- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of March 16, 2025 -- Our weekly collection of readings, not surprisingly, heavily focused on Trump's moves and responses to those moves. -- Mar 15
- Can we lower toxic polarization while still opposing Trump? -- In the United States, hyper-polarization has escalated to the point where President Trump is trying to destroy pretty much everything Democrats care about. The question is how can the Democrats defend themselves while also working to defuse the hyper-polarization that made Trump's Presidency possible. -- Mar 11
- Are We Fiddling While Rome Burns? -- A reflection on why it still makes sense to try to find a middle ground between the far left and the far right, even as the far right seems to be profoundly threatening U.S. democracy. -- Mar 09
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of March 2, 2025 -- Another installment of our weekly suggested readings and viewings. -- Mar 06
- Louis Kriesberg's "For All the People" and Related Thoughts About Paths Forward for the U.S. -- Taking Kriesberg's essay as a starting point, this newsletter explores, from left-leaning and centrist perspectives, a range of hopeful responses that are emerging to the most extreme actions of the still young Trump presidency. -- Feb 27
- Lou Kriesberg's "For All the People" and Related Thoughts About Paths Forward for the U.S. -- Lou Kriesberg, the Burgesses, and a variety of commentators agree. America needs to be governed by and for all the people, not just by and for a few rich folk. Pushback is starting to work toward that goal. -- Feb 26
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of February 23, 2025 -- Our weekly roundup of interesting reading and viewings, along with one event announcement. -- Feb 23
- The Engineering and Medical Approaches to Fixing Broken Systems -- Complex adaptive systems cannot be fixed using typical engineering problem solving. Rather they need to be approached using a "medical model," which is designed to deal with systems we don't entirely understand. -- Feb 20
- Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada: Transformative Power and Empathic Connection: Changing Contexts, Generating Inclusive Mindsets -- Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada explores solutions to the "Achilles Heel of democracy," in which free speech allows illiberal speech, which then threatens the very democracy that allows it. -- Feb 17
- Heidi and Guy Burgess Talk with Tom Klaus and Lamar Roth in their "Third Space" -- Tom Klaus and Lamar Roth talked with Guy and Heidi Burgess about Beyond Intractability, hyper-polarization, constructive conflict, and ways we are going to get out of the "mess" we are in. -- Feb 13
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of February 9, 2025 -- More important readings from our colleagues and journalists of note. -- Feb 09
- Daniel Stid -- PS: Three Further Reflections on "Pluralism in the Trump Era" -- Daniel Stid's three key "take-aways" from a conference on Pluralism in Action: we have a choice between pluralism and war; political resistance and civic renewal are different tasks, and pluralism is not a field. See why! -- Feb 08
- Reprise: Sharp vs. Fuzzy Feedback — The Distinction That Explains Why Society Can Be Both Astonishingly Smart and Incredibly Stupid -- We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but not nearly as good seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback, which is the source of many serious mistakes. With current hyper-polarization, will any feedback be heeded? -- Feb 03
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of February 2, 2025 -- Our weekly set of readings renamed to clarify the contents, trying to help our readers understand the challenges we face. -- Feb 01
- Reprise: The Google Maps and Adopt-a-Highway Approach to Systems -- A repeat of a two-year old post, explaining "thinking and acting systemically" by using the metaphor of Google Maps and "Adopt a Highway" programs -- both systemic ways of managing vast amounts of traffic on the U.S. highway system. -- Jan 30
- Daniel Stid: Top Down Democratic Decline vs. Bottom Up Civic Renewal: 8 Working Hypotheses -- The civic renewal we need is not primarily political or governmental, but rather, cultural. While Federal governance is still in a shambles, cultural change at the local and state levels promises a healthier democracy. -- Jan 29
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of January 26, 2025 -- Two weeks' worth of readings from colleagues and journalists about hyper-polarization, intractable conflict and more. -- Jan 25
- Potpourri Newsletter #2 -- Comments on our U.S. democracy post, Ashok Panikkar's question about contemporary education, and uplifting essay from Anne Leslie, and a new case study on Burundi from Emmy Irobi. -- Jan 22
- Harry Boyte Talks with Heidi Burgess about the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and the Lessons it Can Teach Us -- Harry Boyte explained how the ideas of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s and 1960s can be adapted by anyone wanting to make fundamental change in their communities and their societies. -- Jan 19
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of January 12, 2025 - Part 2. -- This is the second of a two compilations of links collected over the holiday break. -- Jan 14
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of January 12, 2025 -- The first of two sets of readings collected over the holiday break. -- Jan 11
- Representative Derek Kilmer on the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and De-polarization -- Guy and Heidi Burgess talked with Rep. Derek Kilmer on how to break down polarization in Congress and in society in order to actually solve problems collaboratively. There is much to learn and utilize here! -- Jan 07
- A Reasonable Peace: Can Critical Thinking Save the Field of Peacebuilding? -- Ashok Panikkar, Heidi and Guy Burgess (with facilitation from Merrick Hoben) talked about why peacebuilding is failing in much of the world, and how the use of critical thinking explains why and what might be done to be more successful. -- Jan 04
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of December 21, 2024 -- A last set of readings for 2024. -- Dec 20
- Lou Kriesberg: Applying the Constructive Conflict approach to the American Right-Wing Populism Phenomenon -- Lou Kriesberg explores "what next" for progressives in the United States following Trump's election, arguing that two responses are necessary: resistance, and strengthening democracy. -- Dec 17
The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field
We invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.
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