Don’t minimize conflict. Minimize resentment

AKA: “The scale of conflict resolution”. From the upcoming book, out Jan 1st, 2023.

Let us begin with looking at four modes of relating when a relationship gets difficult, which are related in a kind of hierarchy, a “scale of conflict resolution”:

• Resolving the conflict for mutual benefit, through a higher synthesis or “both and” that in fact refines the perceived interests of the parties involved and gets more at the core of what they truly want, just in a way they hadn’t necessarily thought of — often redefining the roles and the nature of the relationship itself.
• Resolving the conflict by compromise, so that both lose something, but still maintain the benefit of the relationship itself.
• Confronting and struggling with the other, winning the fight, and thus reshaping the nature of the relationship according to our interests and sense of what is fair and just.
• Quitting, leaving the relationship, going on strike.

Always Strive For the Highest Rung

In a perfect world, we could always take the first option: finding a shared higher ground and a renewed relationship. This usually involves some of the paradoxical thinking we visited in the chapter on “sincere irony”. You need to somehow figure out a way not to compromise (and give the parties not just some of what they want) but to get at the core of what both parties want or need, and then stretch out the solution to cover both extremes (the “double extremism” we were talking about) in a manner that unexpectedly fits the whole relationship together into a new, larger whole. This tends to require both a sense of responsibility for that wholeness (a “holistic” view), the capacity to get out of our own limited perspectives, and a great wealth of mutual trust to build upon (as we discussed at the beginning of the sincere irony life rule).

And the greater social skills, level of trust, sense of wholeness, and capacity for skillful both-and thinking, the greater the likelihood for such transformative “higher ground” solutions presenting themselves. Being in higher subjective states in which reality appears more “as a whole” also helps a lot. The first step towards making such holistic solutions is often to insist, in one’s own emotional response to the matter, that in the larger scheme of things, there is no conflict; only a new greater whole waiting to be discovered and brought into being. Rather than asking ourselves “Why is this happening to me? How could they treat me like this?” we find a way to stay calm and instead ask “What is this challenge trying to teach me? What can I learn from this?”. This is a big part of what they mean when they say that crisis and conflict can be transformative; it can trigger desirable transformations of our social realities and the ways we relate to one another. In couples’ therapy, there is the school of “imago therapy”, which helps to redefine each nasty pattern of triggering negative emotions into an opportunity for inner healing and transformation. Being with other people, depending on them, can force us to do the uncomfortable but invaluable work of going through such potentially painful, but possibly wondrous, transformations. If I believe (with ironic sincerity) in any kind of miracle, this is it.

Back to the Real World: Compromise

Alas, however, we don’t live in a perfect world. Transformation is far from always within reach, even in the long term. The conflict can be too deeply rooted, too complex to untangle, or there can be insufficient levels of mutual trust available, or the people involved can have too little basic trust in the goodness of reality, or have too great difficulties taking the perspectives of others, and thus be uncooperative. Transformative solutions are rare, just as the wizards who conjure them. So we’re much more often left with the necessity to compromise, where both parties get some of what they want, but still lose something, still pay a price. We’ve moved from the heavenly realm of win-win games, to the very earthly realm of partial win-lose games. Still, the relationship as a whole and the mutual benefit can be saved, if at a price for both parties. Neither side gets to move to its preferred extreme, and no higher ground is found. There is only a tug-of-war that establishes a power balance between the parties: but still, a new balance.

Fight to the Bitter End

And if the equation simply doesn’t seem to allow an acceptable trade of “you gain some, you give some” on both sides, you’re stuck with an open conflict or confrontation, and you have to fight it out so that one side wins and the other side loses. These struggles can range from verbal arguments and social sanctions, to threatening livelihoods and resources, to outright violence and war. Each of these endeavors are costly and risky in and of themselves. So a price is paid even by the winner (usually), and a yet higher price by the losing side. There are righteous wars, for sure, where the losing side may actually benefit from being defeated (the Germans were better off without the Nazis ruling them, arguably; psychiatric patients may sometimes benefit from being subdued by the staff of the hospital, preventing self-harm, etc.), but most conflicts are more nihilistic by nature. The cat kills the mouse, and frankly, there wasn’t much in it for the mouse.

