The Great Reframing: Table of Contents
The Great Reframing: Big Picture Series
The Great Reframing: What It Is and Why It Is Essential — If we want to get out of the trouble we are in as a society, we need to realize that the "enemy" is not "the others." It is the destructive way in which we deal with "the others."
The Grand democratic Bargain — Humanity's Best Defense Against "I'll Fight You for It" Rules — A second "Big Picture" essay, this one explaining why democracy is worth defending by looking at the systems it is designed to replace. While no democracies are perfect, they are clearly better than their dystopian alternatives.
Partisan, Power-Over Democracy vs. a Power-With Democracy for All — Those working to save democracy must decide whether they want to work toward the Grand democratic Bargain, or if they want to continue to pursue IFYFI rules to overpower the other side. The first will actually help save democracy. The latter, likely, will not.
Adapting Information Feeds to Support the Great Reframing — If we are going to succeed at the Great Reframing, we need to reclaim our "information agency" and alter our business-as-usual information feeds.
Constructive Confrontation: The Key to Making the Grand democratic Bargain Work — Constructive confrontation takes the lessons from conflict resolution and peacebuilding and applies them to advocacy. The result is a strategy that is less likely to provoke backlash, and hence is more likely to succeed.
Making Democracy for All Work At the Scale and Complexity of Modern Society — An explanation of how scale and complexity makes conflict even more intractable and an introduction to what we see is the best strategy for addressing this problem.
The Massively Parallel Approach — the Key to Dealing with Scale and Complexity — The 7th installment of our "Big Picture Series," this post explains why "massively parallel" action--in peacebuilding, problem solving, democracy building, and civic renewal is the best way to deal with the staggering complexity and scale of society-wide conflicts.
Stipulating the Terms of the Grand Bargain: Things to Think About and Work Toward — A list of questions we need to answer as we consider how the democracy we are working for should be structured and should function.
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Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 1 — The first of a five-part series outlining our latest thinking on massively parallel democracy building. This installment briefly introduces the core argument about what the threats to democracy are, and what is needed to meet them.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 2 — In this 2nd (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building, we look at some of the threats facing democracy in the United States, and where they could lead if they aren't addressed soon.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 3 — The resilience of American democracy is based on three factors: an abundant array of tools for resisting those who threaten democratic institutions, a willingness to use those tools, and the creativity needed to develop new responses to new challenges.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 4 — This 4th (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building lays out seven essential goals, all of which contribute to developing a "power-with democracy" to replace "power-over" approaches.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 5 — This final installment of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building describes 53 different roles which all need to be filled simultaneously for democracy strengthening efforts to succeed. And everyone fits somewhere!
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Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Roles - Part 1 — People engaged in massively parallel peace and democracy building play at least 50 different roles. In Part 1 of this three part series, we explore the roles played by the "strategizers" who help us understand the both nature of the problem and possible responses.
Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Roles - Part 2 — The second of three posts explaining the actor roles needed for a massively parallel peacebuilding/democracy building effort to work, which combined with an earlier post on strategy roles, makes up the current MPP role list.
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding Roles - Part 3 — Part 3 of a 4 part series examining the many roles played by participants in Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building. This newsletter focuses on those who help us analyze complex problems and develop collaborative solutions.
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding Roles - Part 4 — The last in a four-part series of MPP roles looking at those who help balance power so that everyone in society is treated fairly, and those who try to defend democracy from those who would destroy it.
Essential Elements of Successful Democracies - Part 1 — This newsletter begins to consider what democracies need to do to be successful, along with some ways they can start doing that.
Essential Elements of Successful Democracies - Part 2 — Here we continue the discussion of 7 essential elements of essential democracies, add blog posts on calling in, not out, and not being too sure of oneself. A discussion of complex adaptive systems is also included.
Massively ...
Could Massively Parallel Processes 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 similar techniques to bring us together.
Massively Circular Hyper-Polarization — Complex social systems are made up of multiple interlocking negative and positive feedback loops that can, for good or ill, lead to stability or to change. In order to improve the system, we need to understand these loops.
Decoupling the Defense of Democracy from Partisan Politics - Part 2 — The second in a series of posts on decoupling partisan politics from "saving democracy." This one highlights several programs where this is already being done, proving that such decoupling is, indeed possible, and beneficial.
Decoupling the Defense of Democracy from Partisan Politics - Part 1 — In his Better Conflict Bulletin, Jonathan Stray asks his readers how to stop our serious democratic backsliding. We respond that decoupling partisan politics from "saving democracy" is key.
