Conflict Without Resolution
Why arguments no longer change minds—including yours
Your smartphone has changed a great deal over the past decade, but the arguments you scroll past have remained remarkably—and painfully—constant. Debates are still fought with memes and slogans. There’s little interest in finding common ground or in winning your opponent over to your side. The shouting is the point; evidence is optional and logic just slows things down. The goal is no longer to resolve disagreements, but to keep them going.
There is rarely a decisive moment when the dispute ends. Even things that should signal resolution—election results, court rulings—are rejected, reinterpreted, or relitigated. We’re focused on winning, but we have no clear definition of what “winning” means. What once marked an ending now feels like a brief lull.
Resolutions are no longer expected, or even desired. Participants argue to maintain their position, to signal loyalty, and to distinguish themselves from their opponents. Conflicts become ongoing and self-sustaining.
So why don’t conflicts end anymore? Because there is nobody left who can say “this is over.”
To understand why, we must first understand what made resolution possible in the first place.
Conflicts traditionally ended with court hearings, with elections, with treaties. You might not like the outcome, but you knew it was final. Those ceremonies and documents were what the Merriam-Webster Dictionary would call “authoritative.”
1: having, marked by, or proceeding from authority
authoritative church doctrines
an authoritative decision
an authoritative manner
2: possessing recognized or evident authority: clearly accurate or knowledgeable
an authoritative critique
an authoritative source of information
“Authoritative” presumes the existence of authority. You can’t get an expert opinion without an expert. You can’t have authoritative church doctrines without church authorities. And you can’t stop a war unless somebody has the power to tell the troops to stand down. Without authority, there can be no authoritative ending.
After the Peace of Westphalia, people generally knew who the generals were and who gave the generals their orders. Diplomats represented their states in negotiations that determined the terms of victory and surrender. Once the documents were signed, the war was effectively over. The system was not always just, but it provided a framework for avoiding wars and for ending them.
Operations to eradicate pirates and brigands were typically messier, more drawn-out affairs. There were no kings to defeat and no diplomats to negotiate terms. You might take out a bandit camp or sink a few corsairs, but you were likely to kill quite a few innocents in the process. Then, in the following year, the problem would return.
Before Westphalia, much of Europe’s warfare more closely resembled bandit battles—fights between local lords using knights who targeted neighboring peasants and each other. After Westphalia, a different ideal began to take hold. War was no longer simply a recurring condition—it became something to be contained, negotiated, and, where possible, avoided.
Today, many of our wars fit poorly into the Westphalian model. Wars are often fought between a dozen or more competing factions. These warbands are fluid, forming and dissolving alliances as circumstances change. Fighters shift between them, and leadership structures are often unstable. At best, your agreements can bind only a portion of the fighters involved—and only for so long as their current leadership remains intact.
There is no final authority who can declare these conflicts over. There is no shared narrative of what happened and no definition of what constitutes “victory” or “defeat.” There is only an endless, bloody present with neither context nor resolution.
Increasingly, our political conflicts follow this same pattern.
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.
Otto von Bismarck, conversation with Meyer von Waldeck, August 11, 1867
For Bismarck, politics was the art of compromise—of finding an outcome that, while imperfect, could be accepted. Much of modern political discourse takes a very different approach. The goal is no longer to find common ground, but to reinforce boundaries.
Online political positions function less as arguments than as signals of identity. To question your group’s beliefs risks exclusion; to repeat them loudly affirms belonging. And as individuals move between groups, they often adopt entirely new positions, not because the underlying issues have changed, but because their affiliations have.
Like warband alliances, online political beliefs are fluid and temporary. They shift as individuals move between different parties, subgroups, and movements. Loyalties are transactional and internal fractures are common. Within offline politics, there is little interest in creating coalitions and a focus on blocking the other side at all costs. Politics no longer involves two stable sides. It has become a collection of shifting clusters whose main interest is less in taking and holding power than in proving party loyalty.
Elections do not settle disputes; instead, they create new ones. A growing number of voters will only accept election results if their candidate wins. Laws are contested, reversed, or ignored altogether. Our politics has become a system of continuous conflict without resolution. There is no authority trusted to enforce endings—or even to define what an ending is.
