I'm not fruitarian.
I don't know.
Are you fruitarian?
Is that what I'm hearing?
Does that mean you only eat?

Not at the moment.
I had a fruitarian epic, but not now.

Laura (24:49):
right.
Okay.
But so they weren't quite sure whatto feed me and they gave me so many
fruits, but they would hand them to meand I just didn't know how to eat them.
Cause it's like, do you peel this?
Do you chew this?
Which part do you eat?
And it was really a journey.
So I can definitely relate to Colombia'sspecial fruit, which is sounds like

(25:11):
we're going back to the drugs in thetrunk, but that's not where I'm going.
Anyway.
So coming back from thered pineapples in Colombia.
So we're in chapter three, and sohow do things pan out for Sandra?
Is she able to complexifyor is she drawn back in and
trapped in this conflict spiral.

No, she gets out.
She gets out.
And it's the story of her, ups and downsof receiving that governmental and social
support to get out and like, you know, shedoes join this program and she is paid a
certain amount and there is job training,but then some of the people are like, when
they find out that she has to go to thisweekly kind of probation thing as part
of her demobilization, she gets fired.

(25:50):
And basically the point Amanda's makingis the more we do things like that as a
society, the, the worse off we're goingto be, you know, if we don't create
structures for people to escape conflict,because then, and then she talks about
Glenn Beck, who I didn't, I don't knowif you know about this Glenn Beck guy,

Laura (26:08):
I don't think so.
I've heard this name, but I, I don't know.

I think he's a very famous, like right wing
political commentator on Fox.
And at a certain point, and his stuff wasvery, of course, divisive and inflammatory
and, you know, conflict entrepreneur,increasing outrage, that kind of stuff.
And at a certain point he waslike, you know, this is wrong.
This is messed up.

(26:32):
I got to stop doing this.
And he changed the whole essenceof his show and lost 70 percent
of his viewers and was fired.
And a couple of years later, he endedup going back to the way he was before.
And, the way she's using the story islike for people like Curtis and Sandra and
Glenn Beck, if you don't give them a senseof welcome and community that they can

(26:57):
recreate another life, it is their bestoption to go back to the life they had.

Laura (27:02):
Yeah.
I'm right there with you.

So chapter four,

Laura (27:06):
Yup.

chapter four is my favorite.
And it's not about a single person.
There's many kinds of things to go on inchapter four, but I'll tell you the part
that I liked about it is that there'sthis group of mostly women from New York
who are liberal and Jewish, and this isorganized through a synagogue that go
to visit a group of mostly male Trumpsupporting prison guards in Michigan

(27:32):
for a homestay program for three days.
And then vice versa tobreak down stereotypes.
And get out of this high conflict thingthat we have as a country in the U S of
the left versus the right and all that.
And it's just beautiful storytelling ofthese individual people's lives and how
they change when they meet each other.

(27:52):
And there's no like happy ending.
It's not like they all formsome sort of new collaborative
centrist party or something.
But their narrative of theOther is slightly complexified.
And to me, it was a little flashlight onthe wall of the kind of things that could
lead to less rancor and more integration.

(28:15):
Like if all the pundits on theTV shows were talking about that
instead of cultivating outrage,we'd be in a very, you know, pushing
us in a very different direction.

Laura (28:27):
And I'm going to again, cross advertise some of the previous episodes.
Cause we've had a couple of peoplewho actually do this kind of work.
One of the first episodes was with RobFersh and Monica Glowacki of Convergence,
they do this kind of work, and also Dr.
Shannon Wheatley Hartman ofthe Interactivity Foundation.
It also actually convenes alot of these types of groups

(28:49):
together and tells these stories.
I think actually also in JuanDiaz's episode, he talks about
some of these projects as well.
So it's a common theme, but you're right.
It's less maybe fun or dramatic than thesesimple stories that we watch to entertain
ourselves and or inform ourselves, it'sless entertaining to hear or to read

(29:10):
or to watch about complex matters,which don't have something obvious.
It was actually a real bugbear of minein that I really can't stand the Marvel
movies because it is good and bad.
That's it.
Like that you don't have the complexityand I really resent, I really resent
it that we take this format that weuse to sort of teach children, you

