Newsletter #290 — October 27, 2024
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Superpower Conflict
The Return of Total War: Understanding—and Preparing for—a New Era of Comprehensive Conflict — Unfortunately, the massively parallel strategy for organizing complex societal systems is not limited to peacebuilding. This article explores what might be called the new era of massively parallel war. - Culture and Religion
All Cultures are Not Equal — A disturbing and controversial article about the conflict between Western, liberal, democratic cultures and Islam -- a conflict that has been and likely will continue to be a major flashpoint. - Culture and Religion
I Don’t Want to Live in a Monoculture, and Neither Do You — An especially good explanation of why the left-and right-leaning orthodoxies created by hyper-polarization are so counterproductive and destructive. - Authoritarianism
It isn’t just about ‘1984’: Orwell’s essays powerfully resonate today — A reminder of the many ways in which our future is imperiled by neglecting George Orwell's many insights. - Negotiation / Collaboration
Emotional Intelligence for Peer Mediators — An announcement of an upcoming webinar with Frederick Golder on November 8, 2024. In a note to us, Frederick observed that the "best way to get beyond intractability is to teach our children the benefits of constructive conflict resolution." - Superpower Conflict
U.S. Wrestles With Aiding Allies and Maintaining Its Own Weapons Supply — A worrying indicator of how rapidly the global security situation is deteriorating -- we are running out of munitions. - Climate / Environment
The Problem With Solar — In all problem-solving efforts, "the devil is in the details." This essay does an especially good job of explaining why , despite its extremely low cost, solar power can't meet our green energy needs.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- US Election
Four Reasons You Should Distinguish Politicians from Their Voters — By separating our feelings about politicians from our feelings about their voters, we can create more constructive political discussions — and strengthen personal relationships along the way. - Saving Democracy
Elections, Democratic Processes — A collection of resources compiled by the TRUST Network on keeping elections fair, free, and safe. - US Election
Did Trump say he would use the military against his opponents? If not, why did many say he did? — Zach Elwood investigates the New York Times' reporting of Trump's reference to calling in the military, and found out that it was not in the context they suggested. Such mischaracterizations, he asserts, are dangerous. - Artificial Intelligence
Deliberative Technology: Designing AI and Computational Democracy for Peacebuilding in Highly-Polarized Contexts — A Toda report on artificial intelligence, digital democracy, and deliberative technologies that asks intriguing questions about the relationship between 21st-century technology and democratic governance. - World Order
What Is Bretton Woods? The Contested Pasts and Potential Futures of International Economic Order — The many competing views of the post-1945 international economic order each contribute to the debate over how the Bretton Woods negotiations should guide today’s proposed economic reforms. - Culture and Religion
The Questionable Enlightenment — Ashok Panikkar answers a student's question about the "Age of Enlightenment" and why it still is relevant and important today. - Media Reform
The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook — A guide on how to interpret "breaking news" -- what to believe; what not, and how to find out. - Constructive Communication
The Constructive Cycle — From Essential Partners, a guide for dialogue facilitators on how to help people have a constructive, though "tough," conversation. These guidelines work for all of our personal "tough" conversations too. - Social Complexity
Evolution Meets Foreign Policy — Chip Hauss reports on a workshop examining how evolutionary theory can help American foreign policy makers deal with seemingly intractable problems, such as climate change, mass migration, economic inequality, and more. - World Order
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons to the UN Security Council: Adapt or Die — An argument that the majority of the world’s countries should give up on the UN and start planning for a replacement international organization more fit for its purpose of addressing and solving emerging challenges and threats. - Artificial Intelligence
AI mediation tool may help reduce culture war rifts, say researchers — An intriguing exploration of the possibility that AI could play a significant "mediation" role by helping those involved in conflict identify and articulate points of agreement. - Leadership
How Young Leaders Are Helping Bridge Divides — In this episode of 12 Geniuses, Layla Zaidane, CEO of Future Caucus, discusses the important role that young leaders can play in addressing political polarization and building a brighter, less divided future. - Peacebuilding
How Do We Get Through This? A New Podcast Mini-Series — A three-part podcast mini-series showcases leaders from South Africa and Northern Ireland sharing lessons they learned when all hope seemed lost. - US Election
Conservative Environmentalist Talks About Polarized Politics and Simplistic Stereotypes — In this episode of “Debate Without Hate: Elections 2024,” Benji Backer, shares insights about building cross-partisan consensus based on beliefs that don’t easily align with political stereotypes.
