A Deep Dive on High Conflict with Amanda Ripley

Early in 2021, PACE announced commitments to focus areas for its learning. One of those areas was bridging and polarization, which continues to feel like some of the highest work we could do right now as a community of civic-minded funders. Over the last many months, we explored this topic through many angles, including a deeper look at political violence in the wake of the January 6th Capitol insurrection in partnership with Over Zero, an investigation into how we complicate the narrative on bridging and division in partnership with the Center for Effective Philanthropy, and an exploration of the lived experience of polarization in partnership with Megan Phelps-Roper as part of the Reagan Foundation’s RISE Summit.

At some point on our journey this year — around April or May — it felt like in every conversation we had on this topic, someone suggested a new book which probes all of these questions and topics. It seemed that Amanda Ripley, and her new book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, had captured the attention and imagination of many in philanthropy, and in particular, civic philanthropy.

For so many reasons, we were thrilled when Amanda accepted our invitation to join PACE’s Member Meeting in early December for a session that gave us the space to further complicate the narrative on toxic polarization and division (least of which is that she coined the phrase “complicate the narrative” during her work with the Solutions Journalism Network!). For 90 minutes, we explored topics such as:

• The difference between “good conflict” and “high conflict,” and how the latter relates to toxic polarization and hyper partisanship.
• The ways that high conflict is a system, not a feeling.
• The role of humiliation in turning up the temperature on high conflict.
• The ways that turning down the temperature on high conflict requires us to go against our instincts and intuition.
• The presence and impact of “conflict entrepreneurs” in our democracy.

Below, we invite you to listen to an excerpt from Amanda’s conversation with Kristen Cambell, PACE CEO, as part of the session. We thank Amanda for her time to join us and her willingness to think, explore, and complicate the narrative of polarization alongside us. Her book — and the body of investigative work it represents — has made a major contribution to both philanthropy and American democracy.

PACE holds a commitment to “learn out loud.” In that spirit, if you have a learning or question to share after watching the video conversation between Amanda and Kristen, please share it by clicking on the word bubble below!