All Recent Posts
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Focus on Contribution, Not Blame -- Focusing on blame doesn't solve problems, it just makes them more intractable. Focusing on contribution instead encourages collaborative problem solving that stands a much better chance of success.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 26 -- More links to news articles and organizations that are, in various ways, working to help us understand and more constructively handle intractable conflict.
- Julia Roig Talks about Weaving a Healthy Democracy in the United States -- Julia Roig talks about her efforts to build a social movement to support democracy in the U.S. Such a movement needs to both block and build: block bad actors, and build a new pluralistic society that works.
- Massively Circular Hyper-Polarization -- All complex systems are made up of multiple interlocking negative and positive feedback loops that can lead to good or bad stability or good or bad change. Understanding these loops is essential for good outcomes.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 19 -- Links to articles suggested by participants in BI's hyper-polarization discussion by plus more links to thought-provoking articles and things that our colleagues are doing.
- Peace is My Day Job -- Working for peace can be a primary job. Figure out your passions, your talents, talk with people, and together develop a path to pursue your dreams and make the world a better place at the same time!
- Conflict Core and Overlaying Issues -- Intractable conflicts are never simple us-versus-them. By sorting out the core and overlaying factors, disputants can come to a much clearer understanding of what needs to be done to transform their conflicts.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 12 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on social change, political change, future challenges, and objectivity (or not) of the media.
- The Trust Network: An Example of Massively Parallel Peacebuilding in Action -- The Trust Network is an "if it exists, it must be possible" example of massively parallel peacebuilding. We are writing about it. They are doing it!
- Carol Pauli's "The 'End' of Neutrality: Tumultuous Times Require a Deeper Value" -- Pauli asserts that neutrality is an "unsatisfying value" for both journalists and mediators in our current conflicted times, and might be better replaced with a fundamental reliance on human dignity of every person.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 5 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on tech, education, and changing demographics.
- Constructive Confrontation: Applying Conflict Insights from a 1st Party (Not 3rd Party) Perspective -- Constructive confrontation applies conflict resolution theory and practice to advocacy efforts in an effort to limit pushback and maximize attainment of ones interests and needs.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 29 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on political moderates, the lifetime insights of prominent social activists, ways of limiting done violence, and other topics.
- Could MPP Make Hyper-Polarization Worse? -- Bad-faith actors can and do use a massively parallel strategy to drive us apart. But that doesn't mean that the strategy is bad -- it means that it is effective. Good-faith actors need to learn how to use these techniques to bring us together.
- Revisiting the Gun Violence Issue and America's Declining Trust and Increasing Sense of Threat -- A look at what we know about reducing the mutual hostility (associated with escalation and hyper-polarization dynamics) that contributes so much to mass shootings, gun deaths, and interpersonal and political violence.
- Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess: Massively Parallel Peacebuilding vs. Massively Parallel Partisanship -- Advocacy plays a key role in Massively Parallel Peacebuilding. But, this role can either be supportive and helpful, or destructive, depending on how it is done.
- Julia Roig: Where Does Civil Resistance and Social Justice Fit in MPP? -- How do we distinguish when taking a stand is what’s absolutely called for – because we’ve reached the tipping point of uncivil politics/undemocratic behaviors? But perhaps we need to find a better way of doing it.
- Beyond Conflict's Reports on America's Divided Mind and Renewing American Democracy -- Now is our time to re-rebuild our democracy, and it will take all of us, working on multi-faceted solutions at the local, state, and national levels.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 22 -- Links to things that our colleagues are doing at places like Search for Common Ground, Renew America, the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, as well as fifteen fascinating articles that help us understand the complexity of society-wide intractable conflict.
- The Google Maps and Adopt-a-Highway Approach to Systems (Newsletter 72) -- If we were to map all the challenges Google-maps style, and then each person or organization were to adopt one or two of the challenges that were not widely adopted by others, that could have a much bigger impact.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 15 -- Highlighting the Constructive Dialogue Institute, the National Issues Forum, the ABA's guidelines for discussing controversial issues in the classroom, the National Constitution Center, and much more.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 15 -- Rather than continuing to post individual links on social media, I have decided to start posting a larger collection of such links each week in the Beyond Intractability Substack Newsletter.
- Addressing the Skeptics And Moving Forward -- Massive social change IS possible if people decide they want to work at it!
- Anne Leslie: Embracing Ambiguity -- Curiosity will get you SO FAR. …Never underestimate the power of being curious and likeable! It will get you so far in life! And it’s massively, massively underestimated.
- Kristin Hansen talks about the Civic Health Project's Work on De-polarization in America -- A discussion of ends and means, incentives, interventions, scale, challenges, successes, visions--Kristen's vision is clear and exceptionally wide ranging at the same time. (Summary of full interview)