BI ArticleProspective Reconciliation: What Should We Work For---And How?
It is important to understand what your mean by "reconciliation," before you design processes or make structural changes to obtain it.
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Constructive Conflict Guide >
Civic Knowledge and Skills That We Can Use to Help Ourselves and Our Society More Constructively Handle Intractable Conflict >
Reconciliation
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BI Article
Prospective Reconciliation: What Should We Work For---And How?
It is important to understand what your mean by "reconciliation," before you design processes or make structural changes to obtain it.
BI Article
Ebrahim Rasool on What America Might Learn From South Africa's 300+ Years of Struggle
A report on a talk by the former U.S. Ambassador from South Africa, on what the South African struggle for racial justice can teach Americans.
BI Article
If You Don't Know Where You Are Going, it Is Going to Be Hard to Get There
A discussion of how we can develop a vision of the future that would offer a way out of our current hyper-polarization
BI Article
Jay Rothman: Systematic Collaborative Visioning for Conflict Resolution Action and Evaluation in the Post-Covid19 World
A summary of the conclusions of an action evaluation workshop examing the conflict field's response to COVID.
News and Opinion
Ian Rowe discusses 1776 Unites and his efforts to promote a vision of a unified America
A report on a Black-led effort to find a less divisive and more effective way of addressing the many problems caused by America's history of racial discrimination.
BI Article
Developing a Vision for a Society in Which We Would All Like to Live
With this newsletter, we start imagining a less polarized future with lessons from South Africa from Ebrahim Rasool as well as observations from Neal Kohatsu, Ken Cloke, and Duncan Autrey.
BI Article
Andrew Harward: A Vision of Constructive Political Conflict in The United States
A vision of how conflict resolution education might be used to bring an end to toxic polarization in the United States.
BI Article
John Paul Lederach's "Meeting Place"
Think you know what peace, truth, justice, mercy, and reconciliation mean? Which is more important? Can you have all? This exercise forces a deeper look.
BI Article
Reconciliation as a Noun and a Verb (Outcome and Process)
This video explains how reconciliation is both an outcome and the processes used to reach that outcome.
BI Article
Ingredients of Reconciliation
A discussion of what is needed to create reconciliation.
BI Article
Reconciliation Part 1 - What is Reconciliation?
Reconciliation is seen as the ultimate goal of peacebuilding, in which parties re-establish relationships and attempt to move beyond the past.
BI Article
Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is justice that is not designed to punish the wrong-doer, but rather to restore the victim and the relationship to the way they were before the offense. Thus, restorative justice requires an apology from the offender, restitution for the victim, and forgiveness of the offender by the victim.
BI Article
Avoiding a Category 5 Socio-political Hurricane
We need to figure out how we can live together if we want to avoid a threatening disaster. Prospective reconciliation helps us do that.
BI Article
Small Scale Reconciliation -- Part 3: Develop a Unifying Vision for Society
This is the third of five videos on small-scale, bottom up reconciliation. This video discusses developing a unifying vision of the future.
BI Article
The Many Types of Reconciliation
Prospective, retrospective, unilateral, bilateral, multilateral, historic, and contemporaneous reconciliation---how are they different? Which to use when?
BI Article
Reconciliation "Pieces" - Parts 2, 3 and 4: Truth, Mercy, and Peace
Progress toward reconciling today's deeply divided democracies requires the balanced and simultaneous pursuit of peace, justice, truth, and mercy.
BI Article
Daniel Stid: A Big Question I Have Is...
Hope, vision, and place-based civic heath are key elements to our ability to navigate the turbulent times that have left so many of us in fear and despair.
BI Article
Jonathan Stray: Why Build Bridges when Democracy is Burning?
Jonathan Stray explains why we still need to build bridges to "the other side," even if we think they are doing terrible things. It is the only way for those who want to protect democracy to "win" that fight.
BI Article
Adding to the call to action---A few more thoughts
An exploration of the importance of framing and the need to take control of the destructive narratives that are so pervasive in polarized democracies. We need to replace them with a shared vision for our future -- one that is attractive to everyone including those with whom we disagree.
BI Article
The Power of Music and Dance to Heal War-torn Societies: Case Studies from Brazil, Uganda, and Israel/Palestine
In three beautiful and moving stories, this essay illustrates how music and dance can create sacred space for human beings to forgive themselves and others, move away from pain, and create renewed visions for self-healing and peace in the wor
Related Folders
Tolerance
Tolerance is the appreciation of diversity and the ability to live and let others live the way they want to. It is the ability to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards those whose opinions, practices, religion, nationality, etc. differ from one's own. It involves showing respect for the essential humanity in every person.
Colleague Activities
Is reconciliation in a divided America possible? Look to Northern Ireland to see what could happen.
For peace to be sustained, it requires a shared vision of the future that's anchored in a shared understanding of the past.
Colleague Activities
More Perfect
A a national campaign to align American citizens and institutions around a shared vision for our democracy -- and to marshal all the energy and resources it will take to achieve that future together.
Colleague Activities
Fight the Return of the Old Normal: A Guidebook for Envisioning a Racially Just & Transformative Future
We can choose to live in the "old normal" of racial injustice and human exhaustion or we can imagine and design a "new normal" built around a vision for a better future.
Colleague Activities
The Case for Expanding the Landscape of Democracy Work
A long-term, holistic vision of how democracy could evolve in the US and the role that Organizers could play in that work.
Colleague Activities
Narratives of America Project
A new newsletter examining how we can create an honest, inclusive, and forward-looking vision of America.
Colleague Activities
Democracy 2076
Democracy 2076 is developing a vision for a new U.S. constitution which would ensure an effective, responsive, and representative democracy.
Colleague Activities
Narratives of American Project
This summer, the Narratives of America project has been part of important conversations with organizations and individuals who share a common goal: creating a new vision of social well-being where everyone can thrive.
News and Opinion
An Optimist's Vision of America
News and Opinion
A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation -- Arguing about the narrative that houses the facts.
A promising strategy for building a common vision for the future by focusing how we frame an honest account of societies past successes and failures.
News and Opinion
Why 'longtermism' isn't ethically sound
An interesting exploration of the pros and cons of a new philosophical perspective, "long-termism" -- a set of beliefs focused on what we owe posterity.
News and Opinion
A Liberal Patriot Vision for a 21st Century Arsenal of Democracy
News and Opinion
Can Humanism Save Us?
As we continue to struggle to find a vision for a future in which we would all like to live, thoughts on what the long tradition of humanistic philosophy has to teach us.
News and Opinion
Vanderbilt's Bold Stand for 'Neutrality'
An update on Vanderbilt's neutrality policy and a vision for progressively uncovering the truth through an examination of available evidence and an exchange of views about the meaning of that evidence.
News and Opinion
Civic Thought: A Proposal for University-Level Civic Education
An argument for a vastly expanded program of civic education at the collegiate level. We desperately need such programs (provided that they reflect a bipartisan vision of what democracy should be).
News and Opinion
A Recipe for a Striving America
From David Brooks, an illuminating attempt to formulate a vision for an America that can start filling in its deep economic and political chasms.
News and Opinion
We Are Living in a Time of Shock and Awe. Can we build vision in times of chaos? I think we can.