(29:32):
know, hero rescues victim from villain.
We use that to teach children tomoralize and to show what behaviors
we value and what we don't.
But then we're now reiteratingit as well for adults.
And in light of, you know, we've hadso much talk these last few years of,
particularly affective polarization,but polarization generally, I mean, I

(29:55):
think the last thing we need is to beteaching people to think only in good
versus bad or only in right versus wrong.
I think that's really dangerous, actually.
So I'm not saying everyone needs towatch like black and white French
literary movies or something like this,because I wouldn't watch that either.
I would find that very boring.
But I think it's about beingaware of the fact that we're
oversimplifying something that weneed to put some more thought into.

(30:18):
And we need to add thatnuance and that subtext.
So it is a bug bear of mine.

Can I go back to the fairy tale thing for a second?

Laura (30:28):
Yeah, sure.

Yeah.
So I just read a passage fromKen Cloke, who's my mentor and
hero and just one of the, one ofthe divine lights of mediation.
But he had this beautiful,beautiful quote about, about
fairy tales and conflict.
And he's like, in everyconflict there's a hero.
And usually in every conflict, like everyperson sees themselves as the victim, as,

(30:52):
as the princess, sees the other personas a dragon and wants, you know, the
mediator or somebody else or the guy onthe street to be the hero and save them.
And in every single one of theseconflicts, the potential is for the victim
to see the possibility of their own powerand accountability, to complexify the
dragon, and to see that the bystanderis someone who's like omni partial.

(31:15):
And not just going to help one person.
And so I'm just thinking ofways, cause you're right.
We grow up with this good versusevil story and that's like in us, you
know, it's like deep in there becausewe grew up with it as children and
it's being reinforced, like you'resaying, with almost every movie.
So what's the way that we can transformit so that when we see that we're

(31:37):
reminded of our own responsibility,when we think we're the hero, when
we think we're the dragon, andwhen we think we're the princess.

Laura (31:46):
Well, firstly, I have three book recommendations for you.

God, I'm never going to read the books that I want to read.
I was supposed to read six books.
Ken gave me six books to read this year.
I've read one and a half of them.
And then I've read like ten other randomass books that are not on that list.

Laura (32:03):
Oh my goodness.
Well, one you can sort of listento, if you listen to the episode
with Sam Hardy, she actually writesa lot about the use of stories in
conflict and what you can do about it.
But actually, I've been reallyinfluenced by George Lakoff, who
is a political scientist slashneuroscientist, who wrote a lot about
this kind of thing and about how wehave these, you know, profound stories.
And he calls this reallya Rescue narrative.

(32:24):
Um, the third reading is my thesis,my doctoral thesis, because I
actually worked about how, theways in which blame makes villains.
And I talked about this exact kind ofthing, like how we make them Other, how
we make them bad in my specific case,I was looking at blame, but it's also
criticism and ostracization and stuff likethis , And for me, I mean, there was lots

(32:45):
of sort of things with the micro levelin terms of blame specifically, right?
Like how to redress itand how to counter it.
But as well as the presence of alternativestories and getting a good story in there
before the bad or the destructive onegets in as well, because the first story
we hear is It tends to be the one thatwe, we hold on to and it takes a lot of
sort of, I don't want to use deprogrammingbecause I feel like I'm going into sort

(33:09):
of propagandary fields, but that's,that's really the essence of it.
It takes a lot to actually interrogatethat first learning that we've had.
Case in point, actually, thisis a really silly thing that
happened to me the other day.
I was on a hike and I was eating an apple.
I eat a lot of apples.
I mean, really like a lot moreapples than you would expect.

(33:30):
And I was eating it carefully, as Ialways do, because when I was a small
child, I was probably about 8 years old.
My father told me that he gotsome apple skin caught in his
teeth and he pulled it out and itmade all of his teeth go crooked.
And I had accepted my entire life thatI needed to be very careful eating
apples because if I got apple skincaught, my teeth would become crooked.

(33:53):
And it was literally last weekendthat I was sitting eating apple and I
suddenly thought that's really stupid.
That makes no sense.
Imagine if it was that easyto make your teeth go crooked.
And that's the same thingwith these fairy tales.
We learn them at a formativeage and we don't question them
because they're always there.
And we really organize a lot ofour life or our apple eating habit
around this foundational myth.

(34:15):
So yeah, it's a tricky one, but alsoI'm no longer, I mean, I'm still
a little afraid of eating apples,but like I'm less tentative now.
I embrace the danger of the apple skin.
So dumb.

That's hilarious.

Laura (34:28):
I was literally WhatsApping my friends, like I just had this
realization my teeth might go crookedfrom eating apples like I've believed
this like 30 years, like, and Ieat so many apples and every single
time I thought I was in danger.
Like I've been hyped up on dangerfrom the apples and I just kept going.

Yeah, this has really affected your life for a long time.

Laura (34:48):
well, apparently, yeah.
Like it's not like a severe thing, like,you know, but consistent, a consistent low
level apple based anxiety that I've hadand been dealing with this entire time.
And I'm free more orless of the apple anxiety.
But it just goes to show that you just,you never know what random stories people

(35:10):
are carrying around with them, and howthat affects their living every day.
And that's something I think isreally important to, to think about
in terms of complexifying and in theconflict context and mediation context.
That's all I got there.
But tell me, what wereyour other takeaways?
Because you promised me you hadsix takeaways from this book.
I think we've done two.

Yeah, we, yeah, we, we did three and four in case you're
interested for those who are counting.
We did number three, number four, butwe haven't done one, two, five, and six.
So the first, the first one, which I justthink is so good and cannot be overstated.
She goes over something she callsthe illusion of communication.

(35:50):
And it's just this ideathat we say something.
And we think the person that we're talkingto understood what we wanted to say.
When there's just so many parts wherethat can just totally break down.
And this was in the context of thefirst chapter with the divorce
mediator guy, Gary Friedman.
And he would do this thing thatin the book is called looping.

(36:11):
I know it as say back.
I don't know.

Laura (36:13):
Yeah.
I thought it was looping or avariant of mirroring, but yeah,
it's summarising back to them.

Yeah.
And the basic idea is for you toshare something of how you feel,
like maybe about this apple thing.
And then for me to say it backto you until you're like, yes,
that is exactly how I feel.
And if I don't do that,then I keep trying.
I just keep trying until like, untilyou, you really feel, and I can

(36:39):
hear the enthusiasm in your voicethat you really feel like, I get it.
And in most of our communication aboutimportant things, we do not do that.
I mean, it would really slow thingsdown to do that, but it would also speed
things up because we would actually becommunicating so that I just think I and

(36:59):
everybody else just needs to hear thatevery day because it's, it could really

Laura (37:03):
Looping.
On a loop.

yeah.
The looping on a loop.
So that.

Laura (37:09):
I'm doing a mediation at the moment.
And actually as a pre work step,I did a non violent communication
workshop with them to explore thegaps in communication that we have,
how we can communicate effectively,how it ties to our underlying needs.
But also some of the skillslike looping, how do we make
sure that we fully heard them?
And it has been a delight to actuallysee them practicing it then in

(37:32):
the mediation and making progress.
I feel like all of us, I don't thinkI know any perfect communicators.
So

Yeah.
So that's number one, looping.
Number two is, I don't know why she toldthis story, but it might be the thing
that sticks with me most in the book.
And it's about how the internationalBaha'i religion does their elections.
It's like a model ofthe future of democracy.
You know, like I thinkdemocracy is a great idea.
I don't think we're doingsuch a great job with it.

(38:02):
Um.
so they way they do it for theBaha'i faith, they have these, you
know it's an international religion.
They've got these local organizationsand then maybe larger regional ones
and then maybe a national level one.
And to be involved in the governmentor the administration of this,
the way they do the elections.
There's no campaigning, there's no selfnominations, it's just for whatever

(38:23):
your small group is, your local, Idon't know if they call it a church
or temple or whatever, everyone whenit comes to the election season just
writes down nine names of peoplethey think would do a good job.
And you send them in andthey just get counted.
And if your name was listed byenough people, they call you.
And it's like a jury duty kindof vibe where they're like,

(38:43):
Hey, Laura, you're on the list.
Would youo this?
And Laura's like, God, Ireally wanted to like, take up
badminton next year, but okay.
I'll do it for a year.
And, and I'll honored to serve.
And, and I just

Laura (39:00):
As long as I get back to the badminton, I mean, I guess it's fine.