The principle to apply in our own everyday lives and relationships here is: Don’t minimize conflict, minimize resentment. Conflicts are a normal part of a healthy life — sometimes even keys to a positive transformation. We shouldn’t stir them or keep them alive for no good reason, but remember that the crooks and exploiters of the world always seek to change the subject, to silence, to bury, to hypocritically forgive and forget when it is oneself that has wronged and thus appear magnanimous. And all of those things lead to ever new injustice, new resentment. Better be a fighter than a damned coward, after all — we’ll get back to this issue when we discuss how justice heals (Rule Eight). Don’t let anybody treat you in a manner that will make you resentful. The enemy is generally resentment, it’s not having a conflict as such, or even the people you’re in conflict with. Resentment is the enemy, not conflict, and only rarely actual people (in which case, the enmity is almost always due to their resentment in the first place).

Get the F*ck Out of There

But if you’re in a position where you feel that even “fighting it out” cannot help, or you don’t have enough power to have a fair chance of winning the confrontation, you’re left only with leaving, quitting, ending your side of the bargain, killing off the relationship, even escaping if necessary. Of course, fighting or surrendering is the only option when you genuinely can’t quit: the denizens of East Europe couldn’t “quit” the Golden Horde once their cities were attacked or besieged in the 13th century. But whoever had the opportunity to escape, we can safely guess, probably ran for their lives.

Quitting is a kind of last resort, often the weapon of the less powerful party, like workers who organize strikes in the face of what they feel is unfair exploitation by capital owners. But “quitting” being at the bottom of this hierarchy, ultimately also means that it is the most fundamental building block of relationality: the capacity to “just say no”. The mouse wishes to “just say no” to the prospect of the cat eating them, but their only means of doing so is simply to escape, to run like hell and hide where the cat can’t reach them. That means, of course, that only a very limited kind of relationship is at all possible between cats and mice. Since one side has almost all the power, there is no mutuality from which to build further relationships.

The Power of No

After all, and again, if we cannot say “no” to life, or to the things in it, we aren’t actually free to say yes to the things in life, either. We won’t know where we start and someone/something else begins, because we simply don’t have the capacity to set that boundary. Thus we’ll have difficulties even forming a clear idea of our wants and needs. If we’re pushed into that position, there’s no “bottom line” that can be formed within us, and others can exploit us freely, because we cannot tell our own wishes apart from theirs.

If we cannot ultimately quit a relationship, or end a certain part of it, we’re in a much weaker position to partake in any of the three other categories of conflict resolution: fighting it out, compromising, or finding a higher common ground. The relationship itself cannot be mutual, and it cannot, in a sense, be true. Of course, if we’re soundly defeated in confrontations, we might not be able to quit, either.

No wonder cults or any abusive, exploitative, or totalitarian forms of leadership do everything they can to make it difficult to quit. It’s hard to “just quit” North Korea, a labor camp, or a criminal gang, or even Scientology once you’ve gotten to be a full-time worker/resident at their headquarters in the middle of the desert outside of Los Angeles. And if you cannot easily quit, or at least go on strike, you’ll be ill-equipped to stand up for yourself in a confrontation, and failing that, there’s no real common ground from which to find compromise, let alone find positive transformations of the relationship. The whole idea of being a slave is that you can’t quit.

The Foundation for Authenticity

So the power and capacity to quit, even the skill and willingness to quit, provide a foundation for cultivating genuine relationships. In many ways, then, the fundamental social empowerment is the power to quit. It thus makes a lot of sense to become really good at quitting.

We should still only use this force sparingly and with great discernment. Quitting is as destructive as it is liberating, for obvious reasons: not only does quitting mean that you leave behind the relationship and whatever was mutually invested in it; every time you threaten to quit a job or a marriage, it shakes that relationship to its foundations, subjecting it to decay. It nukes the relationship and leaves its mutual trust in smoldering ruins. Nevertheless, without this capacity we are fundamentally powerless. Sometimes, threatening with the nukes and setting a firm boundary can in turn lead to winning a confrontation, to striking a compromise, or even triggering a positive transformation of the relationship itself, redefining the roles entirely. But that only happens rarely; so we are wise to use the threat of “I quit” sparingly. Imagine a spouse that threatens to quit a marriage every Tuesday and Thursday; after a short while, there won’t be much of a marriage left to quit. The threat of quitting is enough to make the marriage deteriorate.

