High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley

BATB score: 5/10 💢

Not bad but boring.

Best to: finding good points in this book was like finding needles in the haystack among the clustered anecdotes; they're there but where? the book can be summarised into a one-pager.

Best for: street protestors. the book talks about how to avoid and resolve high conflicts; in a way, the opposite can be used to start one 🔥

Best as: "Real change requires putting sustained pressure on people and institutions that benefit from the current system. People with power don't generally give it up just because they become less prejudiced. They need to feel pressure, the kind that comes from organised political, legal, economic, and social action."

Other passages: "Blame like shame, makes our opponents dig in."

"If humiliation is the nuclear bomb of emotions, hatred is the radioactive fallout. That's because hatred assumes the energy is immutable. [...] The logical outcome of hate is to annihilate."

"If you can control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his action. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself."

“After-work happy hours or birthday cakes for a colleague are not just awkward ordeals, forced upon us by corporate overlords. They are investments in our future sanity, a way to build up the ratio of positive exchanges to manage the negative ones sure to come. Five positive interactions for every negative one is the magic ratio for conflict resilience.”