Frontiers Seminar Blog
Constructive Confrontation Initiative Spring 2018 Posts to Date
See Syllabus for additional background posts and planned, future posts (many of which are now accessible).
Other Blogs: MOOS Fundamentals | BI in Context | Colleague Activities
Posts ordered from most recent to earliest.
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What is power? The ability to get things done? The ability to push other people around? Which is right? (Actually, they both are.)
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The Backlash Coefficient – measuring the degree to which the quest for victory intensifies rather than subdues the opposition.
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Are efforts to solve problems collaboratively now losing to naked contests of Machiavellian power?
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We need to resist "divide and conqueror's" efforts to control society by exacerbating left/right tensions.
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Though risky, escalation is riskier! Conciliatory gestures can turn escalation around.
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Responding to hate with hate is like pouring gasoline on a fire...you are likely to get burned!
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Hate, no matter how "justified" hurts us more than it helps us. Don't do it!
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If you collaborate with "your enemy" against escalation and "divide & conquerors"--you both can win!
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Social media is driving our conflicts--real HUMAN relationships can change that.
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More ideas for spanning the left/right divide: the win-win pursuit of social equity, multi-multi-culturalism, and more.
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How might the super-rich be persuaded to do the right thing? How might the cosmopolitan elite better earn the public's support and trust?
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Find out about building a "conflict mirror" (so you can understand why you make others so mad) other constructive conflict strategies.
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Find out how you can combat the destructive conflict dynamics that are making the left/right divide so intractable.
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The first key to saving democracy is to understand how that differs from simply trying to advance partisan objectives.
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A complexity-based approach to strengthening democracy and avoiding authoritarian populism
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Today's most serious conflicts are, in large part, being engineered by those who seek power over the rest of the society.
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Democracy depends on separating the authoritarian/plutocratic threat from left/right cultural and distributional conflicts.
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The widely misunderstood complexity of "who gets what" distributional conflicts explains much of our inequality problem.
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The evolutionary, neurobiological foundation of the cultural divide requires approaching it with mutual tolerance and respect.
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Like the proverbial frog in hot water, democracies have been sliding toward authoritarianism with too few people recognizing the danger.
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Meeting the challenge of authoritarian populism will require a sophisticated understanding of "who is fighting who over what."
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Find out what you can do to strengthen democracy while reducing the risk of authoritarianism.
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How can populist revolts address the real failures of establishment elites without falling victim to authoritarian temptations?
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Widespread, and overly simplistic, "us vs. them" ways of thinking about conflict underlies much of its destructiveness.
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While there is no simple way to "resolve" intractable conflicts, a complexity-oriented approach can make them less destructive.
