It’s no secret that weddings breed conflict. Before we got married, I fought with my parents over the guest list. A friend of mine was struggling to incorporate some of her husband’s Protestant traditions into her Jewish rituals. Another friend had to decipher and deal with complex tensions between his future uncle and aunt in law.
All of these issues were resolved, and our conflict resolution facilitator, Priya Parker, said the process of resolving them made our wedding a better representation of our values. In his 2018 bestseller, Parker explored the creation of meaning by groups. art of gathering. In her new book art of battleshe writes that discussion is essential to a group’s ability to do just that. Furthermore, in American society, Parker says, Avoid conflict and hold fewer large-scale ceremonies. High-stakes events like weddings are one of the “last remaining collective mechanisms to support the struggle necessary to understand who we are now.”
art of battle is based on Parker’s belief that no group can function successfully without conflict. “Combat is not the death of a community; it is the vitality of a community,” she writes in the prologue. Parker believes that Americans are too willing to focus on themselves rather than their communities, largely due to a widespread fear of conflict. In her view, much loneliness stems from the all-too-common decision to exit a difficult situation rather than address smoldering disagreements. This is a wise diagnosis, and one that is relevant not only to interactions within religious groups, schools, and workplaces, but also to small-scale social scenarios. For Parker, choosing to hide from conflict is, in many situations, tantamount to choosing to be alone.
Parker’s idea that conflict is inherently a social good is interesting but counterintuitive. but art of battle This book is not as communitarian as its setting suggests. Its more abstract writing describes healthy conflict as beneficial and valuable, but the examples tell a different story. hoodie present art of battle Although it is a “group help book”, Her case studies tend to take sides; Her side wins.
Her own life is also used as illustrations, often providing the book’s most revealing moments. To make the point that everyone needs to get used to disagreements, she mentioned that Parker had a conflict with her father after he became upset that he didn’t invite his brother-in-law’s wife to his baby shower. As Parker tells it, their discussion of why she and her sister-in-law simply don’t get along ends not in compromise or reconciliation, but in the blunt line, “He just didn’t understand, and that was OK.” Such unilateral solutions suggest an indifference to compromise and an interpretation of combat as an individualistic act. Facing conflict can very well be a good thing for society, and I believe that, but her books often seem to encourage readers to engage in discussions to get what they want.
art of battle It is full of stories of conflict. Some appear only once, while others appear throughout the book. Many of the bickering groups Parker covers, which she facilitates and works with, range in size from large families to percussion ensembles to large architecture firms. Parker uses every case to ask variations of her central question. “How do you fight against people who want to belong?”
In the book’s most poignant example, she writes about a church that deliberated and voted on whether to perform and recognize same-sex marriage in the mid-1990s. Pastor Martin Copenhaver knew that if the church was to survive, he could not make potentially divisive decisions. “In politics, if you win by one vote, you win. Here, if you win by one vote, you haven’t won,” he tells Parker.
He hosted four meetings to discuss the subject, hoping to forge a meaningful consensus. Only those present were allowed to vote. After the election, the church voted unanimously but “without major divisions” to recognize same-sex marriage, calling on everyone to recognize same-sex marriage and directly reconciling with those who voted differently. In essence, Copenhaver orchestrated the entire conflict not to lead believers to a particular outcome, but to prioritize believers’ investment in the church.
I wanted to learn more about how other types of conflict, especially less organized conflicts, strengthen a sense of community. But Parker is surprisingly vague about the various motivations for confronting or ignoring the tensions present in one situation or another. Some strategies for managing conflict – Wait to fight until no one has steam coming out of their ears. Make sure the grievances and goals of the parties in the discussion are clear. Creating the right conditions for difficult conversations applies to all types of groups.
However, this book does not go far enough in recognizing that different types of conflicts have different interests. It may be wise among relatives to start a fight for the benefit of the group, but it is foolish if doing so might cost them their jobs. Also, values-based arguments may not be valuable in a corporate context where the overall goal is profit maximization. One of Parker’s recurring examples is a discussion in a law firm about whether to broadcast a World Cup match in Qatar on a common TV. It begins with an intern on Slack protesting “human rights abuses against workers in the run-up to the World Cup and the appalling rights situation for LGBTQ people and women in Qatar.” The managing partner invited employees, and Parker characterized the World Cup as an overly broad conversation. It was “the wrong fight with the wrong group of people in the wrong room,” she writes.
Parker uses this discussion to highlight good and bad ways to overcome conflict, especially conflict that occurs online. This is certainly an important issue in an age of screens. However, this analysis lacks any real engagement on Parker’s part with the nature of the conflict itself. The reader will never know how the problem was solved. Was the World Cup televised or not? Have you ever had a meaningful discussion about an objection raised by an intern? This book uses this example to explain strategies for dealing with internal dissent, highlighting how managing partners can best restore peace among employees. It becomes a story about conflict management rather than conflict as a potential social benefit.
Some of Parker’s personal anecdotes more vividly illustrate her not entirely communitarian approach to the fight. In one article, she talks about taking her children and cousins to a small soccer camp one summer. Initially, the children hated camp and reported being bullied by counselors. Parker spoke with the camp director, who in turn spoke with employees who confirmed that Parker’s children and niece, who started in the eighth week of camp, were unfamiliar with both the “teasing culture” of the established group and the basic rules of soccer. Parker suggests camp coaches “give the kids the Week 1 experience and let them pivot and do the same things that other kids did when they were new.” They comply and the camp that Parker needs for childcare goes well.
Parker’s reaction to this situation is completely rational. What parent doesn’t try to help a child who is being bullied or try to save a failing childcare environment? However, this does not indicate conflict as a social service. Rather than encouraging the children to advocate for themselves or asking how the camp can help them better settle despite their latecomer status, she shows herself struggling to get the children special treatment. In other words, there is no compromise here, no sense of group collaboration. Parker’s judgment as a customer must be correct.
throughout art of battlethe individual wins in this way. A woman named Rebekah was so exhausted from participating in her family’s Passover festivities that she decided not to attend because there was too much cooking, too much disruption to her daily routine, and too much air time with her right-wing uncle. But Parker never writes about what her parents, siblings, and children lose when Rebekah and her nuclear family stop coming, or how her continued presence, however contradictory, might have inspired her extended family to build a more sustainable tradition. Just as some therapists prioritize their clients over other people in their lives, Parker prioritizes the subjects of his anecdotes over the people he quarrels with.
What is this story? Ultimately, this is a much less surprising view of the conflict than this book attempts to explain. Parker provides a helpful guide to having honest discussions without needlessly hurting anyone’s feelings or creating a crisis for your company. But the discussion doesn’t end there. In this book alone, the story of the church in Copenhaver shows that even long-lasting and weighty disagreements, if handled with sufficient care and respect, can strengthen the bonds between the parties involved; they can be not only non-destructive, but productive. Many readers will have experienced this in their intimate relationships. I myself have become close with some friends through clearing the air arguments, but have become estranged from others who were unwilling or unable to discuss issues when they arose.
However, as Mr. Parker points out, American life is not designed to foster healthy conflict. A meaningful team fight is a rare experience. I have never participated in anything other than wedding planning. I believe that, in theory, such conflicts can be transformative for both the community and its individual members. But for Parker’s book to teach me how to survive a fight, she would have had to truly let go of the old idea that the reason to fight is to win.
If you buy books using links on this page, we may earn a commission. Thank you for your support Atlantic Ocean.