Americans disagree on a lot of things. There's nothing wrong with that, but are we having the wrong kind of conflict?

Yeah, conflict that goes around in circles and is much more about scoring points than seeking resolution or making real change.

Fear, a fear of not belonging, a sense of humiliation, like those are the things that help us understand how we got where we are and how to get out as opposed to big government or small.

You know, I mean, that's just not where we're at, unfortunately.

This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Milntite.

And I'm Richard Davies. Many of our debates and disagreements are being manufactured by conflict entrepreneurs.

That's one of the main arguments of our guest, journalist and author Amanda Ripley. Her books include High Conflict and the smartest kids in the world.

Amanda is a train conflict mediator and a less well-trained youth soccer coach in Washington, D.C.

One of her articles for the Washington Post caught our eye recently. It's called, we keep moving from one wrong fight to another. Here's how to stop.

Amanda Ripley, thanks so much for coming on Let's Find Common Ground.

Thanks for having me, Ashley. It's going to be here.

So let's start with a simple question that may invite a long answer, which is, is America having too much conflict or is it the wrong type of conflict?

You know, I feel like having spent a few years now following people who've been immersed in conflict, who study conflict, who themselves have been stuck in conflict.

I am increasingly convinced that the problem is not conflict, that we need conflict. We probably need more conflict.

But the kind of conflict really matters. So the kind of conflict we've been stuck in tends to be conflict for conflict sake.

It's counterproductive, it poisons relationships, it shuts down useful friction.

So the kind of conflict really matters. I like to think of it as roughly two kinds of conflict, right? One is high conflict, which is sometimes called malignant conflict.

And the other is what I like to call good conflict, which is basically the kind of conflict that makes us stronger, where we can challenge each other and be challenged.

And that's the kind I think we need more of.

We'd like to ask you, for examples of both types of conflict, tell us about a case of high conflict or bad conflict.

Actually, the phrase high conflict comes from family law, because in the 80s divorce lawyers noticed that about a quarter of American divorces were stuck in sort of perpetual cycles of blame and hostility.

And they were causing a lot of suffering for everybody involved, especially the kids, obviously.

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