So I just thought that was a really cool pattern of.
You know, obviously it's not goingto work in every situation, but I
think there's a lot of areas oflife where we could use that pattern.
And so, okay, there's another one.
This is kind of related tothat illusion of communication.
One of the reasons I think theillusion of communication persists
is that we want to avoid conflict.

(39:25):
This is, this is roughlyrelated to confirmation bias.
It's like, it's nice to just believethat what we say is communicated and that
our views aren't going to be challenged.
And so my question about this islike, what is the evolutionary
fitness of confirmation bias?

(39:47):
Like, why is this such a big thingthat just like believing that
the world is going to go our way?
In my experience, it doesn'tactually lead to better results.
It's not just cause I believesomething's going to be the way
I want it to be, that the worldactually bends and changes to be that.
So why are we so into it?

Laura (40:08):
No, it's a really good question.
For those who are listening, whoaren't totally sure , confirmation
bias is a bias where you reallylook for things that confirm your
existing beliefs and ideas and values.
And then you give less credenceto things that disagree with you.
And yeah, I don't know.
It was a really good question.
I'm sure somebody outthere has answered it.
I mean, I guess it does take morecognitive effort to challenge your

(40:30):
beliefs, which is again, the issueis complexity and simplification.
Maybe that's part of it.
Maybe it's a case of.
You're using all your calories tolive and to hang out and to read
books, and you don't have enough leftthat you really want to challenge
existing beliefs, but that's a totalwild guess coming from me right now.
I don't know.

Yeah, I, my, my guess just coming right now as
well as it has something to dowith identity and self judgment.
And that if my beliefs are not correct,or they're not the whole truth, I'm a
bad, bad, bad, naughty, naughty, naughtyperson, and I don't deserve God's

(41:14):
love, or my love, or to be friends,or something like that, and there's
a lot of, like, guilt and shame about

Laura (41:20):
Yeah.
I think you're onto something there.
And I wonder then if this confirmationbias actually varies with culture
and how it interacts and like theimportance of shame and guilt, right?
Cause I mean, for me, shameis the one it's like, I am bad.
Guilt is I've done bad.
Both are about your behaviorsand interactions with the world

(41:41):
.And so they are social emotions in that way, right?
So if they're the emotions thatwe're connecting to our identity and
to confirmation bias, Yeah, maybethere's a possibility of cultures
that don't experience it in the sameway or to the same degree , right?
Curious.

And I mean, it's certainly true in different
subcultures, like if you have I wouldsay a pure scientific subculture.
Which I think is as hard to findas like actual enlightenment where
people just are like, oh, that myhypothesis was wrong and I have no
identity formation engaged in that.
And now I'm going to totally change.
And like, that's the, that'sthe, the ideal of science.

(42:20):
It's not always clearly like that becausewe're humans, but that's a subculture
where I would hope there'd be less.
Okay.
And then the last thing is just a quotethat I'd like to read from her because
I think it's valuable for us to hear.
So here it is.
No, I'm going to just actually read it.
All right.
"Understanding people doesn't change them.

(42:41):
It's not nearly enough, but almostno one changes until they feel heard.
People need to believe you understandthem even as they realize you disagree.
Before they will hear you.
Many disputes devolveinto a game of chicken.
Who is going to dare to listen first?"

Laura (43:03):
Nice.
I like it.
And then coming back to general themes.
Is there anything that you disagreed within the book, or that you didn't like?

It has a, a little, so, and this is, I don't
know how much this is the book.
This could be more me, you know, butthe, the book is an opportunity for me
to be me in the world as all books are.
There's a tension in my mind withthis kind of work between dialectical
synthesis, collaboration, understandingdifferent points of view, and including

(43:36):
the best aspects of all, you know,the integral philosophy transcendent
include kind of stuff and centrismand which is like, oh, let's just meet
in the middle and all these peoplethat want the things are just wacky.

