I never said that!

One of the biggest barriers to conflict resolution is understanding the argument that is being made.  This might sound like a simple concept but in practise it is a lot more complex.  When two people have an argument, each individual often forms an opinion of the other person and the argument they think they are trying to make, that opinion can cause them to fail to see the actual argument the other person is trying to make.

In order to understand an argument someone else is presenting, you not only need to listen to what they are saying, but you also need to understand the mindset of the person saying it, and know the limit to their level of communication.  If the other person has poor communication skills, then you are much more likely to misunderstand the argument they are presenting, not because you don't understand what they are saying, but because the words they choose might not be the best way for them to explain the concept they have inside their head.  The easiest way to overcome this communication barrier is to ask questions about the argument someone is presenting in order to give it more depth.

Probing an argument that you do not like or do not wish to accept can be difficult, there can be no desire to know more about another person's point of view.  We rely heavily on opening arguments being an accurate representation of their point of view in much the same way as first impressions decide the bulk of how we view a person and interact with them going forward.  When either side misunderstands the opening argument their opponent has made, resolution becomes much less likely as the two will likely descend into a scenario where both people argue against a hypothetical third person.  That third person represents the proponent's erroneous understanding of their opponent's argument which neither actually agrees with.  Conflict can become even more twisted if both parties misunderstand each other in which case a hypothetical fourth person is introduced representing the additional erroneous understanding.

When it comes to understanding one another, we have become surprisingly impatient.  Our prejudice towards one another has been fed by the internet and by a growing tendency to encapsulate us within bubbles.  Time was, a town or village or small populous was very tightly knit, very little changed, and everyone within the community knew everyone else.  There was very little interaction with anyone outside of the community and this actively encouraged mistrust and the lack of exposure allowed misconceptions to go unchallenged and false beliefs eventually became cemented in the collective mentality of the community.  Progress only came when society started to connect, when villages started interacting more with each other, when towns grew and new people came along and old prejudices were challenged through exposure and the eventual realisation that many of those beliefs had no founding in reality.

Then came the Internet.  The World began to shrink.  People thousands of miles away from one another could connect and speak as if they were in the same room.  Unfortunately rather than accelerating progress, this actually enabled regression.  By making it easier to connect with people anywhere in the world we were encouraged to connect with people we had something in common with.  Instead of expanding our horizons and challenging our beliefs, the internet encouraged us to become insular once more and condensed us as a populous into clusters.  Social media and online retailers encouraged profiling and actively sought to group people together based on their interests with the aim of making them easier to target in order to boost their sales.  Social media sites encourage users to form bubbles and become isolated in clusters.

By creating a world where we come together so easily, we have created a world which divides us easily.  Segregation is now the biggest problem online and it has already progressed to the point where differences in opinion have become so extreme that getting two people from opposing backgrounds to sit and have a conversation with one another is difficult.  What we now need is a way to connect people who come from different backgrounds who actually want to bridge that divide.  The biggest barrier now to achieving this is that each side holds a view of the other that is not accurate yet neither side is willing to admit that.  Both sides are arguing with hypothetical third and fourth people, never taking the time to actually see the person on the other side, focusing only on what they think the other person is or what they think they represent.