Earlier eras were not more just and certainly not more peaceful. For much of history war and violence were a constant threats. But those eras operated under clear structures. Fighters owed their loyalty to a lord; the lord depended on his fighters to protect the realm and maintain its borders. Disputes could be ended by victory, loss, or mutual agreement.
Wars ended with surrender, treaty, or exhaustion. Civil wars produced a winner or a settlement. Revolutions were put down or stabilized into new regimes. The outcomes might be contested, but they were recognized. Even the most destructive conflicts moved toward closure. Authority defined what had happened and what the outcome meant. Lords might go to war over who should be in charge, but they operated within a shared understanding of what authority was and how it functioned.
Today peacekeepers must deal with multiple narratives and crumbling hierarchies. The structures that once made resolution possible have given way to conditions that make it impossible.
Why has resolution become so difficult? There is not one cause, but a set of reinforcing conditions. This is not a social problem or a political issue; it is a structural fault. Conflict no longer ends because the conditions required for resolution are no longer present.
Today reality has become increasingly individualized. Leadership coach Felipe Bernardo tells us:
To live in your truth is to live by what feels right for you. It is … realizing which things, people, beliefs, lifestyles and situations resonates the most with you, which ones makes you more alive, connected, vital and vibrant.
“Your truth” is prioritized over “our truth,” which is frequently seen as repressive and dehumanizing. Neither formulation treats “truth” as a Platonic ideal, something that exists outside our opinions and emotions. Ultimately, truth is whatever the truth-seeker wants it to be. If there is no agreement about what happened or what is happening, there can be no agreement about what should happen next.
We not only lack a shared reality from which to find resolution. We also face headwinds that actively discourage it. Our political and media ecosystems reward outrage, visibility, and escalation. Shrieking declamations travel farther than soothing words or practical suggestions. Conflict generates attention and engagement, while efforts at consensus are branded as collaboration. The system not only rewards conflict—it runs on it.
Within the social media ecosphere, positions are tied to identity and group belonging. Changing your mind becomes betrayal, and conflict becomes a means of establishing your status within the group. Calling your opponent rude names shows your commitment to the cause. Trying to find common ground leads to exclusion.
Journalists once provided windows into the world and our community. Experts explained when things began and when they ended. Judges issued decisions that signaled the end of the matter. We knew they sometimes got things wrong, but we were inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Today trust in those institutions has eroded. Court decisions are dismissed as judicial tyranny. Elections are declared fake or rigged when the opposing side wins. Media outlets are tarred as propagandists. They no longer have the power to declare an outcome legitimate. Without those trusted authorities, conflict has no mechanism for ending.
Conflict no longer moves toward an endpoint. Instead, it settles into a cycle. Conflicts are not resolved; instead, they are managed temporarily. Tensions regularly erupt into escalations. The stakes intensify, as do emotions on all sides. Exhaustion or distraction cool the situation, but the underlying problems remain. Soon the conflict returns, often sharper than before as what was once considered an escalation has become the norm.
Winning no longer means settling the issue or achieving consensus. It now means gaining control of the narrative, discrediting opponents, or avoiding loss. There is little interest in resolution; the goal is now to outlast or outshout your enemy. Participants learn to escalate quickly, avoid concessions, and preserve their options. Agreements are partial, reversible, and strategic—if they happen at all. When your enemy is irredeemably evil, treaties and mutual understandings make little sense.
War (real and virtual) becomes an endless contest of shifting cycles and temporary wins. There is no closure and no finality. Conflict is no longer something to be resolved, but something to be sustained.
This shift is not abstract. It shapes our institutions and our daily lives. Systems that once produced closure now produce unending strife. What once resolved disputes now perpetuates them.
Disputed elections are not new. In 1876, America came close to another Civil War with the hotly contested election between Democrat Samuel J. Tilden and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. “Rifle clubs” and parades of wartime units promised to defend Tilden. There was talk of the National Guard, under Democratic command in most states, marching on Washington to install Tilden by force. But as the country stood on the brink of chaos, Tilden acknowledged the Electoral Commission’s decision and Hayes was sworn in.
Today accusations of fraud are thrown about casually after every election. Acceptance is conditional, and the arguments continue even after the vote is counted. Elections produce results, but they do not produce resolution.
