Newsletter #251 — July 7, 2024
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Intersectional Left
The ‘Omnicause’ Is Collapsing — An exploration of the contradictions that arise when you try to simplistically bifurcate the world into two groups -- oppressors and the oppressed. - Israel / Hamas War
How an all-out Israel war could rope in the US and other countries — An update on a prospects for war between Israel and Hezbollah and an explanation of why that would be vastly more catastrophic. - US Election
The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started — Preliminary information about what all-out, us-versus-them politics is likely to look like should President Trump be reelected. - Inflammatory Media
Attack of the Crypto-Nazis! — A critical look at progressives who demonize their working-class political opponents, rather than trying to understand and respond to their complaints. - Superpower Conflict
U.S. Foreign Policy Wanders Aimlessly — A critique of the Biden Administration's foreign policy that argues that it makes a serious error by assuming that China, Russia and Iran all want ‘stability.’ - Constructive Advocacy
Salman Rushdie’s Beautiful Revenge — A hideous attack is transformed into a statement of bloodied, but unbowed, humanism. - Intersectional Left
The Child Soldiers of Ethnic Studies — An insightful contribution to efforts to understand how so many "privileged" young people are turning against the system that granted them all of those privileges.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Authoritarianism
The coming attacks on nonprofits — Rachel Kleinfeld argues that the far right and far left want to eliminate organizations that challenge them. - The Nature of Complexity
Cohesion as Murmuration — Another way of looking at systems and the complexity of social movements. - Israel / Hamas War
From Discourse to Discord: Dissecting Antisemitism on Campus — A discussion between two experts on the nature of antisemitism and anti-Muslim attitudes on US campuses. - Constructive Communication
On Relational Facilitation: Supporting the Creative Potential of Divergent Perspectives — In this blog post, Rosa Zubizarreta explores the potential of participatory processes for supporting new forms of governance, which she illustrates with their use in Austria and Germany. - Non-Violence
Albert Einstein Institution's 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action List — Gene Sharp's list of all the ways people can engage in conflict nonviolently, with results that are usually better than what might be obtained through violence. - Peacebuilding
Practitioner Mobilization For Democracy — A gateway for conflict practitioners to more effectively engage in the pro-democracy movement. It's about turning your skills into action, providing clear pathways for participation, and fostering a community of practice where we all learn and grow together. - Media Reform
Fix the News — Fix The News is an independent, subscriber-supported publication that reports good news from around the world, read by 55,000 people from 195 countries. - Peacebuilding
We are Peacemakers: A Fellowship for Evangelical Leaders — The Fellowship seeks to create a more unified Church that is more resilient to toxic forms of division and ready to lead peacemaking efforts in their community and beyond. - Constructively Addressing Complex Issues
Why Certainty Can Be Dangerous - A Chat with Ilana Redstone — "Certainty is the thing that justifies outrage. Certainty that you're right, certainty that the other person is a horrible person." - Bridge Building
Bridging Movement (BMAC) Goals & Measures Program — This is the home of the Social Cohesion Impact Measurement (SCIM) tool - a resource empowering bridging groups and other institutions to evaluate and measure the impact of their programs. - Left / Right Conflict
You'll Never Guess Where Red and Blue Agree — BCB #106 — Another reminder that Red and Blue don’t disagree as much as we think they do. - Constructively Addressing Complex Issues
Why Certainty Can Be Dangerous - A Chat with Ilana Redstone — "Certainty is the thing that justifies outrage. Certainty that you're right, certainty that the other person is a horrible person." - Constructive Communication
Dialogue Lab: America | Documentary Film (2022) — A video about Ideos Institute's experiment testing whether constructive dialogue is possible in today’s polarized culture, and if so, how dialogue might be a first step in healing our nation. - Bridge Building
The One America Movement — The One America Movement partners with faith communities across religious, political, and racial divides to confront toxic polarization in our society. Their vision is a resilient, strong, and united country working together to solve our common challenges.
News and Opinion
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. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)
- Superpower Conflict
Why They Don’t Fight: The Surprising Endurance of the Democratic Peace — For those trying to understand how to preserve the peace and avoid war, an article exploring what is, perhaps, the most effective strategy — democracy. - Psychological Complexity
Political Scientists Want to Know Why We Hate One Another This Much — A compilation, with lots of links, of the things that the latest political science research is teaching us about hyper-polarization. - Psychological Complexity
The New Cynicism Isn't Like the Old Cynicism — An argument that the cynicism that we are seeing today is much more cynical and dangerous than the cynicism of yesterday. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Effective Altruism Is Flawed. But What’s the Alternative? — For those who recognize that good intentions are not enough, reflections on what makes altruistic actions genuinely effective. - Climate / Environment
The ‘Climate Crisis’ Fades Out — News that the general public may be losing interest in climate related issues as the "issue attention" cycle winds down. - Constructive Advocacy
Our Fathers Marched With King. Here’s What They Would Say to Activists Today. — From the children of some of Martin Luther King's most important allies, thoughts about the differences between civil rights advocacy in the King era and today. - Constructive Advocacy
36 people who made the world freer for the rest of us — Profiles of 36 individuals who, in their own way, demonstrate how individual, "massively parallel" efforts can help advance society as a whole. - Superpower Conflict
Taking on China the Right Way — Reflections on one of today's most important challenges, figuring out how to channel our intensifying conflict with China in constructive directions. - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
How Babies Are Made — A terrific overview of what the process of starting a family has become in the contemporary world. - Problem Assessment
An epidemic of scientific fakery threatens to overwhelm publishers — More information about the massive scandal associated with fake scientific studies. Our ability to solve the complex challenges that we face depends upon finding some way to fix this. - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
From Pride to Alienation — A critical look at tensions that have arisen within the LGBTQIA+ community following the successful campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. - Authoritarianism
The Cause That Turned Idealists Into Authoritarian Zealots — In the context of the history of the Communist Movement, an examination of how idealistic campaigns can turn into authoritarian movements. - Social Complexity
Introduction to the Symbolic Economy — An exploration of what is, for us at least, a useful new word -- the symbolic economy. - Class Inequity
‘The Party of the Ultrarich and the Ultra-poor’ — An examination of the demographic characteristics of the Democratic Party -- a party that has lost its middle class base of support. - Constructive Advocacy
Is Populism Possible Without Demagoguery? — An essay exploring a critically important topic -- building a constructive, populist, political movement. - Artificial Intelligence
Test Yourself: Which Faces Were Made by A.I.? — An interesting little quiz that allows us all to see for ourselves just how far AI-driven image creation has come. - Climate / Environment
No, You Don’t Have the Power to Stop Climate Change — An important reminder that efforts to limit climate change ultimately depend upon strong support from the developing world -- something that will require massive increases in carbon free energy production. - Political Moderates
Rupa Subramanya: I’m Stuck Between the Woke Left and the Nativist Right — An anguished appeal for a revitalized political center that avoids extremes on both the left and the right. - Immigration
America Can’t Do Without Immigrants — A pretty comprehensive overview of the many ways in which immigration benefits our society. - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
Subverting the Nuclear Family — An exploration of the intersection between large-scale societal "subversion" and the weakening of what is probably our most important social unit -- the family.
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About the MBI Newsletters
Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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