Newsletter #85 — February 19, 2023
Reader Suggested Colleague and Context Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Effective Problem-Solving Efforts
These radically simple changes helped lawmakers actually get things done — Another one of those good news stories about people doing things that the conventional wisdom thinks impossible. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference — A website with information about and reviews of an important new book that emphasizes the positive role that pluralism can play in making a diverse society really work. - Developing a Unifying Vision
America is in a ‘Great Pulling Apart.’ Can we pull together? — In the context of today's complex challenges, an insightful, personal attempt to imagine a democratic society in which we would all like to live. - Effective Problem-Solving Efforts
How UK Politicians Are Learning to Disagree—More Agreeably — From the United Kingdom yet another promising story about people who are showing us that it's possible to handle conflict in positive ways. - Understanding The Issues That Divide Us
The Power-Mad Utopians — A thought-provoking and undoubtedly controversial look at six major political follies that have characterized the still young 21st-century (three on the left and three on the right)
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Effective Communication Strategies
Ending This Zombie Apocalypse: How to Have Better Political Conversations — From The Village Square, a websinar with Kristin Hansen of the Civic Health Project and Robb Willer (Prof. of Sociology and Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford, and Kristin Hansen of the Civic Health Project. - Escalation Limiting Projects
Bridging Divides & Strengthening Democracy: From Science to Practice — The conference presented the approaches that most effectively reduced anti-democratic attitudes, support for political violence, and partisan animosity. Recordings of the sessions are available here. - Effective Communication Strategies
The Persuaders — A new book by Anand Giridharadas that profiles activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are effectively changing minds, bridging divisions, and fighting for democracy. - Developing a Unifying Vision
The New Pluralists — New Pluralists is a funder collaborative focused on supporting the growing field of practitioners, storytellers, researchers, and innovators working to foster a culture of pluralism in America. - Climate Change
Climate Protest Tracker — A one-stop source for following global trends in climate policy protests since 2022 from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Escalation Limiting Projects
Finding the Way Out: A Once-a- Day Political Courage Challenge — This is an invitation to look deeply but kindly within yourself and work with others to fight the toxic division that’s tearing our country apart. Based on the research of our colleague Peter Coleman. - Multi-Faceted Projects
YOUnify — YOUnify is a nonprofit project which works to (1) reduce polarization and cultural division by uniting people from business, philanthropy, impact investing, non-profits, government, inter-faith, arts , media, and grassroots organizations working to problem solve together. - Multi-Faceted Projects
The Horizon's Project — The Horizons Project recognizes the urgency for a social movement to protect democracy to come together now in the United States. Our vision, mission and values represent our deep commitment to systems-level organizing with the existing ecosystem of social change: i.e., all those working for change with different priorities and from different vantage points across the ideological spectrum.
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.
- Developing a Unifying Vision
Rediscovering Our Shared American Values — For a time when our attention is dominated by the many issues that divide us, reflections on shared values that can help to bring us back together. - Left / Right Conflict
The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest — An explanation of the core beliefs underlying conservatism (for those who might think that it is nothing more than a set of rationalizations justifying the pursuit of selfish interests). - Big Picture Thinking Projects
Amanda Ripley -- Stepping out of "the zombie dance" we're in, and into "good conflict" that is, in fact, life-giving — An illuminating interview that helps us understand how Amanda Ripley's insightful views about conflict evolved (and how we all could think more constructively about the topic). - Developing a Unifying Vision
Men Need Purpose More Than ‘Respect’ — A good example of how paying attention to the human needs of those involved in conflict can help limit the alienation and hostility that can make conflicts so intractable.. - Class Inequity
White Liberals Vs. The Working Class — One view on the current status of the important, but often neglected, conflict between progressives and the working classes. - Countering Misinformation
The ‘Disinformation Industry’ Is Only One Part of a Larger Scandal — From the National Review, a critique of the left-leaning fact-checking industry and a reminder of the difficulties faced by this once promising effort to provide us with information we can rely on. - Climate Change
The Dawn of Nuclear Energy Abundance — As we start to spend big money on the shift away from carbon-based fuels, hard questions about the limits of wind and solar and hopeful thoughts about the promise of nuclear energy. - Pursuing a Unifying Common Vision
What the Culture Wars Get Wrong — Amid all the sound and fury over the teaching of history, reassuring news that there is broad support for and agreement on what an honest and balanced curriculum would look like. - Big Picture Thinking Projects
Will America’s woes bring down democracy and capitalism worldwide? — A report on another major new book that helps us understand our troubled times and, especially the ways in which elites are undermining both democracy and capitalism. - Runaway Escalation
The Polarization Spiral -- How the right's monomania and the left's Great Awokening feed each other — "For every action, there is a disproportionate reaction" -- a look at the way in which the hyperpolarization spiral is being driven by the extremes of the left and the right. - Class Inequity
Biden’s Vision About How to Heal America — Reflections on a path toward healing America that focuses on the plight of the many people (of all races) that live at the economic margins of society. - Superpower Conflict
Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans. — In the context of the war in Ukraine a look at the extraordinarily consequential question of when to and not to negotiate. - Escalation Limiting Projects
Meet the People Working on Getting Us to Hate Each Other Less — A great summary, with lots of links, to the projects that are making massively parallel efforts to defuse hyper-polarization a reality. - Countering Misinformation
Bring Back Objective Journalism — More on the debate over whether "objectivity" is the key to trustworthiness or whether it is an obstacle to be avoided.
Please Contribute Your Ideas To This Discussion!
In order to prevent bots, spammers, and other malicious content, we are asking contributors to send their contributions to us directly. If your idea is short, with simple formatting, you can put it directly in the contact box. However, the contact form does not allow attachments. So if you are contributing a longer article, with formatting beyond simple paragraphs, just send us a note using the contact box, and we'll respond via an email to which you can reply with your attachment. This is a bit of a hassle, we know, but it has kept our site (and our inbox) clean. And if you are wondering, we do publish essays that disagree with or are critical of us. We want a robust exchange of views.
About the MBI Newsletters
Once a week or so, we, the BI Directors, share some thoughts, along with new posts from the Hyper-polarization Blog and and useful links from other sources. We used to put this all together in one newsletter which went out once or twice a week. We are now experimenting with breaking the Newsletter up into several shorter newsletters. Each Newsletter will be 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.
NOTE! If you signed up for this Newsletter and don't see it in your inbox, it might be going to one of your other emails folder (such as promotions, social, or spam). Check there or search for beyondintractability@substack.com and if you still can't find it, first go to our Substack help page, and if that doesn't help, please contact us.
If you like what you read here, please ....
