Newsletter 314 — January 23, 2025
Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess
Today we have a number of disparate items to share, so we have produced another "potpourri newsletter." First are several responses that we got to our December 16 post entitled "The US in 2024: An Election That Worked and a Democracy That Doesn't." That is followed by a question our colleague Ashok Panikkar asked about education that we think is thought provoking, and hence worth sharing. A short essay by colleague Anne Leslie follows that, emphasizing the importance of showing people that "they matter." And lastly a note about a new case study of ethnic conflict in Burundi, sent by our colleague Emmy Irobi.
Comments on The US in 2024: An Election That Worked and a Democracy That Doesn't.
Ashok Panikkar wrote:
Thank you for an accurate and very fair analysis of the state of US democracy after a successfully conducted election.
Your three principles for compromise would seem to make sense—except that (as you say) the level of polarization in the country today makes it unlikely.
This leads me to my question: What should the different stakeholders (political parties, businesses, civil society, media and citizens) do to create the kind of conditions where negotiation would be possible. I am mindful of the futility of crafting policies (or wish lists) that are mostly based on people suddenly becoming more virtuous (selfless, patient, generous, skillful or wise). Your suggestions would be useful.
Guy and Heidi's response:
This is a great question. We tend to believe in Bill Zartman's notion of "ripeness," combined with Fisher, Ury, and Patton's concept of BATNA. Bill argued that a conflict is "ripe" for resolution (which can be interpreted to mean be ripe for negotiation) when (1) the parties have reached a "hurting stalemate" and (2) they see a "way out."
A hurting stalemate occurs when the parties to a conflict conclude that they no longer have a reasonable chance of achieving victory. They recognize that they have reached a stalemate, similar to a "draw" in chess, where neither side can checkmate the other, no matter what they do. In chess, the game mercifully ends at this point. In life, unfortunately, the contending parties are condemned to continuing their painful conflict — one that is causing significant physical, financial, and psychological losses — until they can find some "way out."
As Bill wrote in his BI article on ripeness, parties do not have to be able to identify a specific solution to decide they might have a "way out." They must only have a sense that a negotiated solution might be possible that would provide an escape from the costs and risks of continuing the confrontation, while still offering a path to a livable future. Without such a sense, the pain associated with the mutually hurting stalemate, Bill said, "would leave the parties with nowhere to go." That's where most people frustrated with today's hyper-polarized politics in the U.S. seem to find themselves now. Our goal is to help people change this—by showing that there really are multiple "ways out."
Linked to the idea of "ripeness" is Fisher, Ury, and Patton's notion of BATNA — the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. BATNAs are the best you can do if the other person refuses to negotiate with you — if they tell you to "go jump in a lake!" or "get lost!" Your BATNA is not necessarily your ideal outcome; it is the best you can do without any help from the other side. If you have a way to get what you want without negotiating with the other side, either by going around them and getting what you need from someone else, or exerting your power and forcing them to give you what you want, then why negotiate? It makes more sense to use your "BATNA."
There are risks, of course, to using force to get your way. The other side can call your bluff and make the forcing action more costly. Or, they can regroup and come back and use a reverse power play against you immediately, or at a later time. This is why, in general, we advise people to try negotiating interests first; if that doesn't work, try adjudicating rights, and only if that fails, should you turn to a power contest. (This is Ury, Brett, and Goldberg's notion of a properly structured dispute resolution system.) So, from the point of view of BATNAs, the way to convince someone to negotiate is to offer them a future that is better than their BATNA. This can be done either by making the likely outcome of negotiation better, or somehow influening their alternatives, so that their BATNA becomes worse.
