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“human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between. We love to dichotomize. Good versus bad. Heroes versus villains. My country versus the rest. Dividing the world into two distinct sides is simple and intuitive, and also dramatic because it implies conflict, and we do it without thinking, all the time.”
― Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World â€� and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

“See the system. When you find yourself stuck in an oversimplified polarized conflict, a useful first step is to try to become more aware of the system as a whole: to provide more context to your understanding of the terrain in which the stakeholders are embedded, whether they are disputants, mediators, negotiators, lawyers, or other third parties. This can help you to see the forest and the trees; it is a critical step toward regaining some sense of accuracy, agency, possibility, and control in the situation.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Of course, our natural impulse in these [intractable conflict] situations is to fight or flee. To lash out, blame, attack, or challenge someone, or otherwise try to get out and avoid the situation altogether. These responses make perfect sense in the short term, but likely will have little effect on the 5 percent [of conflicts that are intractable]. In fact, they may make matters worse in the long term.

So if escaping or resolving this conflict is your goal (and we do not assume this is always the case), we suggest a different approach. And it begins with complicating your life.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Humans are ingenious at sniffing out minor differences to figure out whom they should despise.”
― Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

“It is critical to recognize that we live in an increasingly complex world - biologically, socially, politically, technologically, you name it - that holds many inherent contradictions. In the middle of this complex world are we humans, who have a natural tendency to seek coherence in what we see, feel, think, and do.

When we experience conflict, this tendency intensifies. Conflict is essentially a contradiction, an incompatibility, oppositely directed forces, and a difference that triggers tension. When we encounter conflict, within the field of forces that constitute it, the natural human tendency is to reduce that tension by seeking coherence through simplification. Research shows that this tendency toward simplification becomes even more intensified when we are under stress, threat, time constraints, fatigue, and various other conditions all absolutely typical of conflict.

So what is the big idea? It is NOT that coherence is bad and complexity is good. Coherence seeking is simply a necessary and functional process that helps us interpret and respond to our world efficiently and (hopefully) effectively. And complexity in extremes is a nightmare - think of Mogadishu, Somalia, in the 1990s or the financial crisis of 2009 or Times Square during rush hour on a Friday afternoon.

On the other hand, too much coherence can be just as pathological: for example, the collapse of the nuances and contradictions inherent in any conflict situation into simple 'us versus them' terms, or a deep commitment to a rigid understanding of conflicts based on past sentiments and obsolete information. Either extreme - overwhelming complexity or oversimplified coherence - is problematic. But in difficult, long-term conflicts, the tide pulls fiercely toward simplification of complex realities. This is what we must content with.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Recall that the collapse of complexity that accompanies 5 percent [i.e. intractable] conflicts happens along many dimensions:

- A very complication situation becomes very simple.
- A focus on concrete details in the conflict shifts to matters of general abstract principle.
- Concerns over obtaining accurate information regarding substantive issues transform into concerns over defending one's identity, ideology, and values.
- The out-group, which was seen as made up of many different types of individuals, now are all alike.
- The in-group, which was seen as made up of many different types of individuals, now are all similar.
- Whereas I once held many contradictions within myself in terms of what I valued, thought, and did; now I am always consistent in this conflict.
- Whereas I used to feel different things about this conflict - good, bad, and ambivalent; now I feel only an overwhelming sense of enmity and hate.
- I've shifted from long-term thinking and planning toward short-term reactions and concerns.
- Where I once had many action options available to me, I now have one: attack.

This is the bad news about the 5 percent, but it's also the good news. The collapse of complexity occurs on so many levels, all leading to a similar state of 'us versus them' thinking, that reintroducing a sense of complexity and agency can also be achieved in a wide variety of ways. There are therefore many places to find points of leverage to rupture the certainty and oversimplification that rules in these situations.

The question is how to find them.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“When very complicated situations collapse into simple 'us versus them' problems, then certainty, hate, and escalatory spirals proliferate and become a driving force for perpetual conflict.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Integrative complexity: This refers to the level of complexity of the cognitive rules people use to process and analyze incoming information. Research spanning decades shows that people who have higher levels of integrative complexity tend to be more conciliatory in conflict and also that as conflicts escalate, peoples' level of cognitive complexity diminishes.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Human beings are driven toward consistency and coherence in their perception, thinking, feeling, behavior, and social relationships. This is natural and functional. Conflict intensifies this drive, which can become dysfunctional during prolonged conflicts. However, developing more complex patterns of thinking, feeling, acting, and social organizing can mitigate this, resulting in more constructive responses to conflict.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Relational balance: Research also shows that people prefer their relationships with others to be aligned and balanced. In other words, we prefer that all our friends be friendly with each other and that they dislike our enemies. Any imbalances between our friends and enemies results in the motivation to change friends to enemies or enemies to friends.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“Culture warriors, in the academy especially, are in thrall to an ideal of solidarity. Anything less than complete submission and approval they regard as betrayal. Their instinct is to divide people into friends and enemies, with enemies figured as dispensable and hateful. Supposing themselves to be political, they have no patience for coalition building or for the difficult work of persuasion. What is to be done, they believe, is to drive away opponents and to avoid, so far as possible, self-examination.”
― Robert Boyers, The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies

“When we start to categorize people into groups, we create the US them dynamics that we can create in the lab by assigning people to a blue team or a red team once we start to put a label and attach stereotypes to it we create intergroup conflict where it doesn't need to be”
― Jay J. Van Bavel

“Kahan devised a theory he calls “identity-protective cognition,â€� suggesting that when forced to choose between factual truth and group identity, most people choose the latter. “Individuals,â€� he concluded, “subconsciously resist factual information that threatens their defining values.â€� The problem wasn’t that people are dumb, irrational, or even superficial, as I’d formerly assumed. We’ve simply evolved—as a species—in a different way than I’d imagined. “Once group loyalties are engaged,â€� Haidt says, “you can’t change people’s mind by refuting their arguments.”
― John Bowe, I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection