How to have a difficult conversation about war

Many people feel they need to talk about the conflict unfolding in the Middle East, but others find that conversation distressing. Here’s how to have a conversation about ongoing conflicts in a safe way for everybody.

This year – and possibly for many years to come – October 7th is going to be a difficult day to endure for many people, not least those with a connection to Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East. Even for those without a connection to those lands, the news of the conflict there is hard to avoid. Headlines are filled with tragedy, streets a filled with protestors, and walls are covered in posters howling in outrage or crying for justice for one side or the other. 

In this environment, it’s not surprising that many people feel compelled to share their thoughts and feelings about the conflict. And it’s equally unsurprising that many others find it too distressing a topic to engage with, whether it’s because they are affected themselves or because they feel powerless to avert the unfolding tragedy. 

People should also be forgiven for not engaging in an emotionally charged and potentially distressing conversation. While we should all have some awareness of major happenings around the world, we are not obligated to engage with those that don’t impact us or our community and are beyond our control.  

However, a problem occurs when people of opposite dispositions meet, and some desperately want to talk about the conflict and others desperately want to avoid just such a conversation. 

So, here are some approaches you can use if someone starts a conversation about the conflict, especially if that’s a conversation you’re not totally comfortable diving into. 

Pause

Often, when we hear something that triggers a strong emotional reaction, especially if it’s a view we might disagree with, we react as we would to a physical threat: fight, flight or freeze. 

Some reactively fight, and immediately push back with an alternative perspective. But if we start a conversation from a position of opposition, it shifts the dynamics into one of conflict rather than cooperation. That isn’t a problem if everyone has tacitly agreed to enter debate mode, but often that’s not the case, and conflict can easily trigger defensive reactions that cause the conversation to spiral into an unproductive clash, only heightening everyone’s emotions. 

Others attempt to flee from the conversation, such as by changing the subject or even physically leaving the room. However, if the person raising the issue feels compelled to do so, they may remain unsatisfied and will just raise the issue again at another point. Freezing, on the other hand, may be perceived as tacit agreement to dive into the conversation, which might end up being harmful or distressing for those involved.  

So, the first step for managing difficult conversations is to pause whenever you hit a point of contention or at the first indication of raised emotion, either in yourself or those you’re talking to. This gives you an opportunity to recognise and acknowledge your immediate reaction and quickly take stock of who else is in the conversation and what they might be feeling. And if we believe that someone in the conversation might be in genuine distress – including ourselves – then we can work to steer the conversation in a different direction.   

Cast the net wider

One approach for steering a conversation away from potentially distressing content is to not engage with the content directly, but instead go “meta” and talk about what you’re talking about.  

So, instead of sharing opinions or judgements about the conflict in the Middle East, ask questions about the conversation itself: why are people so invested in the conflict – especially if many of them don’t have a personal connection to those affected? How are people talking about it? Are the conversations going on around the country and in the media helping or are they divisive? How are these conversations affecting people, especially those who are connected to the conflict? How should we be talking about it? 

Asking meta questions like these can shift the conversation away from the details and on to the human impact that the conversation is having. It can prompt everyone to reflect on their role – and responsibilities – when talking about potentially distressing subjects and cultivate empathy with those affected. 

Going meta can also allow you to offer a more explicit invitation to take the conversation to another stage, giving everyone an opportunity to opt-in or opt-out. The meta conversation may have already helped to set some ground rules for how a conversation about the conflict might unfold, including what kind of language is appropriate and what kinds of topics are off limits out of respect for those affected.  

Explore feelings

If you progress the conversation further – or if others feel compelled to do so – it doesn’t mean you need to dive straight into sharing your opinions on the conflict itself. Instead, there is another framing that can be equally, if not more constructive. This is the “expressive” frame. 

Rather than asking people what they believe, invite them to share how the conflict makes them feel. This focuses the conversation on emotions and experience rather than opinions or judgements. There’s a subtle but important difference between the two.  

We all have opinions and judgements about issues that are important to us, and are more than ready to offer reasons to support our attitudes. But as the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt has pointed out, many of these opinions and judgements ultimately stem from our emotional reactions.  

When we experience outrage, for example, we immediately form a negative judgement of the perceived cause, and we often fish for reasons to support that judgement. This means that many of our reasons are post-hoc rationalisations of our emotional responses. If you start discussing these post-hoc rationalisations, you’re not really engaging with the root causes of how someone feels about an issue. Instead, it’s often far more fruitful to unpack the way they perceive the issue in the first place and discuss how that makes them feel.  

Engaging in the expressive frame has another benefit: often people who have strong feelings about an issue have a deep need to have those feeling heard and validated by others. By asking how they feel and just listening to them and validating those feelings – without necessarily agreeing with their opinions – can satisfy them and might even prompt them to listen to how you feel about it. 

Conversational scripts

Both the meta and expressive conversational modes are ways of engaging with difficult issues without tackling the substantive – and potentially harmful or distressing – content head on. They give you a chance at having a meaningful conversation that can be more sensitive and help protect those who might feel threatened or unsafe. 

That said, it can be difficult in the heat of the moment to know what to say to shift the conversation to the meta or expressive frame. For this reason, it can be useful to have a few conversational scripts up your sleeve that you can whip out as needed. 

If someone expresses outrage about some aspect of the conflict, the protests or political response, and you want to shift to the expressive frame, you could say: “I’ve been hearing about that everywhere. How do you feel when you hear about it?” 

Or if you want to move away from commentary about distant news and ground it, perhaps ask: “Do you know anyone affected by the conflict? How are they faring?” 

And if you want to shift to the meta frame, ask: “What do you think about the way people are talking about the conflict? Is that contributing to the division?” 

Finally, it’s always useful to have some conversation exits ready and waiting in case things go off the rails or things become a bit too heated or distressing. You can say things like: “that reminds me of…”, or “I wanted to ask you about…”, or even “have you seen…”, and fill in the blanks with content that you think will be appealing to your conversation partner, whether that’s something about themselves (always a favourite topic), sport, popular culture or something else that everyone can relate to. There’s no shame in tactfully changing the subject when you feel a conversation has exhausted itself (or you). 

Talking about difficult issues like the conflict in the Middle East can be distressing, but there are ways for you to take charge of the conversation and steer it in a way that is ethical, respectful and yet protects you and those around you.