Beyond Intractability
Hyper-Polarization Blog
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Colleague and Context Links for the Week of March 10, 2024 -- Our usual Sunday link suggestions from readers, together with our compilation of interesting colleague activities, plus news and opinion articles of interest to the conflict field.
- Bari Weiss: What it Means to Choose Freedom, Supplemented by Franklin Foer and the Burgesses -- Bari Weiss (The Free Press) and Franklin Foer (The Atlantic) reflect on the meaning of the war in Gaza and world response to it, to prospects for the survival of liberal democracy worldwide. The two, they agree, are linked.
- Bill Froehlich Talks about the Ohio State Divided Community Project -- A summary of a conversation Bill Froehlich about the work of the Divided Community Project which works to help deeply divided communities come together to prevent, and respond to civic strife.
- Colleague and Context Links for the Week of March 3, 2024 -- More readings and videos suggested by readers, along with our weekly pick of colleague activities and important writing from outside our field.
- Lou Kriesberg, Deborah Laufer, and Ashok Panikkar: Hopeful Thoughts About What Could Be, Contrasted with Darker Thoughts About What Is -- One positive, optimistic look at what could happen in Israel/Palestine, and others looking at some of the negative forces that are working against such an integrative outcome.
- Peter Coleman on The Way Out of Polarization and Intractability -- Polarization is destroying our relationships with friends and family. Peter Coleman has a way to fix that -- and possibly fix our society as well.
- Talking Race and Democracy with Grande Lum -- The conflict resolution professionals' time has come. We need to step up to the plate!
- Reader Responses on the Israel/Hamas War and Reconciliation and Justice -- You cannot provide facts, logic, or reasoning when it comes to “sacred values.” So what should one do when one group's "sacred value" calls for the total destruction of another group?
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 11, 2024 -- Articles submitted by readers and our choices for interesting and important reading from within the conflict and peacebuilding field and beyond.
- Elements of Reconciliation — Part 1: Justice -- Justice has many different meanings. If social justice is to be attained, we need to sit down together an negotiate which of the many meanings of justice we want to pursue--and how.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 4, 2024 -- Links from readers about Israel, Heidi's links from colleagues, and Guy's links from journalists and others in allied fields--all interesting and important reading in our view.
- More Comments on Growing Strawberries on Coconut Trees -- More reader comments and Ashok Panikkar's comments on those comments about the role of peacebuilding, force, and other approaches to the world's current most violent conflicts.
- Ken Cloke: Free Speech on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Can Do - And Lorelie Kelly on How Universities Can Strengthen our Democrati -- There are no judicial or military solutions to the wars being fought around the world, or on our campuses. Our only choice is to learn to live together by settling, transforming, or transcending our conflicts.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 28, 2023 -- Links from readers and Guy exploring the themes of hyper-polarization, Israel, and related topics from within and beyond the peacebuilding field.
- More Reader Comments On Israel and Intractable Identity Conflicts more Broadly -- A compilation of readers' thoughts on Israel and identity conflicts in general. We agree--they are intractable--but greatly in need of inspiration and new thinking!
- Why Hope Dies Last...and Why I Stopped Being an Optimist -- When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 14, 2023 -- Reader contributed and Guy's suggestions of interesting reads for the week relating to peacebuilding and hyper-polarization.
- Martin Luther King from a Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Perspective -- A look at the now hard-to-imagine challenges faced by the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King, and the 1963 March on Washington; how they were able to overcome them; and what they can teach us today.
- Deborah Lauffer and Katja Rieger on Peacebuilding, Israel/Hamas, and Future Visioning -- Two more readers contribute thoughts about the Israel/Gaza war and ways of envisioning a future we would all want to live in.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 7, 2024 -- Readings on Israel/Hamas war recommended by readers, more colleague activities articles and news, and writing from people in allied fields.
- Growing Strawberries on Coconut Trees: The Nature of Peace and Peacebuilding in a Collectivist and Illiberal World -- To understand why the peacebuilding field has failed to live up to its lofty ambitions, we have to unpack the world we inhabit today. Peacebuilding is not possible in many societies, and peacebuilders need to understand where their processes can work and where they cannot.
- U.S. Election BI in Context Posts for January 3, 2023 -- A compendium of ideas from conflict strategists about the nature of the US hyper-polarization problem and ways to address that.
- A New Year's Gift from Jay Rothman: 31 Definitions of Peace and You -- An exercise to help us all appreciate our inner and social experiences of peace, wholeness, and connection, as defined by many cultures around the world.
- What Happens When We Have ANOTHER Election That Both Sides Absolutely Positively Can't Afford to Lose? -- The US 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be extremely challenging to U.S. democracy, but there are things that can be done to make sure it is both trustworthy and trusted.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of December 17, 2023 -- More thoughtful articles from colleagues, the media, and writers in allied fields.
