Newsletter # 13 --  April 26, 2018

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Things YOU Can Do To Help Blog

• Be Willing to Consider the Possibility That You May Be Wrong -- Most of us are so enmeshed in our own worldviews that we don't consider that we might be wrong. It helps to listen to outsiders and consider that possibility. -- April 14, 2018
• Break Down Negative Stereotypes -- Don’t assume a person you don’t know is just like you expect them to be. Give them a chance to surprise you! -- April 17, 2018
• Persuade People By Meeting Their Interests Too -- If you can let the other side win something too, the chances of cooperation go way up. -- April 21, 2018
• Understand Your--and Others'--Fundamental Human Needs -- Fundamental needs are common drivers of conflict. But they don't have to be. -- April 24, 2018

Conflict Frontiers Seminar

Unit 3: Introduction to Complexity and "Systems Thinking" -- Theoretical Antecedents, continued

• Hauss's "New Paradigm" -- Intractable conflicts are "wicked problems" that need an entirely new paradigm to deal with, says Chip Hauss. -- April 15, 2018

Unit 4: Moving Toward a Complexity-Oriented Paradigm

• Embracing Complexity: The Key to Dealing with Intractability -- Understanding the difference between complicated and complex systems is key to understanding that no one is in charge in intractable conflicts. -- April 16, 2018
• Complex vs. Complicated Systems -- Intractable conflicts are complex adaptive systems, so they need complex, adaptive responses. -- April 17, 2018
• System Levels -- Simple models won't work! We must develop conflict intervention models for higher-level complex systems. -- April 18, 2018
• The Really Big Picture Ecodynamics and Planetary Evolution -- An exploration of how understanding ecodynamics and evolution can help us deal with complex conflict. -- April 19, 2018
• Meeting the Adaptation Challenge -- Speeding society's ability to rapidly adapt to changing conditions should be a key goal of the conflict field. -- April 20, 2018
• The Evolutionary Choice: "Power With" or "Power Over" -- An explanation of why this may be our best/last chance to make democracy work (and avoid autocracy and anocracy). -- April 22, 2018
• Our Most Important Conflict: Coexisters vs. Fighters vs. Divide-and-Conquerors -- We need to resist "divide and conqueror's" efforts to control society by exacerbating left/right tensions. -- April 23, 2018
• The Complex Causes of Social Problems -- We need to think about social problems as complex adaptive systems requiring massively parallel problem-solving. -- April 24, 2018
• Social and Psychological Complexity -- Those who seek power-over others are dealing better with social and psychological complexity. This needs to change! -- April 25, 2018
• Mari Fitzduff's An Introduction to Neuroscience for the Peacebuilder-Part 1 -- Neuroscience can explain why so many peacebuilding interventions don't work as hoped--and how to do better. -- April 26, 2018

Conflict Fundamentals Seminar

Unit 4: Core Factors, Continued

• Identity Issues -- Identity has long been identified as a driver of intractability. This essay explains why, and what can be done to address these conflicts. -- April 14, 2018
• Status and power struggles -- Another core driver of intractability--the fight over social status never seems to end, as is discussed in this Fundamentals Post. -- April 15, 2018
• Power -- Power, also, is more complex than it seems. This explains the difference between power sources, power strategies and when to use what. -- April 16, 2018
• Oppression -- Written by well-known conflict scholar Morton Deutsch, the entire series is more relevant today than ever. -- April 18, 2018
• Humiliation -- While commonly used, humiliation is extremely destructive--to its victims, and also, often, to the person or group doing the humiliation as well. -- April 19, 2018

Unit 5: Overlay Factors

• Fundamentals Unit 5: Conflict Overlay Factors -- Reviewing the concept of core and "overlay" or "complicating factors"--which are explored in detail in the Unit 5 Fundamentals posts. -- April 20, 2018
• Frames, Framing and Reframing -- An exploration of different kinds of frames that often are found in intractable conflicts, their impact, and strategies for constructive reframing. -- April 21, 2018
• Process Frames -- An examination of one kind of frame that determines how conflicts are approached. -- April 22, 2018
• Win/lose and competitive/cooperative framing -- The Fundamentals Seminar examines competitive versus cooperative frames--two other process frames that can get us into trouble. -- April 23, 2018
• Into-the-Sea Framing -- An extreme extension of win-lose and competitive framing, "into-the-sea" framing is used distressingly often. -- April 25, 2018
• Identity Frames -- Another post in the framing series--identity frames are powerful determinants of group identification and conflict behavior. -- April 26, 2018

