An Expert on Conflict Says Your Relationships Are Doomed Without It

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“To me, the single most underestimated force in international relations is actually stupidity.”

Including Jamil Booy. Tressy McMillan-Cottom, Michel Goldberg, Thomas Friedman, and many more. Find the opinions wherever you get your podcasts. I'm David Marquezie, and today I'm interviewing conflict resolution facilitator and author Pria Parker. For many of us, myself included, conflict be it at work or at home or in society feels like something to avoid.

It's combustible, irresolvable, or just plain uncomfortable. But in her new book The Art of Fighting, Parker argues that we should fight more and learn how to do it well. Parker, who also wrote the bestselling 2018 book The Art of Gathering, is drawing on her work mediating conflict on college campuses at Fortune 500 companies in cultural institutions and within families. So how and when should we fight?

Here's my conversation with Pria Parker.

But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you.

You can now explore the times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, on to the interview. Pria, thank you for being here. I'm very excited to talk with you about conflict. Thank you for having me.

“So your previous book, The Art of Gathering, which I think was published in 2018.”

Yep. So it's been a little while, but that was all about healthy and productive group activity. And of course, the new book is about conflict. And it's hard not to wonder if that suggests something grim about the trajectory of the world since then. So why did you feel compelled to write the new book?

I am deeply interested in human connection. And the art of gathering is about human connection. And the art of fighting is about human connection. And I decided to write this book in part because as a conflict resolution facilitator, I saw that in so many of the organizations that I work in and so many of the families I work with.

In so many of the friend groups that I am a part of or see, they're often actually falling apart because they're afraid to fight.

And so much of what I find is that organizations and friend groups basically when conflict arises,

oscillate between either unhealthy peace, yeah. Confective version of avoidance.

“People believe pretend everything's fine and unhealthy conflict, right?”

Which is either escalation or domination or abuse. And so I wrote the art of fighting to basically say, look, this is a deeply, deeply important part of all group life of all of our relationships. And we're not taught how to do it well. And we're actually not taught that it's actually deeply functional. It's not immoral, it's not toxic.

Confect is actually the way we figure out who we are and how we negotiate to be part of common life together. Use the term unhealthy peace. I think it's possible that that term could feel like an oxymoron to something like what could be unhealthy about peace. Can you explain what you mean by that term? You know, maybe I'll start with a personal story.

When my parents separated, I'm half Indian, half-way to American. Both of my parents are actually very conflictive.

And when my parents separated and then divorced, everyone was shocked because they never fought.

And so I learned from a young age that there's great loss in avoidance. And I'm actually a third generation conflict-avoidant person. On my Parker side, on my Iowa side, on my Indian side, like when heat rises, we just like stick our head in the sand and hope it'll pass. And so much of unhealthy peace is actually the idea that if we just pretend this conflict is not there, if we just kind of like, you know, shove it under the rug and hope it'll pass, everything will be fine. But actually, when we don't have meaningful conversations, the relationship can also end.

I mean, so often when, you know, you hear it in the culture, it's like not my labor, not my burden, like I don't have time. Too much baggage over here, like friends are supposed to just all be fun, actually because we're so conflict-averse. We exit before we're actually willing to engage. And so our communities and our families are fracturing in part because we're afraid of entering. And we don't often, we're not taught the skills of how to actually have those fights.

I have some questions about that kind of conflict or conflict of avoidance, but before I get to those. I'm just curious, what is the most common workplace conflict that you're asked to come in and help resolve?

I mean, a lot of, so first of all, I'm a conflict resolution facilitator.

And so by the time the phone call comes to me. Pretty bad, right? Well, it's either pretty bad or someone has realized, okay, the way we are handling this is blocking us. It's blocking us from progress. And so one of the most common conflict problems that people come with me for is actually our team is too polite.

I see you laughing and knowing sigh. There's deep difference here, but we have this norm of almost toxic politeness. And it's blocking us from actually having the really important conversations about what should go in our product or why do our customers hate our product or what should go on the front page of the newspaper.

“And so can you come in and help us get better at fighting with each other?”

So one of the most common sets of problems that companies come with me for is actually to help them become more conflict competent. You know, I think it's a huge misunderstanding to think that we have too much conflict right now. We actually have too little conflict. Yeah, which is I think sounds crazy. It sounds crazy, but there is something between war and peace, which is what I call healthy heat.

