Newsletter #215 — March 3, 2024
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Israel / Hamas War
What It Means to Choose Freedom — A superb lecture that explains how the current crisis facing the Jewish people is deeply intertwined with the larger effort to preserve democratic freedoms. - Israel / Hamas War
An Israeli and a Palestinian talk peace, dignity and safety — An example of the kind of conversation that could, had it been sufficiently widespread, have averted the ongoing tragedy. - Interstate War
Sweden is joining Nato, but it’s hopelessly unprepared for war — A profile of Sweden – a country that took peace and security for granted and is now waking up to the very real threats which are now emerging. - Communication Complexity
Political Corruption And Taxpayer Money Behind Google Disinformation And Censorship — From a more conservative perspective, more insight into the delicate balance between desirable efforts to limit destructive disinformation and undesirable efforts to suppress opposing political views. - Israel / Hamas War
No, Most People in Gaza Are Not “Just Like Us” — From an Israeli perspective, an article that that looks at the cultural differences between Palestinians and Israelis and questions the notion that everyone cares about the same things. - Communication Complexity
Overcoming digital threats to democracy — A report outlining the ways in which the tools of deliberative democracy could be used to better govern information technologies and help protect the larger society. - Israel / Hamas War
Restoring the Past Won’t Liberate Palestine — Reflections on the impossibility of rolling back the clock to the time before Israel's birth and the Nakba.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Social Complexity
How political contempt helps blow up deals and amplifies gridlock — If we think our “enemies” like something, we’ll be predisposed to not like it. And we disincentivize red/blue collaboration because we don't want to "help" our enemies. So we get gridlock. - Social Complexity
Learnings and Insights from Stepping Into Systems — Introduction to a film series which invites viewers to get started on their systems-learning journey, covering fundamental systems change topics amd (re)awakeing a felt sense of knowing the world as systemic. - Hate Mongering
Equal opportunity rage farming — Stretching the truth to arouse ire isn't just a tactic of the right; the left does it too. This short article appears toward the end of Better Conflict Bulletin's Feb. 22, 2024 Newsletter. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Our divided nation will fall unless we return to American pragmatism — Our country is disturbingly polarized, and the future of our republic is at stake if we don’t change course ... and soon. This long-time civil servant observes that we are our own worst enemy. - Constructive Communication
Contact Theory with No Contact: Facilitating Dialogue Online — An examination of the degree to which online dialogue can overcome impressions of difference without in-person contact. - Monitoring and Evaluation
How Can We Effectively Use Evidence in Peacebuilding Project Design? | ConnexUs Thursday Talk Recording — This webinar shared findings from research examining the role of evidence in shaping & improving peacebuilding initiatives, and USIP shared what they are doing to integrate the findings into their own programming. - Theories of Change
When Transitional Justice Met Narrative Change Theory — An exploration of the similarities and differences between these two fields, and how, if combined, they can bring out the best of both for more meaningful change.
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.
