Newsletter #433— March 9, 2026

by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess

Subscribe to the Newsletter (Free)

Highlighted Links

A few suggestions about links that we think are especially interesting.

• Education
  ‘We’re Part of the Problem’ — From David Brooks, a plea for universities to recognize (and take steps to correct) their role in driving our destructive, hyper-polarized politics.
• Psychological Complexity
  The Fallacy Fallacy — An eye-opening look into the way in which philosophers are teaching their students how to distinguish truth from falsehood and an argument that their approach is having the opposite effect.
• Communication Complexity
  The Obscure Media Theory That Explains '99% of Everything' — While we like to think that contemporary information technology has changed everything, this article explains how theories dating to the birth of television explain much of our current predicament.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  How technology has already changed the world in my lifetime — A retrospective look at the astonishing speed with which technological change has transformed society over the last several decades, with implications about what we should expect for the future.
• Trust / Trust Earning
  Guarding the guardians — A really thought-provoking article on the role that trust plays in making our highly specialized society work -- and the origins of that trust.
• Artificial Intelligence
  The Worst-Case Future for White-Collar Workers — For knowledge workers in the professional managerial elite, things to think about as you prepare for the coming disruptions associated with AI.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Dennis Prager: Right and Wrong Are Not a Matter of Personal Opinion — A contribution to the debate over moral relativism that argues that there really is such a thing as right and wrong.

Reader Suggested Links

Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.

• Psychological Complexity
  Nine Intellectual Virtues — As we try to think through solutions to our problems, an exploration of nine intellectual virtues to cultivate and intellectual vices to avoid.
• Freedom of Speech 
  PEN Succumbs to the Anti-Free Speech Mob — The story about how the United States' most respected writers' organization is, like the rest of our society, struggling with conflicts between free-speech principles and other priorities.
• Education
  Daniel Diermeier on Why Universities Are Their Own Worst Enemies — An example of the kind of self-critical look at higher education that we need from many more administrators and faculty.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  Estuarine mapping first edition — A new-to-us kind of complex systems mapping that better accounts for the unpredictability and constantly changing nature of complex systems.
• Psychological Complexity
  Grief Is a Gift — Food for thought as we start to think about what the environmental movement should learn from this turbulent time.
• Israel / Hamas War
  The plot against the British mind — From Britain, a story about the contradiction between efforts to combat Islamaphobia and efforts to defend Jews against Islamist violence.
• Artificial Intelligence
  What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either — An article exploring one of the most important research topics of our time -- trying to figure out how the AI systems that we built actually work

Colleague Activities

Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.

• Saving Democracy
  The Voter ID Dilemma: Reconciling Public Support with Systemic Risk — Why the SAVE America Act is controversial despite the abstract appeal of voter ID.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  As America Turns 250, It’s Time to Begin Again — Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost; it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again. -- James Baldwin
• Violence
  Special Report: Key Political Violence and Resilience Trends From 2025 — This report identifies 5 key trends that emerged in 2025, evaluates how these risk factors will evolve in 2026, and elevates 3 models of effective preparation and response that can inform mitigation work in the coming months.
• Civil Society
  The Government Is Making Decisions for You Without You — The tools for public engagement still exist. The law still requires agencies to listen. What’s missing is the support people need to participate in ways that actually make a difference.
• Networking
  2026: Stay Focused, Strategic and Collaborative — Curtis Ogden offers what he calls a "balcony perspective" to help people step back, up, and figure out what really is important and what is not.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  When Growth Becomes a Peace and Security Risk — This policy brief argues that the persistence of GDP as the organizing framework for economic policy is not merely a measurement problem, but a governance failure with direct consequences for peace and security. 
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Creating New American Stories of Us: Fueling Civic Connection via Film — In this one-hour webinar, Steven Olikara of Bridge Entertainment Labs explores how film and storytelling can strengthen civic engagement, elevate pluralistic narratives, and spark meaningful dialogue across differences.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  A More Progressive Abundance — There’s a deal abundists and community leaders can strike that could let the two sides work together.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  250 Years of Us: How a Divided America Can Explore the Truth About the Past And Imagine a Shared Future — This report examines how Americans feel about U.S. history, what shapes those views, and how a deeper understanding can help move us toward a shared future.
• Peacebuilding
  So long, farewell: stabilisation and the exit of UN peacekeeping operations — The purpose and structure of UN peacekeeping has changed. If it is to survive, it must change back to its original mission.
• Peacebuilding
  Peace Process Lite: When Global Fragmentation Meets Conflict Fragmentation. — The sheer complexity of some internal conflicts, combined with resurgent rivalry, has limited the ambitions and capacities of international and regional actors to broker and sustain successful peace initiatives.
• Artificial Intelligence
  An Economic Dignity Compact for the AI Age — Technology does not shape our destiny. We still have the power to do that—if we keep human well-being, happiness, and dignity top of mind.

