On Conflict
I don’t like conflict, especially in my personal life. I grew up experiencing a few lifetimes’ worth of conflict and don’t feel I need any more. Conflict is however inevitable, and it isn’t always bad. On one extreme conflict can escalate to a mutual desire for annihilation, but on the other conflict is healthy and necessary for identifying and resolving relational incongruency. It’s easy to tell these apart at the extreme but harder in the middle.
Extreme conflict is easy to identify. Two sides stop talking and fight at a fever pitch, verbally and/or physically. This is what happens when people get into a barfight and countries get into wars. These types of conflicts are very difficult to resolve without external intervention. Beyond a certain level of intensity, conflict is only resolved for either party if they decisively beat the other. For a physical fight among people that could entail incapacitating or killing the other party. In wars or verbal fights, winning is surrender and the admission of defeat. Once conflict gets to this point deescalation is futile; if one party deescalates, the other will merely take that as an opportunity to take the victory home. Conflict need not get this bad.
Lower-level conflicts can often be resolved by either party. If someone is yelling at you and you respond to them calmly, they can only yell for so long before they will naturally start to shift toward your tone. Minor concessions can go a long way amongst neighboring countries with disagreements. Oftentimes, conflicts are not material but emotional, and words and statements alone can quell tensions. While many easily resolved conflicts may be healthy, they are not necessarily. Even mild conflicts can be unhealthy.
The test for whether a conflict is healthy or unhealthy is whether the relationship between the parties in conflict is better off or worse off after the resolution of the conflict. This may not necessarily be true at the extreme level of conflict. Relations between Japan and the United States might be better after World War II than they were before, but no one would say that was a healthy conflict. Amongst people, however, this test works better. Sometimes people have a disagreement that reaches the level of conflict, then resolve it and have a better relationship afterward. At other times, conflict is resolved but animosity lingers and compounds as more conflicts occur. This certainly can happen in close relationships, like co-founders or romantic partners.
Conflict is inevitable, but it mostly need not rise to an extreme. If you were born into a conflict, it may be too late. But if you have agency over a conflict, a single side can typically unilaterally de-escalate, avoiding the worst of it. Conflicts can be healthy, but when they’re not, try to avoid them and the people who start them, unless you just like fighting.
