Collusion in Conflict
What This Theme Explores
Collusion in Conflict examines how people, operating “in the box,” lock one another into a self-justifying loop: each person’s behavior provokes the other to deliver exactly the evidence that seems to confirm their worst assumptions. Rather than solving the problem, both parties become invested in being right, so the conflict sustains itself and often intensifies. The theme builds on Self-Deception and 'The Box' and Blame and Self-Justification, showing how inner justification turns into an interpersonal system. Ultimately, it asks whether we value resolution—or the feeling of righteousness—more, and how that choice shapes our relationships.
How It Develops
The book first establishes the grammar of the “box”: self-betrayal leads to self-deception, which then distorts how we see and treat others. Early episodes hint at reciprocity—how one person’s in-the-box stance invites resistance or withdrawal—such as Bud Jefferson’s story of going disengaged in San Francisco, where his detached posture silently licensed others’ unhelpful responses. These foundation stones make clear that our inner stance is never private; it becomes the weather everyone else must navigate.
Collusion is named and diagrammed explicitly in Chapter 14, where Kate Stenarude’s family story provides a textured case study. Here the idea crystallizes: when two people are in the box toward each other, their mutual provocations and justifications sync up into a reinforcing cycle. The neat simplicity of the model is part of its power—what looks like “their problem” is, structurally, a duet.
In the final movement, the book offers a way out that is asymmetric by design: the cycle breaks only when someone steps “out of the box,” regardless of whether the other person changes. At scale, Lou Herbert’s transformation of Zagrum shows how interrupting collusive habits—suspending blame, seeing people as people—can reorganize an entire culture. The progression moves from inner mechanics to interpersonal traps to systemic renewal, underscoring that the smallest shift in stance can cascade through a system.
Key Examples
Collusion is rendered through intimate, everyday, and organizational scenes so readers can recognize the pattern at every level of life.
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Kate and her son, Bryan: In Kate’s telling, seeing Bryan as “irresponsible” leads her to hover and criticize, which pushes him to stay out late—behavior that “proves” he’s irresponsible. He, in turn, casts her as a dictator, which justifies more defiance. The result isn’t a single misstep but a loop where each side produces precisely what the other side condemns.
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The disappointment of compliance: When Bryan finally comes home on time, Kate feels a surprising pang of disappointment. That moment exposes the engine of collusion: when we’re in the box, our need to feel justified can outweigh our stated desire for improvement, because the other’s change would deprive us of our moral high ground. The theme uses this quiet emotional reversal to show how self-justification covertly sets the terms of the conflict.
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Tom’s relationships: Protagonist Tom Callum recognizes the pattern in a tense call with his wife, Laura Callum, and in standoffs with his son, Todd Callum. Laura’s guarded tone invites Tom’s sarcasm, which validates her defensiveness—a micro-collusion that spirals in minutes. Tom’s insight is not that he “caused” everything, but that he reliably contributes the very provocations that keep the cycle alive.
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Organizational collusion: At Zagrum, groups hoard information because “the other side” isn’t sharing, and that withholding is then cited as justification to further silo. Because each team’s stance makes perfect sense from inside its box, the enterprise as a whole sinks into a coordinated dysfunction. The theme illustrates how personal habits of blame aggregate into culture-wide stalemates.
Character Connections
Kate Stenarude: As the clearest teacher of the concept, Kate models the courage to notice her own contribution to the spiral. Her shift—choosing to see Bryan as a person rather than a problem—shows that breaking collusion begins with reclaimed humanity, not the other party’s compliance.
Tom Callum: Tom is the reader’s mirror. His dawning realization that he is not a passive victim but an active colluder reframes his family conflicts from puzzles to be solved “out there” to patterns sustained from within. Tom’s experiments in changing his stance demonstrate how quickly cycles can slow when one person stops feeding them.
Bud Jefferson: Bud articulates the mechanics: being in the box is not a neutral state but an invitation that pulls others into their boxes. His diagrams translate a moral-psychological insight into a shared language, helping colleagues see that their “reasons” are also roles they are choosing to play.
Lou Herbert: Lou expands the theme from individuals to systems. His account of a pre-transformation Zagrum—“an organizational chart of colluding boxes”—underscores that cultures are built from countless justified exchanges. His leadership reframes accountability as seeing and serving people, thereby removing the fuel that keeps collusion burning.
Symbolic Elements
The colluding boxes diagram: Two figures in boxes with arrows between them distill a sprawling idea to a glance. The boxes capture self-deception’s enclosure; the arrows represent the ping-pong of provocation and justification. The image’s symmetry warns that each party’s story contains the other’s script.
The cycle of blame: The circular structure of examples—Kate’s reaction leads to Bryan’s reaction leads back to Kate—symbolizes a conflict without a clean origin point or obvious exit. The loop reads like a whirlpool: the more energy you expend proving you’re right, the deeper you’re pulled into the pattern you claim to hate.
Contemporary Relevance
Collusion clarifies why conflicts at work, at home, and in public life so often persist despite everyone’s stated desire to “fix things.” In workplaces, adversarial departments feed each other the non-cooperation they expect, turning meetings into evidence-gathering for entrenched positions. In families, years of reciprocal slights quietly institutionalize roles—critic, rebel, martyr—that feel inevitable but are mutually produced. In politics, each side cites the other’s extremism to justify its own, displacing problem-solving with proof-seeking. The book’s remedy—a unilateral decision to see people as people and stop supplying the other side’s justification—is a practical path to Personal Responsibility and Transformation in any sphere.
Essential Quote
“When I’m in the box, there’s something I need more than what I think I want most... What I need most when I’m in the box is to feel justified.” (Chapter 14)
This line reveals the hidden economy powering collusion: justification becomes the real prize, outranking the improvement we claim to want. It explains why compliance can feel disappointing and why conflicts escalate even as people insist they’re “trying.” The theme’s answer follows naturally—starve the need for justification by stepping out of the box, and the cycle loses its fuel.