Deep disagreement and deep conflict. Two ways in which a dispute can be deep.

Current discussions in the political arena tend to be very unproductive and difficult to resolve. Recent literature suggests that this is the case because most of our political discussions are instances of deep disagreement. Against this story, this paper explores an alternative route: deep disagreements don’t tend to be more unfruitful than other types of disagreement. But then, why many real-life cases of political deep disagreement seem to be so unproductive and difficult to resolve? To address this question, I first distinguish two senses in which a discussion can be considered “deep”, and call them deep disagreement and deep conflict. Second, I argue that most of our current political discussions are unfruitful not because they are instances of deep disagreement, but of deep conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]