An Expert on Conflict Says Your Relationships Are Doomed Without It

I'm David Marquesi and today I'm interviewing conflict resolution facilitator and author Priya 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, you're resolvable 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 best-selling 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 Priya 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. Priya, 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 like healthy and productive group activity. 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 and so many of the friend groups that I am a part of or see, they are often actually falling apart because they are 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, conflict aversion, avoidance, people believe pretend everything is 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. Conflict 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 some people 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 white American, both of my parents are actually very conflict diverse. 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. So like on my parkour side, on my eye, 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 in the culture, it's like not my labor, not my burden, like I don't have time, there's too much baggage over here. Like friends are supposed to just all be fun, actually because we're so conflict diverse, 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 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 love this question. You must get the same conflict over and over again. 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, it's pretty bad, right? Well, it's either pretty bad or someone has realized, okay, the way we are handling this is 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 a 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. 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. Using 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 aversion was preventing them from actually having the fight they needed to have. 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 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. Pineapple on pizza, like, oh, that's disgusting, I'm Italian, this is offensive. And then the next sentence goes on. He's like, what is the perfect time for lunch when 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 prosocial, 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 Jessup, Iowa, when the minister came and gave my grandfather's eulogy, Lyle Parker, he basically saved his highest compliment for the end of the 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. It 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 they 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 like a little bit pie in the sky kind of thinking or slightly naive. I don't know. I wouldn't say not naive, but just maybe a little sort of more optimistic than I'm inclined to be because I think 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. So is it the case that conflict is like necessarily generative in a good way. - Not always, absolutely not. And basically what you're talking about, which is like sometimes it's 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 weeness. And so there are some fights that are just about domination or that are just about power battles. And in that case, you probably don't need a grow warmth. - Right. - 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 gonna need some skills to do it out right now. We have very few conflict rituals in society. We basically oscillate between pretending everything's fine and suing each other, right? And so part or union negotiations, new 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, but 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 elements. - Right, and the others 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 some conflicts could still get resolved, but they might not jive with sort of what your values are or what 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 a choose. - Right, you were in the same village, the whole life, 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 that question and connected to another specific example, which I think is sort of emblematic of our contemporary culture, which there is this trend of within families of children in particular going no contact, right? Children who have decided that rather than continue to have conflict or tension or whatever negative emotions they're having, they're opting out. And I think from the outside, it can be easy to say, well, that's unhealthy or seems like a drastic step to take and maybe it is or maybe it isn't, 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? - I think of Carl Pilemer's work and his study about estrangement. 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 normalized estrangement. And I think part of what Carl Pilemer said was the people who are able to come back from or move forward from estrangement are people who are willing to let go of a unifying narrative, to let go of having a shared story of 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 do I, 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, it is really hard sometimes to sort of see one's own role in a situation. I think one of the terms that I think has been really helpful that's a reason over the last decade is the term gaslighting, right? Which is like, you're in a situation is somebody gaslighting you, or are you crazy? Are 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, somebody. - Yeah, is this 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 be 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 they 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? 'Cause I know what 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. So, 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 it. - But do you want to be in relationship with that person? - Well, at the risk of losing my job, probably, yes, you know. - Great, 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, compromises a really important part of any type of relationship or team. - You know, I made sort of a, you know, I said the thing about not wanting to get fired, there's sort of a flippant joke a little bit, but there's a truth there, 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 it could be between one employee and their manager or their boss. And 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 a hierarchy is super helpful, right? This is how we make this. 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 often when I work with leaders, when I work with managers, one of the sets of coaching that we do is actually helping those leaders and managers really understand that they have disproportionate power. And it's not the same relationship 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 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, it's like, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Like, you know, it doesn't, definitely doesn't hurt you. It's like, it's not the same. And so it's not on the weight of the person with less power. 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 insofar 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. - Oh, huh. - And I had a, 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 negotiation or 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 slacked it more than any other app? Was it turbocharged conflict? It turbocharged 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 1,000 other eyeballs, 500 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. - But let me ask you about Slack because my experience with Slack 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. And I think, why can't this just be an email or 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 what do we 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, I mean, 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 Conflict, which is this great term called Conflict Entrepreneurs. We're in any group, in every group, in every family and every company, there's also people who are just in it to like stir up shit. (laughing) And so Slack can be also really conducive to that. Like, I often see Slack as almost like smoke. Like why is this all rising? And part of what I help people do is like look for the fire. - Oh, it's a symptom of something. - 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 whatever, 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. There's a huge conflict right now happening within the DSA and the Democrats, right? The DSA is sort of like the jilted lovers of the Democrats. They want to, they're saying like, I wish you could only see the world we think can exist. 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 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. It might be their kickball club and might be their trivia night. 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 feels a little undetermined at the moment is how much actually do some of the groups that are in conflict now want to be in relationship? - I agree. And I think one of the deepest dangers of our country is we fall in out of love with each other. And 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 just break up. - Right. - And so I think 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 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. (upbeat music) - 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - 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 start with a 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 averse person. So how does your own conflict aversion 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. (laughing) 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 the in ourselves actually deeply affects our ability to fight or stay. And so my conflict aversion is something that continues. I'm still physically conflict averse. 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 aversion 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 aversion. But what advice do you have for people about how to mentally and cognitively deal with the conflict aversion? 'Cause it's one thing to sort of not flee. It's another 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, with my, 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. Part of that is because we tend to think of conflict as antagonistic, but conflict can actually be incredibly prosocial. Very simply, it's like first is checking in with one self 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 stop doing the techniques on me? I know what you're talking about. Of course, don't facilitate me. Of course, and part of me, 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, when 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 kind of gotten through the fight and we'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 pass the buck or just avoid it for whatever reason or just not engage because the idea of bringing something up with someone who I know is immediately going to have their fists up. And it's 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. And you're often married to the person, right? The person who wants to fight and the person who doesn't. There's a great piece by Raina Cohen and the Atlantic and she looks at couples who schedule their fights. Schedule their fights, really. They 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 a time for the fight, the conflict seeking person can always, the conflict diverse person be like, save it for Tuesday. And the conflict seeking person who feels like their conflict diverse 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? 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 11 year old currently, is if and when my children are with their peer set and something happens between two kids, as is totally normal, 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 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. I, you know, instead of saying it's fine, it's okay. Right, if somebody apologizes to you. I have them say, or I invite them to say they don't always listen. 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 macerations 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 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 or different 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? Like 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 the 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 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 help 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 I'm looking at the country, is to grow the warmth between the people that you love and to have fun together and to remember why all of the different reasons you love one another. 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 productive group gathering and also how to deal with conflict within 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, it was 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. (laughing) (upbeat music) - That's Priya Parker. 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/atsymbol the interview podcast. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by John Wu, mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Roan Nemisto, and Mary and LaZana. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Wyatt Orm, Paulin Newdorf, Joe Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Amy Marino, Gavvy Contreras, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Mentors. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Next week, Lulu talks with Aina Garten about her new podcast and 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 Marquesi, and this is the interview from The New York Times.