Newsletter #91 — March 5, 2023
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Developing a Unifying Vision
Imagining a better future for American democracy, with Suzette Brooks Masters — A much more positive way of looking at democracy's problems -- instead of focusing on things that are going wrong, focus on things that could go right. - Big Picture Thinking Projects
How to rise above partisan politics to uphold our democracy — As we celebrate the International Day of Democracy, here are seven ways to mobilize citizens across differences as partisans for democracy. An article from Julia Roig. - Effective Communication Strategies
In Ohio, one man’s quest to get more voters to agree to disagree — The story of one man in Ohio who has started Dinner and a Fight--a dialogue process to get people talking across differences. - Effective Problem-Solving Efforts
Common Ground Committee's Podcast: Let's Find Common Ground — A podcast exploring paths to more progress and less division. How to find common ground with "the other side." - Social Complexity
How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions — Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research examining how changes in societal behavior — in voting, health, technology, and finance—occur and the ways social networks can be used to influence how they propagate.
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.
- Effective Problem-Solving
The Case For (Even More) Compromise — A story about what has been gained through compromise and what our stubborn unwillingness to compromise further is costing us. - Social Complexity
Biden’s Promises on Social Security and Medicare Have No Basis in Reality — Democracy is supposed to be a system for making wise and equitable decisions about how to allocate limited resources. Increasingly, it seems that we now view those resource limits as illusions. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Robert Tallissee, Sustaining Democracy: What Do We Owe the Other Side — A overview of an important book that asks a fundamental and seldom addressed question: when does the victory we aspire to become unreasonable? - Us-vs-Them Thinking
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Civil War — More evidence that the United States continues to slide toward some sort of existential crisis where, for increasing numbers of people, the prospect of actually splitting the country seemed increasingly attractive. - Hate Mongering
Democrats to Continue Meddling in GOP Primaries — Amid the Democrats claims that Republicans constitute a continuing threat to democracy, disturbing news that they are continuing their hypocritical campaign to get Republicans to nominate extremists. - Effective Problem-Solving Efforts
The Reagan Revolution Was Built on Compromise — For those on the right who do not feel that the changes they seek can be achieved through compromise, a reminder of what Ronald Reagan was able to accomplish. - Left / Right Conflict
The Forces Tearing Us Apart Are Not Quite What They Seem — An informative and much more nuanced look at what the latest political science is telling us about the nature and magnitude of our differences. - Gender / LBGTQ+
U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2% — From Gallup, a statistical portrait of what rapid social change really looks like. - Effective Problem Assessment
The Wisdom and Prophecy of Jimmy Carter’s ‘Malaise’ Speech — A story worth remembering (and learning from) about a time when a US President tried understand the complex, underlying social dynamics that were tearing apart the United States. - Interstate War
This War May Be Heading for a Cease-Fire — As the death and destruction in Ukraine continues, and as the risks of an even more major super-power confrontation loom, creative idea for bringing an end to the violence from the Korean War.
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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.
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