Review and Reflection to “Negotiating the Nonnegotiable” by Daniel Shapiro
I picked this book up after watching a Youtube video that included the author. The subject was about dealing with conflict in healthy ways. This is something that I think is so very needed since our society in so many aspects are full of conflict. And if seems as though there are few that are seeking healthy ways to resolve the conflict that exist — there is more of an emphasis on winning conflict, rather than resolving it. The difference is important. Winning is an all or nothing game in which no one really wins, we all lose, it’s just a matter of by how much. Resolution though is about taking everyone into consideration. The subtitle of the book is “How to resolve your most emotionally charged conflicts.” So, let’s dive in because there is a lot of great insight in this book.
The premise, which will run through the entire book is this — “You can’t resolve such conflicts unless you address them at the root — which stretches beneath rationality, beneath even emotions, to the heart of who you are: your identity.” (Pg. xvi). At its core, this is about understanding identities and communicating effectively with those identities.
One of the first points that Shapiro makes is about the different dimensions of conflict resolution. He names three key dimensions of who we are as human beings:
- Homo economicus — This is the idea that people are rational beings. “…your main motivation is to get your interests met as efficiently as possible.”…