Beyond Intractability in Context Blog

• A look at how politics is radicalizing the left as well as the right. What does this portend? Can/should it be stop --American Politics are Radicalizing -- 04/23/2018
• Looking for solutions: "How 12 experts would end inequality if they ran America" -- How 12 experts would end inequality if they ran America -- 04/22/2018
• A rare story of Republicans and Democrats successfully working together to try to solve a real problem, sex traffic --Republicans and Democrats Just Did Something Big Together -- 04/22/2018
• The liberal side of a budget debate worth having: "A debt crisis is coming. But don't blame entitlements." -- A debt crisis is coming. But don’t blame entitlements. -- 04/21/2018
• From Foreign Policy, a somber look at the lessons of US and Western interventions in the Middle East. -- The Middle East’s Age of Innocence Is Over -- 04/21/2018
• Corruption Corrupts: A psychological study of 23 countries linking political corruption & corrupt individual behavi --Corruption Corrupts -- 04/20/2018
• The conservative side of a budget debate worth having: "A debt crisis is on the horizon" -- A debt crisis is on the horizon -- 04/20/2018
• Practical suggestions for limiting the inequality problem by correcting some of the biases in the college applicati -- How to Level the College Playing Field -- 04/19/2018
• Useful advice for those wishing to be more persuasive: "Metaphors change our opinions in ways we don't even realize-- Metaphors can change our opinions in ways we don’t even realize -- 04/19/2018
• DHS wants to continuously track output from 290,000+ "media influencers." Will this be misused or will it help prot --Department Of Homeland Security Compiling Database Of Journalists And 'Media Influencers' -- 04/18/2018
• A comprehensive overview of the Cambridge Analytic scandal and its high-tech, conflict exacerbation tools. --Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far -- 04/18/2018
• The bizarre and fascinating story of how corporations came to have so many of the legal rights that people enjoy. --'Corporations Are People' Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie -- 04/17/2018
• In the context of North Korea an examination of the critical distinction between preventive and preemptive war. --Bolton’s Illegal War Plan for North Korea -- 04/17/2018
• From Brookings, a careful re-examination of the "elephant chart" & the changing distribution of income around the w --What’s happening to the world income distribution? The elephant chart revisited -- 04/16/2018
• From City Lab, "How Americans Are Self-Sorting Themselves by Age and Class" and deepening social tensions. --How Your Social Class Affects Where You'll Move -- 04/16/2018
• A persuasive argument that the Anti-Trump movement is only converting the converted. Time for a midcourse corre --The Failures of Anti-Trumpism -- 04/15/2018
• From a left-leaning perspective, a review of various measures of liberal/conservative personality differences. -- The Contract With Authoritarianism -- 04/15/2018
• From Thomas Edsall, more food for thought on the big question for Democrats: "Embrace the Center or Abandon It?" --Should Democrats Embrace the Center or Abandon It? -- 04/14/2018
• Great visual history of the 1968 Washington DC riots. -- 1968 Riots: Four Days that Reshaped D.C. -- 04/14/2018
• Practical advice – things we can all do to slow the spread of fake news and dumb ideas. -- How to Prevent Smart People From Spreading Dumb Ideas -- 04/13/2018
• From Microsoft, hopeful news that the tech industry is starting to think about how to limit the downsides of AI. --Microsoft Says AI Advances Will Require New Laws, Regulations -- 04/13/2018
• Another part of the educational equity equation: "The Growing College Graduation Gap" -- The Growing College Graduation Gap Image -- 04/12/2018
• A rare and candid window into the business of lobbying and the hypocrisy of both sides. -- I was a lobbyist for more than 6 years. I quit. My conscience couldn’t take it anymore. -- 04/12/2018

BI Newsletters and General Announcements

Every week or so, we will compile posts from the Frontiers Seminar, the Fundamentals Seminar, the Things Everyone Can Do to Help Blog, and the Beyond Intractability in Context Blog into a Newsletter that will be posted here and sent out by email to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy on our Newsletter Sign Up Page and find the latest newsletter as well as all past newsletters here on our Newsletter page.

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