MANSFIELD — Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” reverberated through the speakers of the Renaissance Theatre on Thursday night.
Amanda Ripley hoped audience members were walking away feeling heard and understood.
The New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist was the featured speaker of Kaleidoscope Community Conversations.
“Conflict does not have to be miserable. In fact, we can get better, smarter and stronger if we do conflict right,” she said. “Conflict isn’t going away, so our best choice is to get smarter about how we fight, and that’s what we’re going to do tonight.”
Ripley discussed the differences between “high conflict” and “good conflict,” explaining the language and emotional differences people feel in conversation.
“Anger is generative, anger means ‘I want you to be better,’ while contempt means you’ve given up on me,” Ripley said.
Ripley said “high conflict,” a term that came from high-conflict divorces, often hurts what arguing parties wanted to protect before they entered conflict.
“Whether it’s our kids or our country, we start to harm what we went into the fight to protect,” she said.
“There’s a few tripwires that we know lead to this high conflict from the research. One of them is binary group identities — us versus them, especially when one group thinks it’s better than the other.
“Anytime we splice the world in two, we make mistakes and it brings out our worst instincts as humans. Some things are black-and-white, but people are complicated.”
Ripley demonstrated a listening and dialogue technique called “looping,” with Source Media Properties CEO Jay Allred.
“How you loop is you ask a question, listen to the answer and paraphrase what you heard back to the person,” Ripley said. “And perhaps the most important step is to check if you got it right.
“It might take a couple of iterations to articulate what you really mean, and you might hear yourself in a way you didn’t before. This technique is really useful for slowing down and getting to the root of what a conflict is about.”
“When people don’t feel heard, they get louder,” Ripley said.
“That’s not helpful or constructive for anyone. It leads to higher divisiveness and high conflict. Our goal with good conflict and the looping technique isn’t to feel good all the time, but to feel heard and understood.”
Ripley encouraged attendees to practice looping in their homes and low-stress environments so they can loop “without thinking” in conflict.
“Good conflict is the kind of conflict that makes us stronger. It might be unpleasant or uncomfortable, but just like going to the gym, we emerge a little bit stronger,” she said. “Listening to understand is an opportunity to build trust in a world with little trust.
“People in good conflict experience anger and frustration, but also flashes of curiosity, wonder, surprise and even humor.”
Ripley’s resources for understanding conflict, what questions to ask and other tools are available at thegoodconflict.com.
Good conflict is the kind of conflict that makes us stronger. It might be unpleasant or uncomfortable, but just like going to the gym, we emerge a little bit stronger.”
Amanda Ripley
The next Kaleidoscope event features Andrew Ramsammy, an Emmy-award winning journalist and co-founder of Equimedia Advisors.
Ramsammy’s expertise focuses on how news is presented, what biases and trends are present and what coverage areas or communities are neglected.
He’s the former chief impact officer of the Local Media Association where he led Word In Black, a collaborative network of the nation’s leading Black publishers.
Tickets for the Oct. 29 event are available at a pay-what-you-can model.
The Kaleidoscope Series event is made possible by the generous support of sponsors including the Richland County Foundation, Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, Renaissance Performing Arts Association and Richland Source.
