Newsletter #272 — September 10, 2024
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Psychological Complexity
Timur Kuran on Why We Lie About Our Beliefs — As so many of us turn our attention to opinion polls offering the most recent gauge of public opinion, a look at why so many of us are reluctant to reveal our true beliefs to pollsters or anyone else. - Developing a Unifying Vision
How to Be Truly Free: Lessons From a Philosopher President — An in-depth profile of one of those rare political figures that thinks deeply about society and the role of government. - Psychological Complexity
The Hidden Grammatical Reason That ‘Weird’ Works — In the context of Democratic efforts to use the word "weird" to describe their Republican adversaries, an essay exploring the ways in which linguistic dynamics affect our thinking. - US Election
‘All the Struggles Are Connected.’Protesters failed to disrupt this week’s Democratic convention, but the party got the message. — A Wall Street Journal report on the way in which the intersection between the various left-leaning interest groups has influenced the Democratic Party. - Social Complexity
The Hacking of Culture and the Creation of Socio-Technical Debt — A provocative essay exploring the intersection between technology and culture. - Israel / Hamas War
Weaponizing Sympathy: 'Pro-Palestinian' blackmail takes center stage. — A thought-provoking and doubtless controversial look at the ways in which Hamas has managed to weaponize global sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people (a plight that they deliberately cultivated). - US Election
Obama’s DNC Speech Had a Hidden Message to Democrats — Obama challenged the notion that "the only way to win is to scold and shame and out yell the other side."
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- De-Escalation Strategies
Dr. Jay Van Bavel: Deprogramming the Partisan Brain | Debate Without Hate: 2024 Elections — A video outlining a strategy for getting beyond partisan animosities and actually debating the issues. - US Election
How liberals' worst-case readings of Trump actually help Trump — Zach Elwood argues that avoiding highly pessimistic and certain interpretations of Trump is the right thing to do, on its own — but it’s also something politically passionate people should do for purely practical reasons. - Constructive Communication
Debate Without Hate: A Podcast to Help You Navigate the Election — A podcast series with experts delving into our nation’s division, threats that arise from this division, and how we can all engage in healthier, more productive political discourse. - Effective Problem-Solving
Critical reflection: Ethical marketing of conflict resolution services — Samantha Hardy argues that mediators need to be very careful to use an honest and accurate approach to marketing, to develop credibility and maintain the legitimacy of the field. - US Election
Exploring the Dynamics of Project 2025 & Agenda 47 with Dr. Sean Evans — From David Bekemeyer, an examination of two significant conservative policy initiatives and their potential implications for democracy. - Constructive Communication
Narratives of America Project — This summer, the Narratives of America project has been part of important conversations with organizations and individuals who share a common goal: creating a new vision of social well-being where everyone can thrive. - Trust / Trust Earning
The Aspen Institute's Social Trust Index. — This social trust index, available for every US zipcode, looks at three measures of trust in neighborhoods across the country, and provides info on how to build more trust.
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.)
- Authoritarianism
The Return of History: Liberal Values and Global Realities — A must-read essay that raises a critically important question, does human society naturally gravitate toward power-with, egalitarian democracy or power-over authoritarianism? - Psychological Complexity
The Distinctiveness of Human Aggression — A review and brief summary of the thought-provoking new book, "The Goodness Paradox -- The Strange Relationship between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution." - Communication Complexity
Why the Media Moves in Unison — An explanation of the complex dynamics that lead journalists and the news media to cluster their reporting around relatively homogeneous points of view. - Immigration
The Case for a Merit-Based Immigration System — For a world in which immigration has become a major flashpoint, concrete ideas for more constructively handling the many who would like to migrate. - Culture and Religion
The Problem Is Islam—Not Islamism — An article arguing that the popular distinction between Islamists and those who simply believe in Islam leads to serious (and potentially dangerous) misperceptions. - Communication Complexity
Why Wokeism Ruined Journalism — Everywhere — A critical, controversial, and thought-provoking look at the way in which increasing adherence to progressive orthodoxies has undermined the quality of journalism. - Social Complexity
A data-driven case for productivity optimism — A hopeful argument that the economic productivity increases needed to "lift all boats" are actually happening. - Social Complexity
Kissinger’s Folly — A retrospective look at Henry Kissinger, realpolitik, and the applicability of that concept to contemporary geopolitics. - Media Reform
AI researchers call for ‘personhood credentials’ as bots get smarter — One idea for limiting the many threats posed by an online world in which AI-generated, artificial people become indistinguishable from the real thing. - Class Inequity
The Intellectual Roots of YIMBYism — Is YIMBY the true opposite of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome that has long prevented us from building most anything? Or, is it just a way of saying, yes, build it in somebody else's backyard. - Social Complexity
This sceptred isle. Reflections on the revolution in England. — As England struggles with what looks like a widespread rebellion against societal changes brought about by immigration, a thoughtful perspective on what is actually happening. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Yes, It's Easy to Defend Social Justice Politics if You Pretend Social Justice Politics Are Just Liberalism — A thoughtful exploration of the complex relationships between progressive, social justice politics and traditional liberalism. - Israel / Hamas War
I was a captive of Hamas. After I was freed, I was imprisoned by online trolls. — A personal account of both the horror of being one of Hamas' hostages, and the horror that follows when one becomes a focal point in the global propaganda war over the war on Gaza. - US Election
The Democrats embraced patriotism after all — An explanation of the ways in which Democrats used, during their recent Convention, patriotic imagery to alter popular perceptions that they have been overly critical of the United States.
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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.
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