by
April 16, 2021
Last November, the United States held one of the most contentious and perilous elections in its history, and our political divisions have only deepened since then. We would like to add our voices to those warning of the many dangers associated with our still rapidly escalating us-vs-them politics. We want to help people on all sides of the political divide understand the there are much more desirable alternatives to this destructive confrontation – alternatives that can build on the best of our democratic ideals while also taking the steps needed to address democracy's many inequities and shortcomings.
Read about---and contribute to---our collective search for better ways of handling the conflict problems that surround hyperpolarized US politics, COVID, and racism on our newly broadened Constructive Conflict Blog.
The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base project has long sought to bring together the collective insights of the full range of conflict and peacebuilding-related fields. Our focus has been on illuminating the many dynamics that make large-scale societal conflicts so intractable as well as sharing steps that can be taken to limit this intractability.
In this regard, we continue to promote the Constructive Conflict Initiative as our contribution to what we think needs to be a much larger effort to address our growing polarization, conflict escalation, and diminished problem-solving ability. Right now these issues are profoundly diminishing our ability to address all our big challenges: COVID, the associated economic crisis, racial conflict and wider social and economic inequities, climate change, immigration, etc. We also need to respond to the deliberate exacerbation and exploitation of these conflicts for political advantage or risk large-scale civil unrest and a continuing slide toward authoritarianism and kleptocracy.
In an effort to support the Initiative, we are also expanding and trying to better organize Beyond Intractability's collection of free online learning materials and, especially, the Constructive Conflict Initiative Blog with a series of articles highlighting provocative new ideas and long-standing insights that can be profitably applied to our immediate predicament. These materials are being offered as part of what we hope will be an ever-larger exchange of views on a series of very difficult and critically important topics. We would greatly appreciate any thoughts you might want to publicly (or privately) add to this discussion.
Constructive Conflict Initiative
Join Us in calling for a dramatic expansion of efforts to limit the destructiveness of intractable conflict.
More specifically, our goal with the Constructive Conflict Initiative is to help the larger society understand:
- The role that conflict problems are playing in undermining society's problem-solving capabilities,
- The ways in which more constructive approaches to conflict can be adapted to work at the full scale and complexity of modern society,
- How people of good-faith can more effectively work together to more wisely and equitably address our many problems, and
- How we can prevent bad-faith actors from inflaming and exploiting inevitable tensions conflict for selfish gain.
Last September we wrote, "hopefully, by early next year we will be looking back on the many failures revealed by this period in US history and we will have embarked on a collaborative effort to heal our society and make sure that this sort of thing never happens again." So far, we seem to be doing anything but. The need for those with conflict expertise to help us prevent widespread violence, help us find common ground and protect and strengthen our democratic institutions has never been higher!