Complicating the Narrative for Good

For no particular reason at all, apropos of nothing in particular, a book called High Conflict: Why we get trapped and how we get out, by Amanda Ripley, caught my eye a few weeks ago. 

Ripley distinguishes between healthy conflict and high conflict. Healthy conflict she describes as “useful friction” rooted in curiosity, passion, and where all sides want a solution. It can get stressful and heated, but everyone’s dignity stays intact. 

High conflict is something else altogether, when discord distills into a good-versus-evil, us-versus-them feud where curiosity is replaced with certainly and righteous rage. The fight is no longer about the original issue, it becomes about the conflict itself. And there seems to be little interest in moving through it to the other side.

Sound familiar? Any number of local, national, and international examples may be popping into your head right now. 

The book is very illuminating with stacks of stories as examples. One of my biggest takeaways for us is the role of narrative in perpetuating or getting out of high conflict, and that’s what I want to share with you here.

Ripley notes that oversimplified narratives feed us-versus-them conflicts. So one of the things that we can do to disrupt harmful, divisive narratives is to complicate them. Very few people fit perfectly into one group. Us-versus-them conflicts are always built on boiled-down, binary caricatures. The media often omits parts from interviews that don’t fit into the narrative they are building. 

We've all received the advice to keep our message simple to help it spread, and I still think in many cases this is true. Simple messages are easier to remember, easier to repeat, and thus easier to spread.

But Ripley suggests there are times we should amplify, rather than dismiss, contradictions that we see in real life to spark more curiosity. “If you can get curious, really curious, about people who disagree with you, it can make conflict healthier, almost immediately, depending on the situation.”

Some suggestions for complicating narratives for good:

• Ask questions: What is oversimplified about this conflict? Where do you feel torn? What do you want the other side to understand about you? What do you want to understand about the other side? 
• Look for outliers: Do the loudest people in this conflict represent a majority? Who are we not hearing? Where are the shades of gray in this supposed black-and-white debate?
• Be aware of “conflict entrepreneurs” and the conflict-industrial complex: These are terms that Ripley uses to identify people and systems that exploit high conflict to their own advantage. This may include reductionist click-bait articles designed to stoke division and fear, influencers who use their platform to whip their followers into a lathering rage, or even lawyers who get paid more the longer a conflict drags out.
• In our own writing: avoid oversimplification of complex issues. Ask questions, remain curious, and do not use our clever writing skills to humiliate the other side. Consider not trimming out the quotes that don’t fit into the narrative we are building - let it stay messy in an effort to help our audience see the complexity of the issue.

What would you add to this list? Comment below, and thanks for reading!
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