Let's put this in the context of the current political situation. Many politicians seem to think that they are most likely to get re-elected (which often seems to be more important to them than solving their constituents' problems) if they take extreme positions and refuse to negotiate with the other side. And, sadly, for those of us interested in collaborative approaches to conflict, strong democracies, and effective problem solving, so far, this belief seems to be largely right. Winning the next election is seen both as a "way out" to the losing side, and it is seen as superior to negotiation -- hence a good "BATNA." This explains why instances of successful negotiation and collaborative governance are remarkably hard to find at the federal level (though there are some contrary examples), and many more examples at the state and local levels. In order to get the Democrats and Republicans to negotiate more often, it seems that one would have to make the power-politics BATNA inferior to a negotiated agreement between the parties. In addition, it would help to offer American voters a "way out" of our hurting stalemate of hyper-polarization which is leading to destructive conflict processes, poor electoral candidates, and lack of progress on many economic, social, and environmental problems.
At the moment, President Trump and the Republicans are riding the crest of their recent victory — a victory that is enabling them to make sweeping changes to US government and society. The backlash to these policies is already appearing, however. Over the somewhat longer-term, it is probable that Democrats will regroup in ways that will restore the cycle of the hyper-polarized confrontations. Historically, the party out of power usually gains significant House and Senate seats in the midterm elections, and the last three Presidential elections saw the incumbent party lose the presidency as well..
That is why we think that it makes sense to conclude that the US is still in a hurting stalemate. Neither side can win for long, or with a strong enough mandate to address problems in ways that will stand the test of time. People will continue to hurt because of a lack of progress on critical problems and from the level of fear and hate that is prevalent in this country (and elsewhere in challenged democracies).
The good news, though, is that there is getting to be more and more activity in the "bridge building" and "collaborative governance" fields, particularly at the local and state levels. If significant numbers of people can see that this type of governance actually works — that it delivers good outcomes for the citizens of the localities in which it is used, then they are more likely to demand the same approach at higher levels of government. If enough people come to see that collaborative governance solves problems, while zero-sum, polarized governance does not, they might begin demanding that their federal representatives (House and Senate members and the President) start behaving differently. If getting re-elected is all important, than convincing politicians that behaving cooperatively is more likely to get them re-elected than is being obstinate, perhaps they would consider changing their approach.
So the key to promoting collaborative governance, it seems to us, is by making it real — helping people see that it does provide a "way out," and that it provides a superior future than continuing our "business-as-usual" hurting stalemate. To do this, we need to broaden these efforts to include more people in more places, and publicize these efforts so they are seen far and wide, not hiding under the press of anger and fear-inducing bad news.
Poll after poll show that the electorate has long been disenchanted with today's hyper-polarized politics. They resent the fact that the people that they have elected to office have not only failed to fulfill their promises (because doing so would have required negotiation with the other side), and they have also made America and its citizens less safe, less healthy, less prosperous, and less happy. This creates a real opportunity for a group of collaborative leaders to move into the electoral process, promising a different kind of governance — one based on listening to the views of all sides and negotiating solutions to problems that offer the best possible outcomes for as many people as possible. This is, indeed, what No Labels was trying to offer in the last election, but they got stymied by the two major political parties that both used heavy handed dirty tricks to prevent them from offering voters a viable candidate for President. But the longer the two primary parties fail to deliver to their constituents, the more interested their constituents are likely to be interested in finding another way — a way out of hyper-polarization.
Another reader, who requested he remain anonymous observed:
I agree with your analysis. I would like to think that your suggestions would work. But I don’t. I don’t think that the two sides would agree to anything like your suggestions. I can imagine that Trump would adopt some policies that folks on the left would agree with, but they wouldn’t be part of a more general understanding.
The only way out I see is for Trump to leave power. I think there’s a good chance that the Democrats will win the House in 2026, and Trump’s power would ebb as a lame duck. The 2028 presidential election would be in full swing, and attention would shift to the candidates. If he survives his term as president (which may not happen because of his age and diet), he would have diminishing influence after he leaves office.
Heidi wrote back "I agree that Trump will likely lose power after the midterms, though I'm not at all sure that his underlying base of "MAGA" supporters will give up their fight. I think we need to start thinking about what's next, and start figuring out a new approach, instead of continuing this crazy pendulum that defies physics and just gets wider with each swing."
Our anonymous reader responded:
You’re right about the swinging of the political pendulum as David French described in this column in the New York Times. I agree about the need for planning for the future. I’m encouraged that there seems to be some initiative on the left to do this and there will be some consensus about getting rid of Trump and MAGA. Beyond that, there could be a lot of conflict on the left between moderates and progressives (using very crude categories).
