A Short Course for Navigating and Defusing Toxic Conflict
Resources for those who wish to disagree and advocate in healthier, less polarizing ways or mediate others' toxic conflicts
The following is a short course for people who want to improve their abilities to navigate toxic conflict and reduce conflict toxicity. The specific pieces I recommend could be changed out for other pieces, but to me it’s the overall structure of concepts that I think is important. I.e., these points:
Seeing the ease with which rational, caring people can disagree
Seeing how common it is for our views of the “other side” to be distorted and overly pessimistic
(Due to above points): Seeing that intellectual arrogance and contempt toward others’ views are seldom called for, and will always amplify conflict toxicity
Seeing the self-reinforcing nature of toxic conflict: how unreasonable contempt and fear leads to more contempt and fear—and to more extreme, uncompromising stances
I believe if someone fails to understand these very important aspects of conflict, they’ll often act in ways (often unintentionally) that add to toxicity and contempt. And that risk is present even for those who fully believe they are helping reduce toxicity.
For this piece, I’ve added a few people’s Substack links.
Feel free to use/borrow this curriculum (e.g., feel free to borrow the structure and switch out specific resources that you like).
Do you have short-form pieces, books, or resources you think would make for strong, persuasive additions to this course? Please mention them in the comments.
Okay here’s the course…
A Short Course for Navigating and Defusing Toxic Conflict
Objective: The objective of this short course is to provide you with some basic skills and information that will help you a) navigate toxic conflict and polarization, b) work across emotionally charged differences, and c) be a leader in high-conflict environments.
More on the course philosophy: A fundamental human challenge is that we seem to be easily drawn into toxic conflict dynamics, and overly certain and team-based ways of seeing the world and people around us. To build a healthier, more functional, more peaceful future, we need more people to recognize the importance of engaging with others in more respectful, collaborative, and optimistic ways.
Course sections and objectives:
Section 1: The Ease With Which We Can Disagree
You’ll learn about the ease with which rational, caring people can disagree, and why it’s good to aim for humility and avoid arrogance
Section 2: How Conflict Degrades our Thinking and Interactions
You’ll learn how contempt, anger, and fear can create a self-reinforcing conflict cycle, and how that can weaken and derange our thinking and interactions with the “other side”
Section 3: Navigating and Resolving Toxic Conflict
You’ll learn some strategies for engaging with those on the “other side,” or helping others navigate their disagreement
Section 1: The Ease With Which We Can Disagree
Overview: It’s natural and expected for people to disagree. The world is a complex place: determining the truth can be difficult. Also, even when we do agree on facts, we’ll often have different moral views on what constitutes harm, and different views about which harms are most important. It’s simply easy for rational and kind people to passionately disagree with each other. Seeing the ease with which people can disagree in turn helps us see the importance of aiming for intellectual humility and at minimally contemptuous ways of engaging.
Recommended short resources:
“How Do Reasonable People Disagree?” about Kevin Dorst’s work on polarization (his Substack)
“What Does Intellectual Humility Look Like?” by Mark Leary
“Why We Fight About Morality and Politics,” a TEDx Talk by psychologist Kurt Gray (his Substack)
“11 Questions About the Certainty Trap,” by sociologist Ilana Redstone (her Substack)
Go deeper with these resources about the temptation and pitfalls of highly certain and arrogant ways of thinking and approaching disagreement:
Ilana Redstone’s book The Certainty Trap
Taylor Dotson’s book The Divide (his Substack)
Kevin Dorst’s Substack on “rational polarization”
Section 2: How Conflict Degrades our Thinking and Interactions
Overview: In the first section, we focused on the ease with which rational people can disagree and the importance of intellectual humility. But it’s also true that toxic conflict skews our thinking and leads us to behave in irrational, team-based ways. The perception that we’re fighting a high-stakes war with a morally faulty “other side” can distort and harden our beliefs (for example, we can see the whole “other side” as much more extreme and malicious than they are). We can be unknowingly caught in a self-reinforcing feedback loop where contempt amplifies contempt, and more extreme views lead to more extreme views on the “other side.”
This section will help you understand how conflict can degrade our ability to think clearly, and make us more extreme and unwilling to compromise.
Recommended short readings:
“Why We Get so Angry When People Disagree with Us,” by Elizabeth Niedbala
“Polarization: One Reason Groups Fail,” by Reid Hastie and Cass R. Sunstein
“Undue Hate: Why Disagreement Tends to be Overly Disagreeable,” by Daniel F. Stone
“How Animosity Helps Create the Very Behaviors That Upset Us,” by Zachary Elwood
Go deeper with these resources on how toxic conflict can weaken our thinking and lead to a self-reinforcing conflict cycle:
Daniel F. Stone’s book Undue Hate
Amanda Ripley’s book High Conflict (her Substack)
Zachary Elwood’s book Defusing American Anger
Section 3: Navigating and Resolving Toxic Conflict
Overview: So far, you’ve learned about a) the ease with which we can disagree, and b) how our disagreement can lead to toxic, dysfunctional ways of thinking and engagement. Now you’ll learn some tips for engaging and collaborating across strong differences, or for helping mediate such disagreement. A major part of navigating and healing a toxic conflict is learning to avoid arrogant, contemptuous, us-vs-them language and approaches.
Recommended short readings:
A summary of the book “Conflicted,” by Ian Leslie
A summary of the book “Getting To Yes,” by Roger Fisher and William Ury
8 Tips for Activists Who Want to Reduce Polarization, by Zachary Elwood
Go deeper with these books on navigating and resolving toxic conflict:
Adam Kahane’s book Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust
Ian Leslie’s book Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together, by Ian Leslie
Roger Fisher and William Ury’s book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
Robert Talisse’s book Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance
Notes on course creation: This was created by Zachary Elwood with help from polarization researcher Daniel F. Stone, author of the book Undue Hate. Please let me know what you liked or didn’t like about it in the comments. Feel free to give input on resources you think are highly valuable on this topic, and are worthy of inclusion.
Thanks for the great resources and links.
Is this available as a PDF? I would like to share it as a whole.