And healthy heat is what is actually at the center of all meaningful relationships, all long-term communities. So part of what I do is I go in and help teams get more comfortable with heat. So I'll give a simple example. One of the things that we do is we have companies or teams. I do this with my own team, host a hot takes party.

Practicing basically pro social conflict, they're laughing, they're arguing.

They're finding they're allowed to be disgusted with each other about stuff that doesn't actually matter. I saw this done at a corporate retreat. It was a tech company. They had to make really difficult decisions at a very significant crossroads in their company. And the vice president came out on stage and he basically said he told me this later.

Their conflict of version was preventing them from actually having the fight they needed to have. So he gets up on stage and he's like, I really hate to start in a bad place.

“But we really need to have some really important decisions today.”

And like the whole room tenses up. I was in the room. And he's like, so we're going to have some debates and we're going to start strong. And then he puts up a slide and it literally says pineapple on pizza. Yes or no.

And everyone's like, what? And he's like, go in five minutes. Go and start arguing. And all of a sudden the room is like a buzz. Like pineapple on pizza like, oh, that's disgusting.

I'm Italian. This is offensive. People, and then he, and then the next sentence goes on, he's like, what is the perfect time for lunch? People start arguing about it. And in that room over these 17 minutes, they start normalizing fighting with each other.

And low stakes arguing is actually preparation for high stakes arguing. So the next day they brought out the real topics.

“And everyone is referring to like, remember yesterday with the pineapple on pizza?”

So part of what we do is we're starting to normalize that you can actually fight in a way that is pro social that's connected. That's good for the group to help expand people's comfort with being able to argue about the real stuff also. Does that sort of process also work for family conflict? I think it depends on the family.

I work with a number of intergenerational families, often with family foundations or family businesses. Part of what I see in families is there's a mental model often with the older generation that's speaking up or disagreeing is not just in polite, but is disrespectful. And so part of working with families is shifting the mental model of disagreement from being disrespectful to actually being one of the highest forms of honor to be able to argue about what matters to a family.

And my grandfather's funeral in Jesa, Iowa, when the minister came and gave my grandfather's eulogy, Lyle Parker. He basically saved his highest compliment for the end of eulogy.

And he said in Ruth and Lyle's 50 years of marriage, they never fought.

And my stepmother, a wise woman, leaned on the pew next to me and was like, "That's not a good thing." And part of what I realized in that moment was in so many circles and so many churches and so many families. We believe that conflict is close to sin, right? It's immoral. And so in families just literally shifting the belief that all conflict is wrong to actually saying, the conversations we're not having is preventing us from deeper connection as a family can be a radical shift.

Yeah, I want to maybe try and complicate that idea a little bit. So you talk about it and you write about conflict as sort of to do with healthy interrelationship within a group. Where the idea is that people are having the conflict with the other members of the group, because they actually want to be in a different kind of better relationship with the other members of the group. But I can't help but wonder if that's maybe just a little bit pie in the sky kind of thinking or slightly naive.

well actually the fight within a group might be about one part of the group just wanting to dominate the other part of the group. Or one part of the group wanting to get rid of the other part of the group. Absolutely.

“So is it the case that conflict is like necessarily generative in a group?”

Not always, absolutely not.

And basically what you're talking about, which is like sometimes just a power battle, sometimes it's just a fight for dominance. But the type of conflict I'm interested in and the focus of this book is when you get into what I call existentialist territory, which is when the fight actually starts to touch on a group's usness. Who are we and what are we about?

And one of the mistakes we make as people is we overestimate loud fights. And we underestimate fights that touch on our usness or our weakness. And so there are some fights that are just about domination or that are just about power battles. And in that case, like you probably don't need a grow warmth. You need to do it out.

But if you find yourself in a conflict that is worthy to sort through that you think is actually touching on what makes us us and who are we. You're going to need some skills to do it out. Right now we have very few conflict rituals in society.

We basically oscillate between pretending everything is fine and suing each other.

Right? And so part or union negotiations, union negotiations are actually a helpful conflict ritual. But it's for a very specific purpose. And so you can have a bruising union negotiation that's super intense. And maybe in all of the papers you kind of come out bruised from it.