Strategies for Effectively Dealing with Scale and Complexity
Conflict Core and Overlay Issues - Part 2 — Continuing our review of the distinction between core conflict factors and conflict overlays, this post examines common overlay factors that make conflicts even more difficult to resolve--and (briefly) what to do about them.
Reprise: Conflict Core and Overlay Issues — A review of the distinction the Burgesses make between core conflict factors and conflict overlays. This is the first of a two-part series; this one on the core factors; the second one will be on the overlay factors that make conflicts even more difficult to resolve.
The Engineering and Medical Approaches to Fixing Broken Systems — Complex adaptive systems cannot be fixed using typical engineering problem solving. Rather they need to be approached using a "medical model," which is designed to deal with systems we don't entirely understand.
Reprise: Sharp vs. Fuzzy Feedback --- The Distinction That Explains Why Society Can Be Both Astonishingly Smart and Incredibly Stupid — We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but continue to have serious trouble seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback. These difficulties do much to explain why society is in such serious trouble.
Sharp vs. Fuzzy Feedback --- The Distinction That Explains Why Society Can Be Both Astonishingly Smart and Incredibly Stupid — We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but not nearly as good at seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback, which is the source of many serious mistakes.
Reprise: The Google Maps and Adopt-a-Highway Approach to Systems — A repeat of a two-year old post, explaining "thinking and acting systemically" by using the metaphor of Google Maps and "Adopt a Highway" programs -- both systemic ways of managing vast amounts of traffic on the U.S. highway system.
Dealing with Risk and Uncertainty — Unavoidable risks and uncertainties make wise decision-making especially difficult. These difficulties are compounded by cognitive traps that lead us to believe that we have certainty when we don't. A better approach is to remain flexible and monitor changing conditions so that we can adapt quickly.
US Politics
Become Part of the Solution — The American electorate includes True Believers, Pro-Democracy Transpartisans, and the Disillusioned, Disengaged, and Politically Homeless. We need to grow the second group, while shrinking the other two if we want American democracy to survive.
How Do We Get What We Want and Need? Through Polarization or Bridge-building, Reframing, and "Omni-Win" Approaches? — This newsletter focuses on the several contributions to the BI/CRQ Hyper-Polarization Discussion that we have not yet had space to include in the newsletter.
Communication Problem and Solutions
Fighting Hyper-Polarization for Our Children and Grand Children — This newsletter focuses on the importance of continuing our efforts to strengthen democracy, and considers one obstacle to doing that: being too sure of our selves.
Constructive Confrontation
Revisiting BI's Constructive Conflict Initiative - Part 1 — Looking back on the 5-year old Constructive Conflict Initiative, a lot has happened to bring it to fruition. But a lot of challenges remain.
Revisiting BI's Constructive Conflict Initiative - Part 2 — The second 1/2 of a set of posts on BI's Constructive Conflict Initiative, this one looking at what still needs to be done to strengthen and improve U.S. democracy and the way U.S. society deals with intractable conflict.
Reprise: The Power Strategy Mix --- Empowering the Pursuit of the Common Good — Power takes three forms that can be mixed and matched: coercion, exchange, and integration. The "recipe" for the optimal "power strategy mix" changes depending on whom you are trying to influence.
The Power Strategy Mix --- Empowering the Pursuit of the Common Good — Power is not just force. It is the ability to get things done. And that usually is maximized by using integrative as well as exchange power to encourage collaboration whenever possible. Force should be reserved for the most extreme cases only.
Reprise: Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power — Power takes three forms that can be mixed and matched: coercion, exchange, and integration. The "recipe" for the optimal "power strategy mix" changes depending on whom you are trying to influence.
Reprise: Constructive Confrontation: Applying Conflict Insights from a 1st Party (Not 3rd Party) Perspective — A reprise of an old newsletter on constructive ways of engaging in conflict that is less likely to create backlash and more likely to achieve one's goals than typical adversarial approaches are likely to do.
Our Problem Isn't "Them" — We need to learn more about the other side--not about how bad they are, but why they believe what they believe, why they respond to us the way they do, and why they advocate for the things we think are so awful.
Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power — Healthy conflict resolution systems rely primary on interest-based negotiations, using rights and power contests much less frequently. US democracy currently does the opposite.
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 help people limit pushback and better defend their interests.
Democracy Concept, Processes, Threats, and Solutions
Thinking about What Democracy's Winners and Losers Owe One Another — As we think about how to heal US democracy following the upcoming, and undoubtedly divisive election, we propose asking ourselves whether we are willing to treat the other side as we would like to be treated.
