It’s important to learn how to handle and solve conflict because it’s all around us, and we are never really free from it. In men especially, and you can blame the patriarchy, conflicts can start over the most minor shit and escalate to a full-on fight.

As communists I think we will also see conflict simply because of our ideas, and it’s good to be able to understand the situation and solve it as best we can. This doesn’t mean that violence is unwarranted or that your feelings are not valid, but that there are techniques one can use to help solve a situation before it goes out of control.

I myself have only learned the very basics so I can’t really explain how to de-escalate conflict, but I can explain how to help understand it.

Firstly, it’s important when in a conflict to be able to recognize the situation and take a step back. What was the trigger? How do I feel? How does the other person feel?

Then, it helps to respond appropriately. This of course depends on who you are talking to, as some people go from 0 to 100 in a quarter of a second. And if you feel disrespected, you don’t have to erase yourself and let people walk all over you. But you will likely find that responding appropriately to the level of conflict will help diffuse it instead of escalating.

The level of conflict can be schematized like this:

And you may not be at the same level. Maybe you are still trying to reason with the other party while they’re already shouting abuse at you. What is important is to lower their level and not go above theirs – although sometimes it’s also valid to escalate the level. When someone you work with keeps making disrespectful remarks at you every day and in the early stages you don’t say anything but one day you go off and shout at them for a whole hour, that is valid. Your feelings are always valid.

When in the lower stages of conflict, it pays to spell out each other’s feelings. Either “I understand how you feel but…” (when you are at fault) or “I don’t know if you’re aware of how you’re coming across” (if you are disrespected).

Get this: we feel angry when we feel someone else has disrespected us. It pays to find out the cause of your anger when you feel it and understand if it’s warranted or not, i.e. if you should feel anger or try to de-escalate.

Ultimately to solve a conflict what you want is to correct the slight you feel. If your coworker keeps disrespecting you with their casual remarks, what you want is for them to stop. You don’t have to get along with them, you just have to stop this behaviour that makes you feel bad. And you may feel that you deserve more (e.g. disciplinary action) because otherwise you look like you’re not standing up for yourself, but resolving a conflict is standing up for yourself. Vocalizing your concerns and feelings is standing up for yourself. Even if all you get is for the coworker to stop making these remarks when you wanted them to get fired, that still shows you took care of yourself and your other coworkers will respect you for it. In fact, people who get disliked (but of course your mileage may vary) are those who escalate the level too high too early.

(I may update this post later as I understand conflict better)