Inclusion-ism, Dignity & Violence Deescalation™

A story for you: There once were two men. One lived in the northern hemisphere and one lived in the southern hemisphere. One day they both walked towards the equator where they met one another for the first time. The first man told the other there is only one hemisphere, the northern hemisphere. The second argued that there was only one hemisphere, the southern hemisphere. They began to fight one another, then went to war. The truth is that they are both right and they are both wrong. The higher truth is that they need each other. They must have both hemispheres to live and turn together on the same planet. According to the author of our textbook “High Conflict,” when we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. It’s the invisible hand of our time. High conflict is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side. People do escape high conflict. Individuals—even entire communities—can short-circuit the feedback loops of outrage and blame, if they want to. You will learn this mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how you move through the world.