Social Nukes and the Essence of Freedom

How about not ever threatening to quit at all, then? It’s wrong to threaten, no? Ultimatums are childish, right? Well, that’s what the person who doesn’t want you to quit will say. But if used sparingly and with an eye to sound boundary setting, issuing a proper warning that you might quit can make sense. If you’re quitting a North Korean labor camp, it might be best not to warn them first. Just run if there’s a gap in the fence. If you’re quitting a marriage, best to give a few clear warnings — even if others may call it a threat. There’s no real difference between a warning and a threat, except that we may consider it a warning if it’s used with care and respect for all parties involved.

The capacity of quitting, of saying no, is the essence of freedom. The slave is defined by their incapacity to say no; the oppressor has cut off all viable routes of escape. In that manner, unless we are literally trapped or enslaved, we can also increase our sense of freedom in everyday life, by always remembering that we have the capacity to quit, to say no. Think of what the power to say no means: When our jobs get tough, we can always know that we’re choosing to be there, that we could quit and take the brunt of the consequences. When a romantic relationship becomes dysfunctional, we can work through the issues and go through the fights, while knowing that nobody is forcing us to stay, and that can make us not feel as helpless. When peer groups disrespect us, we can know that we could quit the group and find others that respect us more. When a friendship is tedious and one-sided, we can more easily manage it if we remember that we’re in it voluntarily. Strange as it may seem, knowing that you have the nukes, that you can “just say no”, makes you less neurotic, less nervous, and that increases the chances of improving upon and transforming relationships. Individualism and freedom, values so cherished in our society, ultimately come down to letting people say no to one another.

How to Create Your Own Monster

Our capacity to quit is always imperfect. We are all dependent on others, and people can use the negative social emotions of fear, guilt, and shame to hold us in place (as we shall return to in detail in the two next chapters), to paralyze us. At the deepest level, all monsters say “don’t leave me!”; that’s why they lock you up in dungeons; from the slave owner, to the abusive romantic partner, to the cult, to the totalitarian dictatorship, to the suffocating family member, to the dragon with a maiden trapped in their treasure chamber, to Joseph Fritzl. They might want to shift the game from “stay or leave” into one of confrontations which they can win again and again due to some advantage they happen to have. And it is fundamentally this sense of powerlessness-of-the-seemingly-powerful, the “don’t leave me!”, that destroys freedom from both sides: you can become the monster by undercutting someone else’s capacity to quit, or you can put yourself in an incredibly victimized situation by becoming so desperate and afraid of being abandoned that you say “Don’t leave me, I’ll do anything!” — in effect enslaving yourself even when there is no literal oppressor. You then inadvertently produce a monster for yourself, and that role can even be filled by a kind person who wishes you well. Then you’ll have no room for conflict and compromise, and you’ll be absolutely miserable despite the fact that others are being kind to you. Yikes. That’s the opposite of freedom.

It Takes Practice to be A Quitter

I don’t mean to be judgmental about this: Powerlessness is a real thing. If we fear being left living on the street if we quit, if we fear not being able to feed our families, if we fear too great social sanctions, if a repressive police state will go after our family, or if we’re just too insecure, connecting to our power to quit can be almost impossible. The point is, rather, that we should identify it as being of primary importance and then cultivate this capacity. This is done not least by investing in multiple pathways in life and multiple sources of strength and support. But most of all, we need to practice quitting throughout our lives, which implies sometimes quitting as an active and conscious choice, including the quitting of small things. This capacity to quit creates the preconditions for a solid foundation of deep personal freedom as well as mutually authentic relationships flourishing in our lives.

To point out the obvious, perhaps: Quitting needs to happen in our lives, and it is the basis of freedom and authentic mutuality (again, if your spouse stays just because it would be too hard to leave, that’s not really a spouse, it’s a damned prisoner) — but it tends to be the least desirable of the above-mentioned alternatives of conflict resolution. So first, we should look for transformative solutions that creatively redefine the nature of the relationships we’re in; then we should seek compromise; then we should fight it out and make sure we win if we can; and then we should warn the other party we’re quitting… and only then we should quit. However, if you know beforehand that quitting will be best for you, then go directly to that.

I’m being repetitive here, but if you overuse the quit button, you’ll soon have nothing worthwhile left in your life; if you underuse it, there’ll be nothing of yourself left in your life as you’ll be completely gobbled up by all the things you should have quit long ago, but didn’t.

The book this is from will be out on Jan 1st, 2023. www.metamoderna.org