As many of us do, I was spending time with some band kids when I overheard them using language that got me thinking about how we split the world into dueling opposites, which can be helpful—but not always.
The band kids were reflecting on a day’s worth of band kid drama, which is perhaps not as intense as theater kid drama but is potent nonetheless. They were bemoaning the presence in their section of too many “high cortisol people,” wishing instead to pass the hours in the pleasant company of “low cortisol people.”
Cortisol, if you aren’t familiar with it, is a steroid hormone that is very important to our health but is best known because it is released when we are stressed. People who are chronically stressed tend to have habitually high cortisol levels, which can lead to all sorts of health problems, like weight gain, muscle weakness, and high blood sugar. The kids had picked up on the high/low cortisol distinction from “some brainrot somewhere,” and were using it to divide their peers into those who were conflict-seeking and those who were conflict-averse.
On the surface, this division seems to make sense: We feel that we know that some people seem to be surrounded by conflict, while others seem to get by with little overt discord in their orbit. Fifty years ago, Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann published their work on conflict modes (or styles), placing all of us along two axes of assertiveness (meeting our own needs) and cooperativeness (meeting the needs of others). These aren’t mutually exclusive; people can be unassertive and uncooperative (an avoider) or highly assertive and highly cooperative (a collaborator).
People who have higher levels of assertiveness might leave more conflict in their wake simply because they are quicker to let others know when they aren’t happy, while those with less assertiveness, for better or worse, will absorb the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without external complaint. This doesn’t mean that less assertive people are undistressed by perceived mistreatment—they just are less apt to say something about it. As I know from personal experience, you might say “whatever” and sigh to yourself before going about your day rather than make a scene, but the conflict is still there.
I find it fascinating that someone out there has split humanity into two camps: high cortisol and low cortisol. Keep in mind that I have filtered whatever the original source was through an unidentified brainrot medium and then high schoolers, so I may have missed the intended point entirely, but I am sticking with my interpretation: the world is full of conflict seekers and conflict dodgers.
This makes sense because humans seem to be hard-wired to reduce our complex world to series of dichotomies. I didn’t read Claude Levi-Strauss’s The Raw and the Cooked as an undergrad, but at least one of my professors claimed to have and told us that it’s all about the opposition of “raw” nature and “cooked” human culture.* I also remember Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane, which I actually did read at some point (and still have on my bookshelf), dividing even the ostensibly secular world into elements of holy and mundane. We like things to be either/or. We are nervous around shades of grey.
If we really did live in a world split between inveterate conflict seekers and conflict dodgers, the best resolution for conflict seems obvious: pair off the conflict seekers with each other, so they can bask in the joy of their never-ending ruckuses, while letting the conflict dodgers finally have a stress-free day. Everyone gets what they want.
Except life isn’t that easy. Often, conflict happens despite everyone’s best efforts to avoid it. In fact, trying to deny a conflict exists often exacerbates the situation, leading to a worse outcome when things finally boil over. Like Romeo trying to get in between Mercutio and Tybalt, there are times when tamping down the conflict creates a worse result than letting it resolve productively might.
Yeah, you might be thinking, but then what do I do about all these high cortisol people around me who keep stirring up drama?
If there was an easy answer, you would already know it, so I can’t claim to have one for you, but I do have some thoughts. If we assume that people are rational, someone who is constantly seeking conflict is clearly getting something out of it. Maybe they like to argue or maybe they just like the attention, but they are definitely deriving some benefit from living in a perpetual cortisol fugue. Unfortunately for us, their gain is our loss. Now, we can ask them to skip whatever satisfaction they get out of the ruckus, but does it seem likely they would do that?
Instead, what about shifting the scene so they can get whatever charge they get out of strife from something that doesn’t put you out? We can use a mediation tool called reframing, that helps parties look at conflicts through different and larger perspectives. One common reframing tactic is to stop thinking about the conflict as a battle between you and a foe who you must vanquish, instead considering what they underlying problem is and how you can both contribute to a solution. Or is there some way to tap into the energy that’s leading to undue conflict, directing it in a more fruitful direction?
It’s also worth it to remember that, to someone else, we might be the high cortisol people. To us, we are being appropriately assertive about something very important to us, while to others, we are just flustered for no discernable reason. Communicating why the object of the drama matters to us might help them reframe, as might hearing their perspective. If nothing else, you will understand each other better, which is half the battle.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
* Random thought: What would Levi-Strauss have to say about “cooked” in Gen Z parlance? There’s probably a decent article in there for someone.
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