News and Opinion

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. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)

• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Western Civ Can Save Us — Again — An article that helps us think about what it means to live in a society that emerged from "Western Civilization" and why that tradition deserves more respect than it is receiving.
• Class Inequity
  Tracking historical progress against slavery and forced labor: a long-run data view — Hard data on the long, slow, and continuing campaign against forced labor and slavery.
• Artificial Intelligence
  A.I. May Put Progressives to the Test — For progressives (and conservatives), a look ahead at the kind of choices that the rapid adoption of AI technology is going to make for us (unless we can figure out how to control it).
• Social / Economic Complexity
  Why American Governments Can’t Get Things Done — Abundance seems like a good idea -- the classic win-win game (and the best way to resolve conflict). This article explains why the United States has so much trouble producing an abundance of anything.
• Authoritarianism
  The Price of American Authoritarianism — From Foreign Affairs, an establishment assessment of the way in which Donald Trump's second administration will affect the United States and the rest of the planet.
• Theories of Change
  Populism’s Self-Defeating Trap — An essay exploring the anger at the core of so many populist political movements and an explanation of why these movements have so much trouble delivering the changes that their supporters desire.
• Theories of Change
  Obama’s Reminder About the Futility of Purity Politics — An important look at a distinction that Obama made between two political strategies -- one focused on punishing and expelling heretics and a second focused on winning converts.
• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  The Tide Goes Out on Youth Gender Medicine — After an election that was decided, in large part, on the basis of the left's strong defense of recent understandings about gender, news that those understandings are more controversial than previously admitted.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Rod Dreher Thinks the Enlightenment Was a Mistake — Food for thought as we engage in critically important conversations about what aspects of democracy and Western civilization are worth preserving and what changes are needed.
• Israel / Hamas War
  Semiotics, epistemology, and why the Israel–Hamas war feels undebatable — A perceptive explanation, with some unconventional ideas, of the complex factors that make constructively talking about the Israeli/Hamas war so astonishingly difficult.
• Artificial Intelligence
  You are no longer the smartest type of thing on Earth — The coming of AI means that humanity's destiny is (mostly) out of our hands.
• Culture and Religion
  Christians Against Empathy Aren’t Who They Think They Are — A thought-provoking article that encourages introspective thinking with respect to the role  that "empathy" should play in our lives (and the possibility that our empathetic instincts are being weaponized and used against us.)
• Theories of Change
  Why Nudge Policies Failed — One strategy for dealing with complex systems (that are beyond the control of any individual) is to focus on small nudges that try to push the system in the right direction. This article asks hard questions about whether this approach works.
• Race / Anti-Racism
  What the DEI Era Taught us About The Rhetorical Power of Ambiguity — With respect to controversial DEI programs, this article explores the tactical advantages (and moral questions) associated with being unclear about their true intentions.
• Freedom of Speech 
  These Schools Want Civil Discourse on Campus. Even That Is Up for Dispute. — A contribution to the debate over whether or not Republicans and the Trump administration are trying to promote genuine civil debate on campus (or just one side of that debate).
• Theories of Change
  The sweet scientific vindication of ‘I told you so’ — Stories of people with great ideas who continued to champion those ideas in the face of widespread opposition -- people whose wisdom was eventually recognized.

Please Contribute Your Ideas To This Discussion!

In order to prevent bots, spammers, and other malicious content, we are asking contributors to send their contributions to us directly. If your idea is short, with simple formatting, you can put it directly in the contact box. However, the contact form does not allow attachments.  So if you are contributing a longer article, with formatting beyond simple paragraphs, just send us a note using the contact box, and we'll respond via an email to which you can reply with your attachment.  This is a bit of a hassle, we know, but it has kept our site (and our inbox) clean. And if you are wondering, we do publish essays that disagree with or are critical of us. We want a robust exchange of views.

Contact Us

About the MBI Newsletters

Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.

NOTE! If you signed up for this Newsletter and don't see it in your inbox, it might be going to one of your other emails folder (such as promotions, social, or spam).  Check there or search for beyondintractability@substack.com and if you still can't find it, first go to our Substack help page, and if that doesn't help, please contact us. 

If you like what you read here, please ....

Subscribe to the Newsletter