An Expert on Conflict Says Your Relationships Are Doomed Without It

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**David Marchese** (0:35)
I'm David Marchese, and today I'm interviewing Conflict Resolution Facilitator and author Priya Parker. For many of us, myself included, conflict, be it at work or at home or in society, feels like something to avoid. It's combustible, irresolvable, or just plain uncomfortable. But in her new book, The Art of Fighting, Parker argues that we should fight more and learn how to do it well.
Parker, who also wrote the best-selling 2018 book, The Art of Gathering, is drawing on her work mediating conflict on college campuses, at Fortune 500 companies, in cultural institutions, and within families. So how and when should we fight? Here's my conversation with Priya Parker. But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you. You can now explore The Times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app, and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, on to the interview.
Priya, thank you for being here. I'm very excited to talk with you about conflict.

**Priya Parker** (1:43)
Thank you for having me.

**David Marchese** (1:44)
So your previous book, The Art of Gathering, which I think was published in 2018 Yep. So it's been a little while, but that was all about healthy and productive group activity.
And of course, the new book is about conflict. And it's hard not to wonder if that suggests something grim about the trajectory of the world since then. So why did you feel compelled to write the new book?

**Priya Parker** (2:09)
I am deeply interested in human connection.
And The Art of Gathering is about human connection. And The Art of Fighting is about human connection. And I decided to write this book in part because as a conflict resolution facilitator, I saw that in so many of the organizations that I work in and so many of the families I work with and so many of the friend groups that I am a part of or see, they're often actually falling apart because they're afraid to fight.
And so much of what I find is that organizations and friend groups basically when conflict arises, oscillate between either unhealthy peace, conflict aversion, avoidance, people believe, pretend everything's fine and unhealthy conflict, right? Which is either escalation or domination or abuse. And so I wrote The Art of Fighting to basically say, look, this is a deeply, deeply important part of all group life, of all of our relationships. And we're not taught how to do it well. And we're actually not taught that it's actually deeply functional. It's not immoral. It's not toxic. Conflict is actually the way we figure out who we are and how we negotiate to be part of common life together.

**David Marchese** (3:20)
You used the term unhealthy peace. I think it's possible that that term could feel like an oxymoron to some people. Like what could be unhealthy about peace? Can you explain what you mean by that term?

**Priya Parker** (3:31)
You know, maybe I'll start with a personal story.
When my parents separated, I'm half Indian, half white American. Both of my parents are actually very conflict diverse. And when my parents separated and then divorced, everyone was shocked because they never fought.
And so I learned from a young age that there's great loss and avoidance. And I'm actually a third generation conflict avoidant person. So like on my Parker side, on my Iowan side, on my Indian side, like when heat rises, we just like stick our head in the sand and hope it'll pass. And so much of unhealthy peace is actually the idea that if we just pretend this conflict is not there, if we just kind of like, you know, shove it under the rug and hope it'll pass, everything will be fine. But actually, when we don't have meaningful conversations, the relationship can also end. I mean, so often when you know, you hear it in the culture, it's like, not my labor, not my burden. Like I don't have time, there's too much baggage over here. Like friends are supposed to just all be fun. Actually, because we're so conflict diverse, we exit before we're actually willing to engage. And so our communities and our families are fracturing, in part because we're afraid of entering and we don't often, we're not taught the skills of how to actually have those fights.