But at some level it's not existential. It's usually about material benefits. And maybe it'll go into existential territory. It's loud, but it's not existential versus a conversation. I mean, one of the examples I give in the book is 150 year old swim club in San Francisco, where they swim in the open sea in the San Francisco Bay.

And they have an existential conflict with the invention of the wet suit.

Because basically all of a sudden there's those who think that, oh great.

Now we have some protection to brave the element.

“I think it's antithetical to the spirit of the club.”

Exactly. And so most people think, oh, the union battle is actually, we should be paying attention to all this heat over there. But in my line of work, I know that it's actually that wet suit divide. That is touching on the group's usness and is much more threatening to the group over time than a union battle. But what are signs that people should look out for?

Whether it's an interpersonal relationship or one's relationship with their job. Signs that would tell them, like actually, these conflicts mean this group is not for me anymore. Or this relationship is not for me. Because not every conflict is resolvable for an individual. And then also, you know, some conflicts could still get resolved,

but they might not drive with sort of what your values are or what we think you should be doing. I would sort of back the car up slightly, which is not all conflict should be faced. Part of intelligence, part of sort of discernment is knowing when and how should I face this. And when or how is it time to leave. And this is true also in friend groups.

“I mean, I think part of modern life is that we have choice.”

Like our ancestors didn't get to choose. Right. You were in the same village. They would. Same God, avoiding the same food.

Like the only way of exiting was like, today. You know, and so part of modern life is we endlessly can enter and exit different friend groups, different churches or synagogues or temples, different relationships. And so part of what happens in friend groups is we don't have vocabulary. Because in part modern friendship is actually sort of a new phenomenon where you have to decide and can decide.

Are these my people? Do I still want to be part of this? But let me ask a that question and connected to another specific example, which I think is sort of a emblematic of our contemporary culture, which, you know, there is this trend of within families of children in particular going no contact or children who have decided that rather than continue to have conflict or tension or, you know, whatever negative emotions they're having.

They're opting out. And I think from the outside it can be easy to say, well, that, you know, that's unhealthy or seems like a drastic step to take. And maybe it is or maybe it is that I'm sure it depends on the individual situation. But when you hear about that trend, what questions do you think people should be asking themselves when they make the decision to go no contact with their family?

Yeah. And it's a totally brilliant book. It's called Fault lines.

“And one of the things I think that that book did was first of all, it gave language to and normalize the strange meant.”

And I think part of what Carl Pilmer said was the people who are able to come back from or move forward from a strange meant are people who are willing to let go of a unifying narrative. To let go of having a shared story, what happened.

And so that's one thing I think of when you ask that. But the second is there are moments in life.

And I think there are certain situations in which cutting off or letting go is necessary. Sometimes just for safety. But how to pay it? This is, I feel like it's a version of a question I've asked a couple times and maybe I'm just not articulating it well enough. But how do people know whether or not they should engage in the conflict or not engaging in the conflict is just the easier thing to do? Like, the somebody who's thinking of going no contact with their parents say, like, how do they figure out, like, is this really what's best for me?

Or am I just doing the thing that actually feels easier in the short term?

I mean, I think that asking others who you trust, right, is really hard sometimes to sort of see one's own, one's own role in a situation.

“I think one of the terms that I think has been really helpful that's a risen over the last decade is the term gaslighting, right?”

Which is like, your in a situation is somebody gaslighting you or you got you crazy or they crazy. And so I would have that person get a meter check, which is to actually ask somebody in your life whether or not somebody with good judgment, someone who has the best intent for you. Yeah, somebody is a thing. Yes, and honestly someone from a different generation. Yeah.

Someone outside of your circle, someone who doesn't have a dog in the fight to give me a meter check for you and to say, where and how do you think I should handle this?

Am I crazy to be, you know, are the gaslighting me or are there other tools here, and to not be in conversation for that question with other people who have also exited? What is the role of compromise in conflict?

“Because I know when I think back through my own career, there have definitely been moments where, you know, rather than engage in the conflict or continue to engage in a conflict.”

I'm saying, you know, okay, we can make this compromise even in situations where I don't think the compromise was ever even going to lead to a better outcome. I just thought, you know, I don't want to deal with that. But do you want to be in relationship with that person? Well, at the risk of losing my job, probably yes, you know. Great.

