Getting Engaged

You thought we were done with conflict. That you’d heard the last word.

Enough already!

you might be thinking.

But no. There’s more.

Here’s what I’m thinking: Even if you do your very best to avoid conflict, people will still act aggressively. It’s still possible that someone will yell at you or try to take advantage of you or blame you for what they did or throw a tantrum when you refuse them. People do what they do. And they do act out.

It’s what you do with what they do that I’m interested in.

Do you cave to their aggression? Out of fear or horror or discombobulation or some contorted definition of kindness (a definition you hold yourself but not them to)?

Do you override their aggression with your own aggression? Get defensive? Try to win? Dominate or be dominated? Bully or be bullied?

These are, I fear, too often the only options we imagine.

Give in. Or engage in combat.

I think that’s because people tend to go dichotomous under stress. We go “on” or “off.” If one person is “on” (being aggressive), then I have to play the “off” role (lie down and take it). Or I take over the “on” role in unconscious hopes that the other person will take the “off” role. Dichotomous options. Two different roles that fit together perfectly.

But this type of fit – the dominate or be-dominated fit – isn’t productive. Nothing good comes of it. Just overweening power and intimidation, fear and shame, and, ultimately, avoidance and polarization.

Wait –

there is one good thing that comes from the dominate or be-dominated fit: It teaches the person who is being dominated what it feels like to be the dominator. Because dominators tend to dominate when they are desperate to avoid being dominated themselves.

It’s called “identifying with the aggressor.”

A defense against the perceived possibility that, if you don’t go on the attack, you yourself will be attacked.

If this is true, if acts of aggression that cause fear and loathing in others actually stem from fear and loathing in the aggressor, then there might be a different way to engage.

Check out how comedian Sarah Silverman did it. Pretty amazing.