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.)
- Superpower Conflict
World War III is already under way. Not that Harris or Trump has noticed. — A warning that the United States' political hyper-polarization is undermining our ability to deter war (at a time when the early stages of World War III may already be upon us). - US Election
There’s One Main Culprit if Donald Trump Wins — A pre-mortem highlighting the many factors that have taken Donald Trump so close to victory (and a list of things that anyone who wants to heal society ought to start working hard to correct). - US Election
The Path to Healing a Nation — A review and summary of Terry Szuplat's 'Say It Well.' This is the first in a series of articles that FAIR is soliciting from those with ideas of about how to heal our society. - US Election
Trump’s Election Reversal Dreams Are Dead — A somewhat hopeful account of the many steps that have been taken to close the loopholes that came to close to allowing President Trump to reverse the results of the 2020 election. - World Order
Can the United Nations Be Saved? — A timely article addressing a critically important topic: ways of reforming the United Nations so that it could play a much more positive role in our increasingly troubled world. - US Election
There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth. — A comparative international look at ways in which democracies have sought to protect themselves from aspiring authoritarians (with lots of lessons for our hyper-polarized society). - US Election
Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This? — For those wondering why the election is so close despite former President Trump's unpopularity, thoughts about things that Democrats are doing that drive supporters away. - Progressive Left
The Progressive Moment Is Over — An article exploring the consequences of the progressive movement's failure to attract broad public support for its agenda. - Social Complexity
Newly-Minted Nobel Prize Winner James Robinson on How Societies Thrive — A thought-provoking interview in which Robinson explains his efforts to understand the staggering complexity of modern social and economic systems. - Communication Complexity
Inside the Secretive $700 Million Ad-Testing Factory for Kamala Harris — A somewhat disturbing look at the sophisticated system behind Kamala Harris' effort to craft a persuasive political messages (and a look at what political "debate" looks like at the level of mass communication). - US Election
The Idiot’s Guide to Dominating American Politics — A strategy that either the left or the right could employ to dominate US politics (and serve the interests of most citizens) along with reflections on why neither side is pursuing this opportunity. - Trust / Trust Earning
The Crisis of Trust — From Francis Fukuyama, reflections on what has happened to the social fabric in the Trump era. - Race / Anti-Racism
The Racial Identity of Americans Is Rapidly Blurring. Politics Hasn’t Caught Up. — An assessment of the contradictions between a political philosophy based on sharp racial differences and the reality of increasingly blurry racial distinctions. - Psychological Complexity
The spectre of insecurity — Security is one of Maslow's most fundamental human needs (and a cornerstone of the human needs approach to peacebuilding). This article explores what happens when it's missing. - Israel / Hamas War
A Fashionable Madness: The Obsession with ‘Settler Colonialism’ — An in-depth exploration of the meaning and implications of the relatively new and usually consequential concept of "settler colonialism." - US Election
Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini — Anne Applebaum's controversial article about similarities between Donald Trump and the 21st century's most notorious authoritarians. - Israel / Hamas War
Sinwar’s Bloody Gambit Changed the Middle East—but Not as He Imagined — Thanks to recently uncovered documents, we now have a pretty clear image of what Sinwar hoped to accomplish with his October 7 attack -- enough to make a judgment about whether or not it was successful. - World Order
Toward a Fifth World Order by Gordon Brown & Mohamed A. El-Erian - Project Syndicate — Amid rising tensions and the collapse of traditional sources of global stability, a proposal for a better way of organizing the international system. - Israel / Hamas War
What Is the U.N. Resolution That Tried and Failed to Keep the Peace in Lebanon? — A primer on what everyone ought to know about the ongoing war in Lebanon and the failed UN peacekeeping that led up to it. - Psychological Complexity
Why Us vs. Them Is Not Such a Bad Way to See the World — An exploration of the complex psychology behind in-group and out-group thinking with reflections on its advantages and disadvantages. - Communication Complexity
In a huge year for global elections, internet freedom took another hit — A report on the many, often politically motivated, efforts to control the flow of information across the Internet (with reflections about which measures are and are not helpful).
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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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