Seminar 1: Understanding the Intractable Conflict Problem
| While we originally conceived as each of our seminars being separate and having separate audiences, we have come to realize there is often a lot of overlap, and materials in other seminars and blogs are likely to be of interest to those seeking fundamental knowledge about each of the fundamental seminar topics. For that reason, we have reformatted the fundamentals seminar to include such cross-ver material. |
Fundamentals Posts
- Why Can't We Fix Anything Anymore? -- (Video) Intractable conflicts are making many critical problems all over the world impossible to deal with.
- What Are Intractable Conflicts? (A Fundamentals Essay) -- While some people argue that most conflicts aren't intractable (or that even none are) we are finding more and more that fit into this designation.
- The Core Causes of Intractable Conflicts (Fundamentals Post) -- An essay which goes into more detail about the factors that combine to make conflicts intractable.
- Intractable Conflict: A "Climate Change-Class" Problem (Video) -- The peacebuilding field is roughly where the climate change field was in the 1970s. That movement's sucesses and challenges have a lot to teach peacebuilders.
- Limits to Growth, Tragedies of the Commons, and the Conflict Problem (Video)-- The "Commons" is a term generally used for environmental issues. It is much broader than that--as this video illustrates.
Related Confict Frontiers Posts
- What are Intractable Conflicts - the post above with the same name is a Fundamentals Essay; this is a video covering similar, but not identical material.
- What Makes Conflicts Intractable? - This also is a video with content similar to the Core Causes essay posted above.
Related Knowledge Base Essays
- Nature of Intractability -- It can be difficult to decide whether a conflict is, in fact, intractable. This essay explains why the term, "intractable," is so controversial.
- Characteristics Of Intractable Conflicts -- Intractable conflicts are ones that go on and on, are frequently very destructive, and seem to resist any attempts at resolution. Though international conflicts, such as Israel-Palestine quickly come to mind, domestic issues such as the abortion controversy, and even some marital relations are quite intractable as well.
- Unmet Human Needs -- Human essentials go beyond just food, water, and shelter. They include all those things humans are innately driven to attain, such as love, dignity and safety. Some theorists argue that most intractable conflicts are caused by the drive to satisfy unmet needs.
Related Things YOU Can Do To Help Blog Posts
- Sound the Alarm People don't realize how destructive their conflict behaviors often are: we must sound the alarm to spur change!
- If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem Conflict is created by everyone--it becomes better or worse depending on what all of us do.
- First, Do No Harm Doctors promise to, at a minimum, “do no harm.” People who want to improve conflicts should do the same.
Related Beyond Intractability In Context Blog Posts
Seminar videos (listed above) contain additional "BI in Context" references.
- America’s Never-Ending Culture War -- A 50 year retrospective on the culture wars. Since victory (for either side) seems out of reach, how about coexistence?
- War Without End -- A somber reflection on the years of war that followed 9/11 and an occasion to learn from the tragedy.
- What Happens if the Gender Gap Becomes a Gender Chasm? A well-documented and, in many ways, surprising look at the growing political divide between men and women.
- How Gay Marriage Became a Constitutional Right -- The history of the gay marriage movement: a case study in successful social change--showing that intractable conflicts can, indeed, become tractable!
- Can America Survive Tribalism? -- An argument for rediscovering the United States' common identity and putting our "tribal differences" in better perspective.
- What If There Is No Ethical Way to Act in Syria Now? - An example of a truely intractable, "wicked" problem.
- When the Necessary is Impossible in the Middle East - A succinct summary of the "wicked" problem that is today's Middle East.
- Trump Has Got Democrats Right Where He Wants Them -- An excellent look at the staggering complexity of the immigration issue and its dangers for both the left and the right.