But how can we manage situations so that we can reduce conflict, but also not feel like we're just ending up settling with compromises all the time? I mean, I think compromise is part of life. So much of human engagement is deciding what your intent is and what you want that relationship to be or need to be. I mean, in my own life, my father is a white man from Waterloo, Iowa. He's conservative. He's Republican. He's a evangelical Christian. He is deeply deeply important to me.

And a huge part of our relationship over the years is finding out which conversations are not helpful for our relationship and where and how do we have meaningful rich conversation and interaction and joy. Despite our differences. And so, you know, any meaningful relationship over time has difference in it, even siblings, right, even within a family, even within any marriage. And so, part of the ability to have compromise is to say, you know what, I'm not going to win every battle. But I can live with this, compromise is a really important part of any type of relationship or team.

Yeah, I made sort of a, you know, I said the thing about not wanting to get fire, those sort of a flipping joke a little bit. But there's a truth there, which is, which is that in conflicts, there are power imbalances. And I think this is something that in particular shows up in work conflict all the time where there can be a group or groups or could be between one employee and their manager or their boss. And it, it's clear that someone is in charge and someone probably has the final say. So, what limits do power imbalances put on conflict resolution? And in particular, how can the person with less power try to manage that imbalance?

Power exists in every relationship and in organizations hierarchy exists and hierarchy is super helpful, right? This is how it makes sense. This is how it sounds like we need to have another conversation about your situation. And so my most challenging situations are when a person with power doesn't recognize their power.

And it's not the same relationship as if they're arguing with their brother. It's not the same relationship as if they're arguing with their wife or anyone else that they actually have institutional power over the person.

And it's a different, it's a different interaction because you can fire the person.

And so a lot of our work is actually with the people with more power to use their power well, whether it's saying things like, you know, if you're going to fire somebody said, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Like you know it doesn't definitely hurt you. It's like it's not the same. And so it's not on the, it's not on the weight of the person with less power. It's, it's their problem, but it's not their responsibility. And so organizations get in a lot of trouble when people with power don't think they have power.

In the context of workplace conflict resolution, I just was curious if you find that there are industries or types of businesses that seem less receptive to your work or also just in sort of a broader sense. If you've seen any sort of cultural changes in the corporate world in so far as like an appetite to engage in conflict resolution because it feels like a cold world out there, especially now.

“I think one of the biggest changes in corporate culture in the last decade is the introduction of Slack.”

And I had my, my mentor in conflict resolution was a guy named Hal Saunders and he at the turn of the century the last century basically said that in negotiation and diplomacy, we used to think of of negotiation or as as conflict as a chess match.

And he said basically conflict resolution now in any type of environment is more like a squash court, except with like 15 balls at the same times and mirrors on all of the walls.

What's slacked in more than any other app was it turbo charged conflict it turbo charged who can create a group or community in any workplace. It was deeply confusing to leadership and it allows anyone to say anything without realizing. The impact that it has on 1000 other eyeballs 500 I above other eyeballs and so I think that the two biggest challenges and corporations over the last 10 years and the two biggest fights are. Where and what to do about Slack and communication and the second is going back to work and where work should happen.

You can ask you about Slack because my experience with Slack is is it's an annoying thing that I feel some obligation to be on and it makes me feel like my brain has to move in 10 different directions.

“I think why can't this just be an email or is this, did you really need to ask me about this now or just the expectation of its use I find kind of crazy making and not particularly productive but what answers do you give people to.”

You do about Slack. Slack basically in most companies didn't begin as like a deeply considered software enterprise decision.

It started because you could literally download on your app and start creating a channel and so like any type of communication. In any type of group your communication channels are disproportionately the engines of what people think of as where they work what it means to work here. And so as I watch Slack I mean I really look at a more like a sociologist our current digital tools slack included social media included are not designed for healthy heat. They're not designed to basically be able to have context or nuance and in some cases Slack can be super helpful to help smaller communities find one another in ways that doesn't take a lot of infrastructure.

