Recent BI and Substack Posts

A continuing talk about what is causing democratic subversion in the United States, and can be done about it.

A set of 2024 articles which described democratic subversion as a four-step process of demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization are even more chilling now than they were then. Here we review the problem; in the next newsletter we talk about how to address it.

Another list of interesting readings, plus a note about our last post on an AI-tool to analyze the news.

A tool to get AI to provide evidence-based analysis of the news, rather than a simple summary of headlines. It is intended to help users understand both what has happened and why it matters.

More news and opinion about a dangerous world.

The U.S. is now facing yet another election that both sides say is "existential" -- if they lose ALL will be lost. A reflection on how TO and how not TO respond to this situation.

Staying up to date is a depressing task these days, but there is some good news in here, along with much concerning news.

This essay explains how concepts based on neural networks and quantum theory's Heisenberg principle can help us navigate today's many assaults on the knowability of objective truth.

"If it exists, it must be possible" seems obvious. But it apparently isn't, because we ignore that belief all the time. Paying attention to it opens up possibilities we badly need.

A collection of particularly insightful readings on the continuing implications of 9-11, along with our regular colleague, news, and opinion posts on our current intractable conflicts and what is being done to address them.

"Citizenship" is a contested word with many dimensions. Rather than abandoning or replacing the word, we should help people understand it better and work to reach the "sweet spot" on at least four dimensions.

We have more people willing to help than we have had in years, but fewer able to make a long-term, standing commitment to fill the civic spaces that need them. What is scarce is not the impulse to help. It is the ability to keep showing up.

Again catching up with a lot of links from the last two weeks. Some good news, some much more worrisome.

The Burgesses and Harry Boyte, Co-Chair of the Braver Angels Civic Scholars Council (CSC) announce a partnership to publish the CSC papers on BI and Harry gives the background about how these papers came to be.

Curiosity is transformative -- it allows us to see the world as it really is, not as we pretend it or wish it to be. And that transformation makes solutions possible that weren’t possible before.

Two very different approaches to improving democracy, but both are innovative examples of courageous citizenship -- one in practice, the other in theory, aspiring to become the practice of all of us.

It is harder and harder to find good news these days--but we try, while still giving you the important news we must know.

Part Two of Harry Boyte's description of how public work and civic organizing differ from advocacy, and why it is much more effective and powerful. Here he explains how it is better than "technocracy"-- rule by experts.

Public work is an approach to democracy and civic engagement that is fundamentally different from advocacy, and is a much more powerful way, not only, to get things done, but to improve oneself and one's community in the process.

Catching up on the recent readings of note.

Both hyper-polarization and institutional failure a can reflect the same deeper problem: people losing the capacity to work through conflict, exercise agency, and shape public life together.

Another set of readings worth your time.

Anne Leslie reflects on our tendency to describe everything in binary, either-or terms, which almost always leads us astray.

David Eisner suggests we navigate his faultlines by making two mind shifts: receiving those who oppose our approach as "the loyal opposition," and saving our fire for the fight that warrants it. And we know how to do this.

Part Two of David' Eisners essay on Citizenship Under Friendly Fire, this time looking at who gets included, who gets kept out; whose knowledge counts, whose doesn’t and how these decisions can undermine the work we all are trying to do.