- Superpower Conflict
The Age of Amorality — A look at one of the most difficult questions facing liberal democracies -- the need to use illiberal means to defend those democracies. - Communication Complexity
The Prophets: Marshall McLuhan — For a time when new communication technologies are reshaping everything we thought we knew, a look back at the insights of Marshall McLuhan, the man who struggled with an earlier information revolution. - Race / Anti-Racism
Equity, Equitist, Equitism — An insightful new effort to clarify the conflict between the equity of the social justice movement and the egalitarianism of liberal democracy. - Saving Democracy
Britain, Islamism and the Forgotten Lessons of Appeasement — Look at how violence and the threat of violence is affecting British parliamentary debate in ways that raise the specter of a successful January 6-style insurrection. - Race / Anti-Racism
We Are Too Good for DEI — A thought-provoking essay exploring the relationship between "victimhood" and "agency." - Left / Right Conflict
The Red-Blue Divide Goes Well Beyond Biden and Trump — It's not just Trump and Biden -- the divisions that are tearing apart the United States are far deeper than any political personality. - Authoritarians (and Wannabes)
New technologies, new totalitarians — An examination of the ways in which new technologies may be opening the door to a new kind of 21st-century totalitarianism. - Authoritarians (and Wannabes)
The Founders’ antidote to demagoguery is a lesson for today — A timely review of what the founders thought about how the new democracy they were creating could protect itself from future demagogues. - Communication Complexity
Google's Brave New Woke-AI World — A critical look at the very real possibility that a progressive political agenda will wind up driving the AI revolution that will remake how we know most everything about ourselves. - US Election
Mandate for Leadership -- The Conservative Promise — An almost 900 page report on things that a high level group of Trump supporters are hoping that they might be able to accomplish during a second Trump Presidency. - US Election
What I Learned When I Read 887 Pages of Plans for Trump’s Second Term — For those who do not want to read the almost 900 page report (above) on plans for a coming Trump administration, a New York Times quick overview. - Authoritarianism
Why Authoritarians Like Saddam Hussein Confound U.S. Presidents — Based in part on detailed recordings now available of Saddam Hussein's decision-making process –- a look at why the United States has so much trouble dealing with dictators. - Interstate War
The World May Be Entering a Much Bloodier Era — News that our gut level impression that the world is rapidly spinning out of control is, unfortunately, backed up by solid data. - Israel / Hamas War
Israel Is Falling Into an Abyss — A look at the far-reaching effects that the all-out war between Israel and Hamas is having on Israeli society. - US Election
Against Democrats’ “What, Me Worry?” Approach to Losing Working Class Voters — Thoughts on the folly and potentially far-reaching implications of the Democrats tendency to write off so many working-class voters. - The Hyper-Polarization Threat
An Antidote to the Polarization Poison — A fresh look at the threat posed by polarization along with proposals for better protecting ourselves. - Social Complexity
Scientists get closer to solving chemical puzzle of the origin of life — For a time when most everyone seems bogged down in the immediate political crisis, a chance to reflect on one of life's really big questions – how we came to be. - Constructive Communication
What Is Christian Nationalism, Exactly? — Amid the many calls to fear the threat posed by Christian Nationalism, serious exploration of what the term actually means. - Israel / Hamas War
The NYT Misrepresents the History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict — Our conflict over the Palestinian/Israeli conflict stems from competing images of objective reality. This article cites a description of one such image and then offers a critique with a competing image. - Authoritarians (and Wannabes)
Moderate Republicans Continue to Betray Their Principles — A description of how the hyper-polarization process has now almost totally unified Republicans behind former President Trump. - Psychological Complexity
The Psychology of Progressive Hostility — An examination of the complex psychological dynamics that have unified the left around their own set of political and social orthodoxies. - Superpower Conflict
"Gendered" Nonsense Is Dangerous Nonsense — From a conservative perspective, alarm about the Biden administration's efforts to promote its internationally controversial gender ideology at a time when immediate threats to peace seem everywhere. - Saving Democracy
Fix the Insurrection Act Before a Trump Inauguration — An urgent plea to strengthening the resilience of US democracy by closing a legal loophole that could allow an unscrupulous President to use the military to suppress political opposition. - Israel / Hamas War
Only More Attacks Like October 7 Will Restrain It; The Conflict Will End Only With Disappearance Of Israel — From the Qatari press, another perspective on what it will take to end the Israel/Hamas war –- the destruction of Israel. - Psychological Complexity
Why Children Need Risk, Fear, and Excitement in Play — Insight into better ways of teaching children how to cope with a dangerous and uncertain world in which things will often not go their way. - Social Complexity
Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion. Why? — An analysis of the ways in which the religious beliefs of US citizens have changed in recent decades and the political implications of those changes. - Psychological Complexity
Confirmation Bias: A Bayesian Interpretation — More insight into the mechanisms that drive cognitive biases and undermine the accuracy of the images that we have of the social environment in which we live. - US Election
A Wild and Dangerous 2024 Experiment — An update on "No Labels" and the possibility that they might field a moderate alternative candidate with a serious chance of becoming President.
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