But Slack can also be Amanda Ripley has wrote a book called High Conflicts is a great term called conflict entrepreneurs. Where in any group and every group and every family and every company there's also people who are just in it to like store option and so Slack can be also really conducive to that like Slack I often see Slack is almost like smoke. Why is this all rising and part of what I help people do is like look for the fire. It's a symptom of something and so if people are like you know saying all sorts of stuff on Slack or starting the side channels that's usually a symptom of a malaise elsewhere.

“And I think whenever people hear about conflict and group conflict.”

Now, I shouldn't say well whenever but often like their minds understandly turn to political conflict right are you confident or do you have a sense that the ideas that you talk about as far as conflict resolution. Also work when extended to conflict between larger political groups. I think that we have examples in our politics that are deeply unhealthy conflict and I think we also have examples that are starting to look at more healthy conflict.

And so part of that fighting is actually tapping into what the conflict resolution facilitator said to near calls relational longing.

“And I think in all types of political, particularly in political conflict tapping into that that that relational longing is a way to actually be able to widen the tent.”

And but the second thing is even across political divides when you bring people into the same room or when they have a shared community that often isn't even about politics and might be their neighborhood association and might be their kickball club and might be their trivia night.

And actually having a second identity where they're able to come together around expands their ability to also be in community with each other across and within those political differences.

I guess that one of the big questions that that feels a little on determine at the moment is how much. Actually do some of the groups that are in conflict now want to be in in relationship. I agree and I think one of the deepest dangers of our country as we fall and out of love with each other. When you no longer have relational longing you just leave you exit and that's one of the most dangerous. I mean I don't work in places where people don't still have some amount of desire or need for each other because then you you just break up.

“And so I think one of the what when I work with organizations with communities with churches one of the things that I tell leaders is like.”

Continue to find and cultivate that relational longing that residual desire to still want to be in community with each other and I think going back to our conversation earlier around families.

I think families sometimes have it's the hardest place to be. It's it's this it's can sometimes be the scariest place to be but families also particularly across political divides which are many families in this country still have a residual desire for one another. And so when we fall out of love with one another that's a dangerous place to be. After the break I talked to Priya again about how to handle conflict at home when my husband and I start you know really getting into it. Or arguing about something and if my children happen to be in the room I will look at them and say it's okay that we're fighting.

We're arguing because we love each other. I'm Deborah Cayman I'm an investigative reporter at the New York Times. This one time I was working on a particularly difficult investigation of the bad behavior in the real estate industry. I was in a meeting with my editor and she said to have her why is your face so white and I just told her the truth.

“I said you know this story is really hard and she looked at me and said that's what we do.”

I think about that all the time. At the New York Times I have never encountered someone who said to me that's too ambitious or that story is too hard.

It's the contrary I am told you need to dig deeper you need to keep going until we make sure we have every single fact every single layer. To tell the stories that would not be told because they are hard and that's what special about the New York Times. It allows our readers to understand not just what's happening but why it's happening. If you're a subscriber you probably have experience that sense of understanding and thank you for supporting this work. If you're not you can subscribe at nytimes.com/describe.

Hi Priya how are you? Hi David I'm great how are you? Good I have a real bone to pick with you. Let's go for it. No I don't. I just thought I would try and start with that pretend conflict but I have no issue with you.

You got nothing. I got nothing. But you know to start I was very intrigued by the way you described yourself as a conflict a verse person. So how does your own conflict a version show up in your life? When I am in a tense situation with somebody that I love with my husband, with my children, with my friends, my palms get super sweaty, my heart starts palpitating.

Sometimes in a really good fight I'll feel slightly faint. And I have come to realize and recognize that all fighting actually is physical. Just not in the way we think. And the physicality of what actually happens in our bodies with in ourselves, actually deeply affects our ability to fight or stay.

And so my conflict a version is something that continues.

And I actually as a facilitator but also in my own life have very simple practices to just notice this is happening to breathe, to not exit. And so my conflict a version shows up all the time. But I have learned how to basically stay in the heat. So you have these tactics for how to physically manage the feelings of conflict a version.

“But what advice do you have for people about how to mentally and cognitively deal with the conflict a version?”

Because it's one thing to sort of not flee. It's the other thing to then behave in a productive manner in the conflict. It's to deeply reframe conflict as an investment in the person. And I mean, I do this with my family, even in my own household. But my husband and I start really getting into it.