Pro-Democracy Efforts: the Tension between Power-Over or Power-With Approaches — Pro-democracy efforts have little consensus on what democracy is, or how it should be "saved." Our failure to reconcile these competing views is a big part of the reason why democracy is in so much trouble.
Essential Elements + Obstacles = The Things That Need Doing Matrix — An introduction to a matrix of "things that need doing" to fix democracy, together with a blog post on an "inter-movement" designed to help do those things and two more posts on the nature of polarization.
Essential Elements + Obstacles = The Things That Need Doing Matrix — An introduction to a matrix of "things that need doing" to fix democracy, together with a blog post on an "inter-movement" designed to help do those things and two more posts on the nature of polarization.
Essential Elements + Obstacles = The Things That Need Doing Matrix — In addition to the Burgess's essays this newsletter includes Matt Legge's thoughts on polarization and CalebChristen on creating and intermovement community.
Obstacles to Implementing the Elements of Successful Democracy — A discussion of five obstacles to implementing the elements of successful democracy, two examples from the blog of what's going wrong, and Colleague and Context posts.
Escalation/Violence
7 More Ways to Turn Down the Heat — Figuring out how to avoid destructive escalation, when possible, and reversing it once it has started, is of the highest importance. The good news, though, is that there are many ways to do that.
More Ways to Turn Down the Heat — The second part of our short, readable summary (with lots of links) to what we collectively know about strategies for controlling destructive escalation.
Reversing or Better Yet, Avoiding, Destructive Escalation — A short, readable summary (with lots of links) to what we collectively know about strategies for controlling destructive escalation. (Part I)
Escalation is the Most Dangerous Force on the Planet. But We Continue to Drive It — Driven by many interacting feedback loops, escalation can get out of control quickly--leading to violence or even worse.
The Crane Brinton Effect --- Why Revolutions Fail — Amid calls for a political revolution to fight systemic oppression, a critical look at why revolutions fail with contributions from the Burgesses, Peter Adler, James Adams, William Donohue, and Mark Hamilton.
Massively Parallel Processes
Kenneth Boulding's First Law: If It Exists (or Has Been Done), It Must Be Possible — Reflections on the vital role played by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the fraught relationship between those organizations and governmental sources of support.
Every Problem Creates an Opportunity to Develop Something New and Better — A retrospective look at the long and hopeful history of the conflict resolution and peacebuilding fields -- a history punctuated by a long series of societal crises and, ultimately, constructive responses to those crises.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 5 — This final installment of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building describes 53 different roles which all need to be filled simultaneously for democracy strengthening efforts to succeed. And everyone fits somewhere!
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 4 — This 4th (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building lays out seven essential goals, all of which contribute to developing a "power-with democracy" to replace "power-over" approaches.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 3 — The resilience of American democracy is based on three factors: an abundant array of tools for resisting those who threaten democratic institutions, a willingness to use those tools, and the creativity needed to develop new responses to new challenges.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 2 — In this 2nd (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building, we look at some of the threats facing democracy in the United States, and where they could lead if they aren't addressed soon.
Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 1 — The first of a five-part series outlining our latest thinking on massively parallel democracy building. This installment briefly introduces the core argument about what the threats to democracy are, and what is needed to meet them.
Massively Parallel Partisanship Revisited — Massively parallel social movements can strengthen democracy or tear it apart, and the dividers are currently much more visible (and successful) than the uniters. With effort, though, that can change!
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding: A Strategy for Building a Democracy That Lives Up to Its Ideals — A summary and links to videos outlining the Burgess's latest thinking about massively parallel peacebuilding and democracy building and explaining how it is already taking place on a large scale.
Could Massively Parallel Processes 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 similar techniques to bring us together.
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding vs. Massively Parallel Partisanship — As we work to build a massively parallel peacebuilding movement to limit hyper-polarization and protect democracy, we must be aware of other, more partisan massively parallel movements that are deepening our divisions.
Addressing the Skeptics And Moving Forward — The first of our new shorter format newsletters we finish up our paper on massively parallel peacebuilding and introduce what comes next.
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding/Problem Solving — The first of our new shorter format newsletters we finish up our paper on massively parallel peacebuilding and introduce what comes next.
Future Visioning
Envisioning a Future (Almost) Everyone Will Want to Live In — How much could we change if we could just accept the fact that "America belongs to all who live here" and we set about the task, as South Africans did, to figure out how we could make that work for everyone?
If You Don't Know Where You Are Going, it Is Going to Be Hard to Get There — More on envisioning a society in which we all want to live: an elicitive approach suggests that Western democracies should try to visualize ways to improve those democracies, not replace them.
Peacebuilding
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.
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.
