Timely article with a great message. I think you’re right to point out that artificial harmony can be damaging just like a mean spirited attack. I myself am very conflict-averse, but I’m trying to view conflict as a vehicle for honesty, growth and understanding. It’s a work in progress🙂 I also find it difficult to talk about politics and religion with those in my life because it seems that we get our information from such different sources that we are operating in parallel realities. To talk about substantial issues, there are certain parameters that must be agreed on. Not that we shouldn’t try, but the wildly different avenues on the internet make it difficult to find a starting point. I guess that makes your article more important than ever! Thanks for sharing! 🤍 PS I like RFKs messages of unity too!
We're all a work in progress on this one, I think! I started this Substack in part to speak out what I perceived was a quiet but needed perspective. It's heartening to find that many others find a connection to the words I write.
I hope I can be just one voice breaking through some of those parallel realities, and foster good discussion here. You can feel like you're the only one thinking differently—and I think that isolation is part of the enemy's goal. Isolate and separate. Divide and conquer is the strategy.
In terms of parameters, we actually lead leadership teams through an exercise to come up with "team norms" for things like conflict and behaviour. Families and other groups can certainly do that, too. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
The problem,it seems to me, is this: for there to be respectful disagreement, healthy conflict, whatever, *something has to be more important than for one side to win.* There has to be an acceptance that if your position or proposal is flawed/ incorrect, it’s okay to “lose.” By the same token, the “winner” (whatever that means in context) should not be gloating over or humiliating the loser.
Sadly I see everywhere people and groups who only want to “win” and will not accept *anything* but their narrow definition of winning (acquisition of some kind of power). They also somehow delude themselves that if they win (say an election) their opponents are going to accept that with more grace than they themselves would have in the same situation (LOL). NOPE, the defeated party simply gets to work with increased passion and resentment and a great eagerness to record and amplify *every single mistake the winner makes*, AND OF COURSE THE WINNER WILL MAKE MISTAKES (because they are humans, and possibly not even very nice humans…)
If you truly love and respect your opponent, and share common goals, you will occasionally have to forego an opportunity to humiliate them and/or elevate yourself at their expense. This is not false niceness; it’s valuing something (your shared community? Your mutual goal? Your freaking humanity?) more than *winning* (fleeting, ephemeral power). I think THIS is what we as a society have gotten really bad at, and neglected, and it’s at the root of my disengagement from most politics. People go on and on about issues, about politics, tribes, blah blah, and it’s all very complicated, but at the bottom it’s just people making the same dumb mistakes over and over and wrecking things and ruining their relationships while lying to themselves.
I put my energy where I think it actually makes a difference.
A solid assessment. I don't put much faith in politics either. I hope I communicated that healthy conversation among average people is what is actually going to make a difference. Hence why we need to reclaim a basic understanding of what it means to have healthy conflict—and that it is indeed possible.
Timely article with a great message. I think you’re right to point out that artificial harmony can be damaging just like a mean spirited attack. I myself am very conflict-averse, but I’m trying to view conflict as a vehicle for honesty, growth and understanding. It’s a work in progress🙂 I also find it difficult to talk about politics and religion with those in my life because it seems that we get our information from such different sources that we are operating in parallel realities. To talk about substantial issues, there are certain parameters that must be agreed on. Not that we shouldn’t try, but the wildly different avenues on the internet make it difficult to find a starting point. I guess that makes your article more important than ever! Thanks for sharing! 🤍 PS I like RFKs messages of unity too!
We're all a work in progress on this one, I think! I started this Substack in part to speak out what I perceived was a quiet but needed perspective. It's heartening to find that many others find a connection to the words I write.
I hope I can be just one voice breaking through some of those parallel realities, and foster good discussion here. You can feel like you're the only one thinking differently—and I think that isolation is part of the enemy's goal. Isolate and separate. Divide and conquer is the strategy.
In terms of parameters, we actually lead leadership teams through an exercise to come up with "team norms" for things like conflict and behaviour. Families and other groups can certainly do that, too. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
The problem,it seems to me, is this: for there to be respectful disagreement, healthy conflict, whatever, *something has to be more important than for one side to win.* There has to be an acceptance that if your position or proposal is flawed/ incorrect, it’s okay to “lose.” By the same token, the “winner” (whatever that means in context) should not be gloating over or humiliating the loser.
Sadly I see everywhere people and groups who only want to “win” and will not accept *anything* but their narrow definition of winning (acquisition of some kind of power). They also somehow delude themselves that if they win (say an election) their opponents are going to accept that with more grace than they themselves would have in the same situation (LOL). NOPE, the defeated party simply gets to work with increased passion and resentment and a great eagerness to record and amplify *every single mistake the winner makes*, AND OF COURSE THE WINNER WILL MAKE MISTAKES (because they are humans, and possibly not even very nice humans…)
If you truly love and respect your opponent, and share common goals, you will occasionally have to forego an opportunity to humiliate them and/or elevate yourself at their expense. This is not false niceness; it’s valuing something (your shared community? Your mutual goal? Your freaking humanity?) more than *winning* (fleeting, ephemeral power). I think THIS is what we as a society have gotten really bad at, and neglected, and it’s at the root of my disengagement from most politics. People go on and on about issues, about politics, tribes, blah blah, and it’s all very complicated, but at the bottom it’s just people making the same dumb mistakes over and over and wrecking things and ruining their relationships while lying to themselves.
I put my energy where I think it actually makes a difference.
A solid assessment. I don't put much faith in politics either. I hope I communicated that healthy conversation among average people is what is actually going to make a difference. Hence why we need to reclaim a basic understanding of what it means to have healthy conflict—and that it is indeed possible.
Totally! I agree