Or arguing about something. And if my children happen to be in the room, I will look at them and say, It's okay that we're fighting. We're arguing because we love each other. This is an important conversation.

And I'm kind of saying it as much to them as I am to myself. And part of that is because we tend to think of conflict as antagonistic. But conflict can actually be incredibly pro-social. And so very simply it's like first is checking in with oneself and saying, Do I care about this relationship?

And counterintuitively, if I do, let me get in there.

“Can I ask when you're in a fight or conflict with your husband?”

Is he ever like stopped doing the techniques on me? Of course. Of course. Don't facilitate me. Of course.

And part of my husband is very comfortable with conflict. I've learned a lot from him. But a huge part of our, it can be very frustrating because I know what the tools are.

But we're not always using them.

And so in my mind, I'm in a fight with my husband. I'm a wife. I can't be a facilitator. But I do try to practice some of these skills. And also afterwards when we've, you know, when we've kind of gotten through the fight and we're,

They're joking about it or debriefing. I think actually over time both of us try to practice some of these skills. And you can actually get better at fighting. I have. He's always been good at it.

I've gotten better. The way you just described your husband as someone who's good at fighting. For me, conjures up a connection with a certain personality type or even certain group type,

which is groups or individuals who are kind of always poised for conflict.

And I want to know your guidance for how best to engage in a conflict with those people, because I find that my reaction often is like, I'm just going to, you know, pass the buck or just avoid it for whatever reason or just like not engage, because the idea of bringing something up with someone who I know is immediately going to have their fist up. I'm just like, I just would rather not bother with this.

How might we smooth the way through our conflict with people who are ready to fight? This dynamic exists everywhere. There's, and you're often married to the person, right? The person who wants to fight in the person who doesn't. There's a great piece by Reina Cohen and the Atlantic and she looks at couples who schedule their fights.

Schedule their fights really. Schedule their fights. And what are the things that they do is they schedule fights. I have a weekly check-up almost like a dentist cleaning or a monthly fight. And what this does is when you actually have, you know, a time for the fight,

the conflict-seeking person can always,

the conflict-verse person can be like, save it for Tuesday. And the conflict-seeking person who feels like their conflict-verse partner is like never willing to have a fight knows, okay fine, we have that for Tuesday. And it might sound kind of bizarre, but actually many like, I studied traditional and indigenous communities of how they dealt with internal conflict.

And almost all of them had specific times and places to regularly sort through internal conflict.

“Part of what we are lacking in modern life is rituals to hold things that are hard.”

It allows us as humans, as friends, to have a place where we know we can sort of take this stuff. And in part because we assume that conflict is dysfunctional, we don't even know that there are ways that we can actually embed this into daily life. Can you share a conflict in your life that you're working on right now? Oh my god, so many. When I feel like when you're a parent, there are conflicts all over the place.

I mean, I think one conflict that I like a larger question that I really hold as a parent is, I have an eight and eleven year old currently, is, if and when my children are with their peers at,

when and how to pick up the phone and call the other parent or when to just sort of let it watch out.

“And I think that that's like a really deep conflict within and across parent communities”

of how much do you sort of let kids sort it out? And how much is it actually our job to get in there and give them some skills? I do this actually, just with my own children, the practice of normalizing apology, if and when they do something to hurt or annoy one another, and they apologize, I help them practice actually a full apology

to actually articulate what it is that they did and not, you know, say like, you know,

I'm sorry you were offended and practicing actually ownership and accountability.

And then actually on the receiving side, I help them, you know, instead of saying, it's fine. It's okay, right, if somebody pollutes us to you, I have them say, I invite them to say, I don't know, I was listening, thank you. Because it actually, they're actually then, it's actually quite vulnerable to admit that someone affected you. And that simple practice and everyday interactions with young people is actually the same skills we do at the highest levels,

with colleagues, with conflict in much higher stakes contexts. But we are so averse to apologizing, we're not taught how to,

and we're so averse to even knowing how to accept someone's apology.

It's a huge problem with just the daily massorations of group life.

“It really is an amazing thing, isn't it the way that some people just will not apologize or will not admit wrongdoing?”

