E04 Conflict Principle

Which would you prefer?

To win an argument even if that pushes some away.

OR

To be widely understood and more deeply connected.

Anankelogy

Anankelogy distinguishes between inflexible natural needs and flexible ways to address them. Whenever any debate slips into opposing some inflexible need, the other side must dig in their heels. Since the underlying need cannot go away, you easily get more of whatever you oppose.

Emphasizing differences right out of the gate almost guarantees provoking mutual defensiveness. Our typical behavior when debating provokes each other to remain in their silos. Imposing the popular agree-disagree binary usually does more to keep the conflict going.

When jumping on some point of disagreement, you can easily miss where both sides agree. You quickly find yourself sliding down the rabbit hole of trying to ease your discomfort at their expense—which is never sustainable.

You can be provoked into disagreeing not because you wholly disagree, but more because you feel hurt and feel you must protect yourself from any further risk of harm. Your conflict orientation kicks in.

Anankelogy helps you recognizes you have a predictable orientation to conflict. When confronted, you either remain closed and guarded or stay open to learning. You either stay defensive and hostile or engage the other’s needs to model how they can be engaging your affected needs.

The more you remain closed and guarded, the less likely you will engageenough of reality to find a lasting solution. The more you stay open to learning, the more likely you draw enough information to reach a lasting solution.

Need-response

When someone attacks your stated views, consider the last time you said to yourself, “Yes, you’re right. Thank you for pointing out how wrong I am.” Probably never.

If you’ve never changed your views in response to verbal assaults, do you ever expect others to change their views by verbally assaulting them? You’re likely more open to encountering more of reality when you are not under some kind of verbal assault.

Rushing to prove you’re right and others wrong tends to point to your feel-reactivehabits. Instead of resolving the affected needs, you settle for easing the pain by scoring argument points.

Need-response offers a need-responsivealternative. You learn to engage the needs on all sides, even while this feels intensely awkward and uncomfortable. It’s the only way to resolve the conflict-affected needs with a lasting solution.

Reactive Problem

Most political debates sink into petty arguments. Each side repeatedly interrupts the other to score points with the audience. Each tries to appear more powerful. Each employs coercive techniques that tends to miss any reasoned solution.

Are you more persuaded or more turned off by all the…

• interrupting,

• boasting,

• coercing,

• manipulating,

• biased interpretation,

• confirmation bias,

and similar low brow tactics done in the name of debating?

Instead of finding a solution both sides can agree upon, most political debates try to pull us into taking a side against the other side. Such indulgent side-taking rarely resolves our politicized needs. The more we resign to these lower standards, the more they pull us into debilitating defensiveness.

The more we slip into debilitating defensiveness, the less we can resolve our conflict-affected needs. The less we can resolve those needs, the more pain we suffer. The more pain we suffer from unmet needs, the more drawn to easing that pain with debilitating defensiveness. It’s a vicious cycle.

Our contrasting political beliefs stem from our mostly inflexible priority of needs. Politicians exploit us when keeping us locked into debilitating defensiveness. There must be a better way.

Responsive Solution

There is. Need-response offers to replace mutually defensive debating with mutual regard. You learn you can engage the affected needs on the other side in ways that incentivize them to engage your affected needs.

You discover how to engage the needs on all sides of a dispute.

1. You affirm the unchosen needs.

2. Then you can challenge their chosen response to those needs.

3. Finally, you leave the positive impression that you seek all sides to be able to resolve their inflexible needs.

This is less about knowing what is outwardly true or right and more about discovering what is inwardly true for resolving needs by relating humbly with each other. Instead of coercing beliefs to form a policy favored by some, this is about engaging each other’s needs to form connections favored by all.

Disagree? Then you missed the point. Relate honestly and humbly with the underlying needs on both sides of any issue and you find you don’t have to resort to the agree-disagree binary. The more you relate and engage the nuance affecting our needs, the less you feel you must debate.

Debates usually lead to win-lose answers, setting up the next debate. But if you simply relate, we more readily reach results that create win-win solutions. Which lets us resolve more needs, remove more pain, and reach more of our potential.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• What about the opposite extreme of moral relativism, bothsidesism, whataboutism?

• Is it possible for the other side to misinterpret this intent for mutual regard?

• What about arguments I’ve won in the past? Don’t they still count?

• What if the other side is clearly wrong? What if they try to argue in favor of Nazism?

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.