Legislators once worked across the aisle to pass policy. Partisanship was a fact of political life, but so was cooperation. Wheeling and dealing in smoke-filled rooms led to plenty of corrupt arrangements, but it also gave lawmakers a chance to hammer out the details of needed legislation.
Today, party loyalty has become essential to political survival. When one party is in power, it passes favored legislation and rewrites or withdraws what came before. When power shifts, the cycle repeats. There is little room for consensus or for sustained cooperation across party lines. The result is gridlock and posturing in place of durable action. Those willing to negotiate are often dismissed as “RINOs” or “DINOs”—members of a party in name only. Decisions are made, but nothing is ever settled.
Scandals once followed a recognizable arc: accusation, investigation, conclusion. A figure was exposed, cleared, or forced to resign, and the matter came to a close. That model was grievously wounded while riding in a Dallas parade on November 22, 1963. It died on Little St. James Island. Today even the most innocuous controversies are debated and reframed; the more outrageous the interpretation, the more useful it is to sort out discerning minds from the sheep who simply echo what they are told.
Once scandals were reserved for the rich, famous, and powerful. Today anybody can be called out for problematic behavior and become the star in this week’s controversy. These online struggle sessions do not end in redemption or resolution, despite tearful promises to do better. The target remains marked forever, even after attention has shifted and the next badthinker is put in the pillory. There is no path for forgiveness and no hope for resolution.
Individuals are now immersed in constant conflict and unending disputes. How have our thoughts and behavior adapted—or failed to adapt—to this endless adrenaline surge?
Some have disengaged from angry discourse. They avoid political discussions and scroll past unavoidable arguments. The constant conflict has left them exhausted and emotionally fatigued. Over time, that fatigue hardens into cynicism. They no longer expect change. Without the expectation of resolution, participation begins to feel hopeless.
Others have become perpetually overstimulated. Their pattern recognition goes into overdrive and they see evidence of corruption, conspiracy, and bad faith everywhere. They have not found a resolution, but they have created an intellectual framework that makes the world feel coherent. Suspicion becomes their default mindset. They no longer trust the institutions—or the people around them.
For still others, conflict becomes their identity and their purpose. They are not content with simply mapping the conspiracy—they want to overthrow it. They espouse increasingly radical ideas, calling out for violence against their foes and cheering bloodshed when it’s aimed at the appropriate targets. Engagement becomes continuous, as the struggle gives them direction and meaning.
Society divides between those who withdraw and those who intensify. Both responses reinforce the system. Disengagement removes pressure for resolution, while intensified engagement sustains the conflict. In different ways, each ensures that the cycle continues.
Ultimately, every political crisis is a crisis of legitimacy. Authorities cannot wield power unless their constituents respect them as authorities. Voting cannot function if the voters no longer believe their ballot will be properly counted. Institutions cannot sustain themselves if their audiences no longer believe in them.
When authority is questioned, its decisions are no longer accepted. We have seen growing skepticism towards academia, science, and nonprofit groups that were once widely respected. We were always aware that our tycoons and political leaders were flawed and sometimes corrupt. We never until now worried that they might be baby-sacrificing devil worshippers. We are witnessing a widespread collapse of legitimacy across our society. And without legitimacy, there is nobody to provide final decisions.
If there are no definitive outcomes, disputes continue indefinitely and arguments go on forever. What started as a battle can become a conflict that spans generations. The Burmese Civil War started a few days after it became independent from Britain on January 4, 1948. The country changed its name to Myanmar in 1989; the war is still ongoing.
Decades of fighting between Myanmar’s central government, ethnic militias, and anti-junta sources have produced deep distrust on all sides. Each faction rejects the authority of the others. Failed ceasefires, broken promises, and shifting alliances have confirmed existing suspicions, hardened competing narratives, and further weakened any claim to national authority.
Lacking that authority, Myanmar’s ruling junta holds onto power through brutal repression. Torture, forced labor, beatings, and unlawful attacks on civilians have been documented by Amnesty International. Ethnic groups and rebels have cracked down on their own communities. What began as a political struggle has hardened into a self-sustaining cycle. Every act of coercion further deepens distrust.
In such a system, decisions are made but never recognized as binding. Without a trusted authority to define outcomes and enforce them, conflict does not move toward an end—it perpetuates itself.
Myanmar is a warning. When legitimacy collapses, resolution does not merely become difficult.
It becomes impossible