Entire families get incredibly and teams, get incredibly stuck when we don't have the tools and skills. And I will call it a tool and a skill to apologize. And in part, because when we are in relationship or when a conversation with one another, if you are unwilling or unable to actually admit that you are ever wrong, it creates this huge distortion within the entire group.

And so one of the simplest ways to actually get a group to get unstuck is simply practicing. People are articulating the elements that have hurt them or annoyed them, and the other person practicing, listening and accepting. In our previous conversation, I had brought up the idea of how we might reduce conflict in ways that don't also feel like we're just compromising. And you gave this example of your relationship with your dad and how you have kind of,

it sounded like different political beliefs, sort of some social beliefs that are different. And you just sort of made the decision that it was best for you to not talk about that kind of stuff or table it.

“And the thing that I didn't understand is, how is that different than just avoiding the conflict?”

Why is that a productive move for you and your dad to make? Rather than the thing that it seems like you're often counseling against, which is burying the problem? There was a study done that looked at how important political identities were to Americans. And over the last 10 years, particularly with the election of Donald Trump, that identity has moved way up the ladder in terms of importance.

And there was a Christian theologian called Joyce Ann Mercer. And she writes a story and I could relate to it about how she and her family have come across a political aisle would come together for Thanksgiving or family reunions. And they used to be able to 20 years ago 30 years each other kind of tease each other and engage in these conversations. And it was kind of all in good fun and over the last four years, the vibe was off. And what actually the stakes in the country on both sides on all sides began to be perceived one as much higher.

And the political identity was also perceived as being getting closer and closer to disgust and having different moral worlds. And part of what she advocated for, she said, when you have a relationship in which you want to maintain ties for any reason. And there is a line that around which, if you enter, you're not going to be able to sort of come back from. She encourages engaging in strategic conflict avoidance. And as I read that essay, I'd helped me understand the many decades long conversation that I've had with my, particularly with my father.

As I think many young people or young adults or adults have with parents of a different political ilk. And at some level, it's not actually avoidance. If you've had every conversation over and over and over again and realize you're not going to change this person, but you still want to be in relationship with them. And so one of the things that I found both in my own relationship with my father, but also as as I'm looking at the country is to grow the warmth.

It's almost like in physical therapy, if there's like a, if there's a wound or there's a breakage, you don't go directly for the wound, you work around the tear and you to strengthen the muscle.

“And similarly in relationships, you work around the tear to strengthen the muscle in part to be able to have a relationship with them.”

So let's say someone has fully immersed themselves in the art of gathering and the art of fighting and feels like, okay, I've got to, I've got to handle on. On productive group gathering and also how to deal with conflict with in groups, like what's the next thing that person should be working on? That's a great question.

I mean, I am interested in all of the different tools of how a group or a community becomes thriving in a place, people want to be a part of.

I think I'm very interested in gifts.

“The role of gifts in society and in between communities, I think we have a flat understanding of gifts and I think gifts are incredibly important and interesting in terms of helping a group understand what it is in terms of power in terms of.”

Love, I think there's a lot more understanding we could have about the role of gifts in groups and communities.

And somewhere out there, I think a lot of book editors years have perked up. The art of gift giving holiday season 2028.

But thank you so much for taking all the time to speak with me. I really enjoyed it and thought it was really interesting. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me and I hope you're a little less conflict diverse next time. That's Prioparker. The art of fighting will be published on September 8th. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/adsymbolTheInterviewPodcast. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by John Wu, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemisto, and Mary Elizano.

Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priop Matthew, Wyatt Orm, Hallen Newdorf, Joe Bill Moonios, Eddie Costis, Amy Marino, Gavey Contreras, Catalino Brian, and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Next week, Wu talks with Eina Garten about her new podcast in cookbook and how to live a good life.

“If you want to stay home and cook and take care of the family, I think it's wonderful. If you want to work, I think it's great.”

The only thing I advocate is to do exactly what feels right to you. Period. I'm David Markezi, and this is the interview from The New York Times. This week on The Wire Cutter Show, do eye creams actually work? The results that we saw with the Sarah Vayne, were so dramatic that we would call each other over to have a look because it was so dramatic you almost couldn't believe it. We talked to Beauty Rider Abby Cousulchek about her rigorous testing and surprising findings, tune into The Wire Cutter Show on The New York Times app or wherever you like to listen.