Laura (43:50):
Just make sure everyone's unhappy.
Equally unhappy.
Mm.

Or just like the, the moderates are always right kind of thing,
and my, like, antenna were up around that.

Laura (44:03):
hmm.

It was more of a smell in the air in the book than anything else.
And it, and it could be me.
You know, I don't know.
I don't think she even like reallyaddressed either of those things.
But I just got like a vibe thatthis is like, it's just like saying
that the middle is always right

Laura (44:19):
Mm.

or because I, I don't think that's true.

Laura (44:23):
No, I don't think so either
. Ankur Delight: uh, And I think it's important to like pay attention to
what is actually, what are the deepneeds of the people at all different
sides and see if we could find a way tocollaboratively meet everyone's needs.
Absolutely.
So, you can be the voice ofmoderation without being moderate.
That's going to be my quote.
You can quote me in future.

(44:45):
How stoked are you?

Is that your new, is that your new book?
On moderate voice of moderating conflict?

Laura (44:51):
Yes, live, live.
That's awesome.
And so, overall, this book,I mean, who should read it?

Well, nobody, cause they just listened to the podcast.
They're good.

Laura (45:03):
a great point.
That's a great point.
This should be the first question.
So, who should read this book?
You'd be like, A, B, and C.
I'm like, alright, if you're A,B, and C, quit the podcast now.
Because there will be spoilers ahead.
But that's true.
That's true.

I mean isn't that the point?
The book took me hours to read, Idon't know, eight, 10, something.
I would have loved this podcastfor 20 minutes and then been like,
man, I got everything I need.
I got everything that Ank would havegotten out of reading that in 20 minutes.

Laura (45:30):
Oh my goodness.

You know I think, honestly, I was being a little flippant there.
I think chapter four about the differentcommunities of people doing the homestay.
You know, I'm really into homestays.
I spent a lot of my life just travelingand living in people's houses.
I found that incredibly powerful.
And I think anyone who is on any side ofthe political polarization spectrum, which

(45:51):
is probably 60 to 70 percent of the U S,could really benefit from reading that.
That to me is like the most applicableof the like, wow, people could really,
it could open a lot of hearts readingthat because it's not prescriptive.
It's not saying somebody is goodor bad or one of these sides is
better or that if they do this,then they're going to change.

(46:12):
Nobody changes really, but it'sjust, it's a, it's beautiful.

Laura (46:20):
Okay.
And so what's the nextbook you're going to read?

So you had, you had one, you wanted to assign me right?

Laura (46:26):
Yeah.
I said, I sent you some homework.
Business Plan for Peaceby Scilla Ellsworthy.

All right, I'll do it.

Laura (46:32):
Awesome.

Yeah.
Or we could also do that Against Empathy.
Cause I read that.

Laura (46:37):
I feel like that's going to make me really angry.
I mean, you promised me thisbook was going to make me angry
and I feel quite calm, actually.
I feel like we've explored the theme.
done a deep dive on this book.
And I also don't have to read it now.
Thank you.
Thank you for takingit off my reading list.
This is a big relief to

My, my goal is to take it off people's reading lists.

Laura (46:56):
So for those who are interested in learning more about
your work, where can they find you?

Yeah.
I have a website called 10,000 heroes dot club, 10 is
spelled out in English letters.
So T E N T H like that10, 000 heroes dot club.
And you can sign up there to geta weekly newsletter or get the
latest of the different interviews,and just what I'm learning about
conflict and mediation in general.
And the whole premise of that isthat we all have the potential.

(47:21):
It kind of goes backto the fairytale thing.
We all have the potential to bea true hero, which is like living
our own sense of purpose in theworld and making a contribution
in a way that feels good to us.

Laura (47:33):
I am very into this idea of be your own hero, because I think,
you know, only we can be the herothat we really need sometimes.
So, awesome.
Alright well look, thanksso much again for joining me
today and for everyone else.
Until next time, which may ormay not be another book review.
This is Laura May with the ConflictTipping podcast from Mediate.com.

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