Newsletter #115 — May 15, 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
Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding — Podcasts highlighting the experiences of international religiously-motivated peacebuilders, plus many more text profiles of religious peacebuilders with descriptions of their work. - Left / Right Conflict
Bridging divides in the workplace — Many companies are witnessing how contentious social and political issues create workplace conflict and reduce productivity. A look at how businesses can help repair America’s social fabric — both in and out of the workplace. - Race / Anti-Racism
Five Calls-to Action from the 2022 Facing Race Conference — Calls included: 1) don't be afraid of backlash--it means we're winning. 2) reconnect, 3) expose white nationalism for the threat it is, 4) Stop internal implosions, and 5) Look and move forward. - Race / Anti-Racism
Bridging Divides & Cultivating Solidarity to Counter Strategic Racism, with Ian Haney López — A podcast exploring how engaging across our racial and class divides and cultivating solidarity can help bring us together to care for and nurture our democracy. - Constructive Communication
Dialogue Lab: America | Documentary Film (2022) — A video about Ideos Institute's experiment testing whether constructive dialogue is possible in today’s polarized culture, and if so, how dialogue might be a first step in healing our nation. - Climate Change
In This Together — A campaign to help save the environment and repair our democracy by connecting and empowering America’s silenced majority of 98 million, in hope-based campaigns beginning with climate change. - Constructive Communication
With no waitstaff, menus or regular hours, this café isn't your average coffee house — A restraurateur provides the opportunity for meaningful interactions with people whose paths may not otherwise cross while learning something new — and maybe gaining a new perspective or even a friend. - Big Picture Thinking Projects
Collaborating Across Differences to Reduce Authoritarianism: A Literature Review — A literature review exploring the question: What are the practices that support groups that come together to collaborate across differences to reduce authoritarianism?
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.
- Class Inequity
William Deresiewicz on the “Excellent Sheep” of the American Elite — A really excellent social psychological analysis of the cosmopolitan elite that now effectively controls so much of society. - Race / Anti-Racism
Defining ‘Woke’ (a Word We Should Probably All Stop Using) — A thoughtful exploration of the many controversies swirling around the word "woke" and the difficulty of finding an agreed-upon name for a philosophy that is remaking society. - Effective Problem Assessment
In Defense of Merit in Science — A article so controversial that it could only be published in the "Journal of Controversial Ideas." Their argument -- science should be evaluated according to the merits of the arguments being made. - Climate Change
We need an area the size of Texas for wind and solar. Here’s how to halve it. — An important first effort to seriously consider (and find constructive ways of limiting) the growing opposition to the staggering amounts of land that a wind/solar-based energy system will require. - Class Inequity
The Woke University’s Servant Class — A look at the hypocritical mismatch between the university's conspicuous commitment to social justice and the exploitive way in which it treats "contingent" faculty. - Psychological Complexity
Why AI Will Never Rival Human Creativity — A perceptive, and for us humans, hopeful analysis of the difficulties associated with building a truly creative artificial intelligence. - Civic Education
A Mixture of Pride and Shame — To us, what seems like a sensible way of thinking about the tremendous achievements and terrible injustices that characterize the history of all civilizations. - Conflict Advice
Choose the Activism That Won’t Make You Miserable — As you think about getting involved in efforts to make the world a better place, practical advice on how to do this in a psychologically sustainable way -- and, make a real contribution. - Countering Misinformation
The Government Created a New Disinformation Office To Oversee All the Other Ones — Another window into the vast bureaucracy that has been created to control disinformation and, quite possibly, political disagreement. - Communication Obstacles
Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know — A comprehensive look at what increasing numbers of people see as a terrifying assault on the freedom of expression that is so central to a successful democracy. - Communication Obstacles
The Race for Clicks Was a Fool’s Game — Reflections on the implications and costs of the kind of journalism that places so much emphasis on building an audience. - Race / Anti-Racism
California May Bill You for Slavery — A report on the racial reparations recommended by a high-level California committee with details about who does and doesn't receive various levels of compensation. - Developing a Unifying Vision
The New Washington Consensus — A report on an extremely important area of public policy in which a surprising consensus has emerged between the left and the right. - Saving Democracy
Nancy Mace, a ‘Caucus of One’ in the G.O.P., Says She’s Trying to Change Her Party — A profile on a Republican member of Congress from South Carolina who is trying to take a more compromise-oriented approach to governing. - Authoritarianism
Why Putin’s repression is worse than what I endured under the Soviets — A reminder that the terrible tyrannies of the past are not necessarily in the past. If we are not careful, the present can be just as bad – if not worse.
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