Newsletter #149 — August 24, 2023
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Theories of Change
Rediscovering Social Innovation — Social entrepreneurship has become popular for those trying to improve the world, but social innovation is a better vehicle for understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations. - Theories of Change
Jazz and conflict resolution — Jazz is a great metaphor for constructive approaches to conflict. It has tension, yet creates beauty out of chaos. Everyone needs to listen to each other, exchange ideas, and find mutual inspiration. - Theories of Change
The role and power of re-patterning in systems change. — Shifting systems towards equity is possible. But to make that happen, it is the responsibility of everyone to start doing and being differently, in every part of every system, every day. - De-Escalation Strategies
Listen, Watch, Read, Experience A Better America! — Scores of on-demand videos about ways to bring people together across political divides. - Constructive Communication
Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center — DDNRC seeks to ensure that college campuses sustain freedom of expression and academic freedom, promote pluralism, and expand opportunities for constructive communication across different perspectives. - Climate Change
Climate Security: Finding Shared Solutions to Shared Challenges — ConnexUs's knowledge-sharing campaign is designed to promote discussion, shared learning and collaboration among peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian practitioners working on climate issues. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Positive Peace provides a framework to understand and then address the multiple and complex challenges the world faces. — IEP’s empirically derived Positive Peace Framework involves the use of a systems-based approach to better understand the creation and maintenance of peaceful societies.
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.
- Left / Right Conflict
Vivek Ramaswamy’s Truth — An informative profile of Vivek Ramaswamy and his effort to become the new leader of the populist rebellion against what US progressives think democracy ought to be. - Constructive Communication
America’s road to healthier political discourse starts on campus — An eloquent defense of the importance of cultivating robust political debate on campus and a look at an organization that is trying to promote this kind of debate. - Class Inequity
Why So Many Elites Feel Like Losers — An especially perceptive article highlighting what happens when more people feel entitled to upper level positions in the social hierarchy than there are positions available. - Social Complexity
The Supreme Court Case That Exemplifies Our Culture War Blindness — Justice is a one-size-fits-all concept that must be applied equally to all. This essay explores the difficulties we have in living up to this principle. - Freedom of Speech
Greg Lukianoff on How to Build a Culture of Free Speech — Thoughtful advice on how to cultivate both public support for freedom of speech and an ability to use those freedoms effectively. - Disinformation
An America of Secrets — An insightful examination of the role that governmental secrecy plays in undermining our ability to analyze problems in ways that are both both viewed as trustworthy and trusted. - Climate Change
Turning Down the Temperature on Extreme Claims About Extreme Weather — A look at the complex methodological issues surrounding efforts to understand the impact of climate change, plus an argument that things are not quite as bad as commonly portrayed. - Psychological Complexity
Love Doesn’t Belong Just to the Poets — An interesting examination of the neuropsychological complexities of the way that people think and relate to one another at the most intimate level. - Class Inequity
What is Meritocracy For? — An article that asks an all-important (but not commonly asked) question, what are the obligations of those who hold positions in the meritocracy? - Psychological Complexity
Why Does Everyone Feel So Insecure All the Time? — A provocative exploration of a different kind of inequality. Unlike inequalities of wealth and income, this article focuses on the differences between the secure and the insecure. - Media Reform
America’s Tech Giants Rush to Comply With New Curbs in Europe — After years of complaining about the many ways in which tech companies are exploiting the public, news that the EU is taking a major step to address the problem. - Social Complexity
The 6 Kinds of Republican Voters — A somewhat more nuanced view of the right-leaning electorate in the United States and a step toward breaking down overly simplistic stereotypes. - Psychological Complexity
How America Got Mean — An argument for strengthening the social fabric by restoring moral education to its rightful prominence. - Pursuing a Unifying Common Vision
A Path to Institutional Pluralism — A pluralistic democracy is one in which diversity is more than skin deep. It is a system that allows people with very different beliefs to live and work together in peace. - Psychological Complexity
Monomania Is Illiberal and Stupefying — An exploration of the causes and effects of a particularly dangerous cognitive bias, monomania, along with thoughts on what can be done to limit its effects.
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