Newsletter #161 — October 8, 2023
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Peacebuilding
Revisiting the pillars of peacebuilding: understanding the Lederach gaps in conflict transformation — Despite advancements in conflict transformation and peacebuilding, significant gaps remain. Addressing these is imperative for realizing a positive, sustainable, and just peace that goes beyond just a simple ceasefire and the absence of violence. - Psychological Complexity
Certainty Is a Psychological Trap and It's Time to Escape — The willingness to actually listen to others and to display your ignorance is a bold move that now has a name -- intellectual humility. It’s not only a developable skill, but it could just end the culture wars. - Saving Democracy
Candidate Principles for Trusted Elections — These principles put forth by Team Democracy and the Carter Center include an honest process, civil campaign, secure voting, responsible oversight, and trusted outcomes. - Constructive Communication
LivingRoom Conversations Conversation Topics — A listing of topics by category, each with a free, easy-to-use conversation guide. - Constructive Communication
Why A Liberal Should Want To Share A Table With A Conservative (Like Me) — A look at the significant lost opportunities when the left gives up on the right. - Media Reform
Strategies for Improving the Global Information Environment: Results from a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — This IPIE Summary for Policymakers presents the main findings of two IPIE Synthesis Reports that examine countermeasures to misinformation on social media platforms. - Cancel Culture
Are Free Speech and Inclusion at Odds on College Campuses? — A comprehensive survey of 2,618 U.S. college students reveals stark divisions in their views on freedom of expression, cancel culture, and the weighing of social justice values against free speech.
Beyond Intractability in Context
From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better.
- Constructive Communication
The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other — A welcome challenge to the dangerous but increasingly popular notion that, no matter what we do, we can't understand one another (and shouldn't bother trying). - Left / Right Conflict
Moderates could unite amid House speaker chaos. Why don’t they? — In the context of the fight over who should be Speaker of the US House of Representatives, an examination of why the hyper-polarized political divide has become so impenetrable. - Gender / LBGTQ+
Quillette Cetera Episode 20: Care Feminism vs Career Feminism — An article that draws an important distinction between two principal feminist visions – one focused on care-giving roles and a second focused on careers. - Empowerment
The Gaping Hole in the Center of the Electorate — Almost as many people (49%) identify as political independents as identify as Democrats and Republicans combined. Yet, somehow, the system can't field candidates who represent this moderate center. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Radical Moderation — An overview of an important new book, "Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals" that challenges the widespread disdain for compromise that one now finds on both the left and the right. - Effective Communication Strategies
Take A Position, Not A Side — An plea to abandon us-vs-them thinking and focus on debating the relative merits of competing positions. - Race / Anti-Racism
How Ibram X. Kendi Broke Boston University — An informative, critical, and doubtless controversial examination of the way in which Kendi's vision of antiracism has transformed Boston University (along with many other institutions). - Psychological Complexity
The Zero Sum Idea Trap — An interesting look at how our economy has evolved from a positive- to a zero-sum orientation in recent decades and how that affects our politics. - Constructive Communication
The rebirth of local news depends on all of us — Promising suggestions for building the kind of vigorous and trustworthy local news system that is an essential component of successful democracies. - Hyper-Polarized Communication
‘No Guardrails’ Foretold Today’s Breakdown 30 Years Ago — A story about the origins of the concept of political "guardrails" and the man who anticipated their deterioration and the problems that that would cause. - De-Escalation Strategies
Anger overwhelms our thinking brain. Here’s how to bring it back online. — A reminder about the many ways in which anger affects our thinking and undermines our ability to protect our interests, along with suggestions for overcoming those problems. - Social Complexity
Inside the Decades-long Permit Process Holding Back 10,000 Energy Projects — A short video examining the vast web of regulatory processes that are undermining society's ability to get anything done – including the transition to a carbon-free energy system. - Gender / LBGTQ+
The story of Iran’s Mahsa Amini uprising told through its most iconic images — A series of images and videos that convey the awesome power behind Iran's political uprising — an uprising that we hope can avoid the tragic outcomes of so many other uprisings. - Psychological Complexity
Framing 101: Metaphors, moral systems and the politics of your brain — From George Lakoff and Framelab, an introduction to what we all want to know about the way in which the brain processes political information.
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