Recent Beyond Intractability Posts
Including Hyper-Polarization Posts
Posts by BI Section
Lists of recent posts are also available separately for each BI Section:
Hyper-Polarization Discussion Posts | Earlier Constructive Conflict Initiative Blog
Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- The Fulcrum Newsletter -- The Fulcrum, from the Bridge Alliance, is a platform where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it work in our everyday lives. -- Sep 06
- How the gay rights movement found such stunning success -- As we contemplate strategies for promoting constructive social change, it's worth looking to past successes for guidance. -- Sep 06
- How the Internet Became a Doom Loop -- Much of hyperpolarization is attributable to vulnerabilities inherent in the structure of modern, Internet-based information systems which somehow need to be overcome. -- Sep 05
- American Rasputin -- A profile of the complex nature of one of the many different types of bad-faith actors who are making it so much harder for democracy to succeed. -- Sep 05
- Transfroming the Conversation on Carbon Pricing USA -- A policy dialogue between carbon pricing advocates and environmental justice activists about how to advance climate policy in ways that better include the concerns of vulnerable communities. -- Sep 05
- How Can We Reduce Hyper-Polarization? Join BI's Discussion to Share Your Ideas and Learn Others! -- A joint BI/CRQ call for those with conflict resolution and peacebuilding expertise to pool their insights and think about how we could help democracies better live up to their ideals. -- Sep 05
- Not a False Flag, a More Effective Strategy for Fighting Oppression: the Burgesses Respond to Jackie Font-Guzmán and Bernie Mayer -- The conversation between Jackie, Bernie, and the Burgesses is a good example of the blind man and the elephant parable. We all need to look at the whole elephant! -- Aug 29
- James Baldwin's Radicalism -- An enlightening profile of one of the giants in the struggle against racism, James Baldwin – a man with much to teach us as we continue to struggle with age-old problems. -- Aug 29
- Whataboutism -- An exploration of one of the most effective strategies for promoting confusion and undermining the sensible analyses of social problems -- "whataboutism." -- Aug 28
- Still under-policed and over-imprisoned -- An explanation, with important implications for criminal justice reform, of the disconnect between the United States' mass incarceration policies and its inability to fight crime. -- Aug 28
- Peter Adler: Defiance at Duck Springs -- The world is made of stories, and good stories accumulate into larger narratives and make the world’s history what it is, and what it could be. Here's a story we should learn from before it becomes true. -- Aug 27
- The False Flag of Hyper-Polarization A Response to Guy and Heidi Burgess’ Critique of The Neutrality Trap -- An approach that says we should focus on peace and not justice is not only bound to fail, it is dangerous in these times when our democracy is under attack and authoritarianism is on the rise. -- Aug 25
- I spent years hating activists. Then I tried listening to them -- An account of somebody who did something that we all need to do more -– really listen to and try to understand the people with whom we disagree. -- Aug 25
- See the ads Democrats are funding to boost far-right Republicans -- Yet another example of what happens in politics when the need to defeat the other side becomes more important than building a democracy in which we would all like to live. -- Aug 24
- Paths to Depolarization -- From Francis Fukuyama an argument that while grassroots activism and electoral reform are important, what the US really needs is a major political realignment. -- Aug 23
- Introducing a Discussion with Bernie Mayer and Jackie Font-Guzmán about Hyper-Polarization, Neutrality, and Oppression -- Is America's core problem hyper-polarization or oppression? Which is the cause and which is the effect? What does this imply about how we address both? -- Aug 23
- How You Feel About Gender Roles Can Tell Us How You’ll Vote -- A much more sophisticated, well documented, and accurate look at the nature of the gender divide and the role that it plays in the larger societal conflict. -- Aug 22
- Polarization Past and Present: What’s Changed? What’s Possible? -- Join the Network for Responsible Public Policy on Thurs Aug 25 at 7:30 pm EDT for a discussion of what can be done to bridge todays gaping divides. -- Aug 21
- Jay Rothman's Quick Answers to Our Questions -- Jay argues that participatory, civic engagement to promote deeper understanding of and commitment to fundamental difference (which he refers to as "agonism") is essential for successful democracy. -- Aug 21
- Keeping our options open -- Frantic human activity has reduced both cultural and biological diversity. Now we must protect the dwindling alt -- A provocative essay on the nature of complex biological and social systems, the importance of diversity, and threats to that diversity. -- Aug 21
- Making the other side better -- A truly radical idea -- instead of devoting all of your energy to defeating a threatening adversary try acting in ways that lead them to be less threatening and better neighbors and citizens. -- Aug 21
- Larry Susskind Explains How To Get Highly Distrustful, even Hateful Parties to Work Together -- Those who want to promote dialogue or peace-making among parties who are “at war” are inviting the wrong people to the wrong kind of event in the wrong way. There are clear alternatives that work, devising seminars being one of them. -- Jul 22
- A New Book on Lessons from Peacebuilding Abroad and the Implications for Divisions within the United States -- Adams's book summary explains why he wrote the book the way he did, and what he was trying to accomplish in doing so. -- Jul 21
- The Crane Brinton Effect -- The key to successful revolutionary (or evolutionary) change is a broadly agreed-upon vision for a better society in which most everyone would like to live. -- Jul 20
- There Has to Be a Better Way to Run the Government -- A readable case study of the complexities of contemporary policymaking and an explanation of why we can't seem to fix much of anything. -- Jul 14