I identify as a moderate who really sympathizes with the goals of the progressives but feel that there are a lot of valid criticisms of their approaches (as your piece describes). I can understand why a lot of suburban and swing voters are turned off by some progressives’ ideas and self-righteous attitudes. I think progressives would be more effective in achieving their goals with more sympathetic listening to folks in the middle and less lecturing. Progressives won’t achieve all their goals by listening to people in the middle – but they never will anyway. This isn’t about listening to MAGA true-believers because they aren’t open to persuasion. But there are a lot of people who voted for Trump who aren’t true believers and who could be persuaded in the future if they feel listened to and respected.
We also should consider that the MAGA coalition is likely to splinter as Trump’s power ebbs. He is able to hold his coalition together by bullying people on his side like a crime boss. There already are some splits in his coalition and these are likely to grow. As he leaves power, there may be a power vacuum that no one else can really fill. In that case, the MAGA movement may be weakened significantly. This might also be a dangerous time as the MAGA cancer has metastasized and would influence many parts of society. At this point, we can’t know how this will play out. We have to stay tuned.
Heidi and Guy's response to that:
I think the focus on "getting rid of Trump" instead of solving problems in ways that benefit everyone, not just the Democrats, is largely to blame for the Democrats' failure in 2024. They ran a clearly weak candidate (Biden), because they thought that he was the only person who could beat Trump, and they didn't want to risk the internal conflicts that would have emerged during an open primary process. The fact that Biden was incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office didn't seem to matter, and the Democrats lost a tremendous amount of credibility over that. That credibility loss was damaged even further when Harris was anointed as Biden's replacement without any democratic process.
However, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that people need to "feel listened to and respected." That's where the progressives have run into the most trouble, it seems to us. They don't listen to people who disagree with them, and they certainly don't respect them. Rather, they humiliate them, cancel them, and try to force them into behaving the "right" way through shaming and threatening to fire and blacklist people who fail to espouse and follow progressive policies (such as DEI).
But I don't think the reason to listen and respect the other side is to "persuade" them that my side is right. Rather, it is to seek a new truth together. We need to work to recognize where both sides are right, where both sides are wrong, and how a more accurate image of the "truth" can be developed by taking information (facts, beliefs, and values) from all sides to form a more sophisticated understanding the problems, and of potential solutions — very much a mediation approach.
Had Democrats listened to, rather than cancelled opposing views, they might have understood how deeply unpopular the DEI agenda that they have been so strenuously championing had become. A political philosophy that divides the country into two groups — oppressor and oppressed — based largely on racial and gender criteria, is certain to provoke resentment among those who see themselves as being unfairly characterized as "oppressors." This resentment that was doubtless amplified by Biden administration policies designed to favor the oppressed (largely Democrats) at the expense of the oppressors (largely Republicans). It would be hard to imagine a more divisive approach to governance. Rather the worrying about whether Trump can reverse Biden's policies to hurt the Left, or whether the Left can prevail in the next election and reverse all the "damage" Trump has done, everyone would be better off if we focused on building a new kind of coalition — one that tries to fairly protect and expand opportunities for all.
Ashok Panikkar's Question about Education
To all my teacher friends.
A wholly non-Western approach to teaching from the great Ustad Zakir Hussain, who died two days ago. He says a student must inspire the teacher to go beyond routine instruction. This is the antithesis of the 'student centered' approach favored by progressives over the past fifty odd years, which has certainly not aged well. I'd love to receive thoughtful responses and challenges to this thesis.
Unless Ashok got some responses that weren't copied to us, he only got one response, which said:
Teaching and learning anything has two levels. At the first level, there is a standard syllabus to introduce the subject to the student and bring him/her up to a certain level of competence on the subject based on the legacy of the past masters in the field. After that starts the second level, where the student thinks, improvises, asks questions, gives feedback, challenges, and thus takes the knowledge to the next level.
The second level is constructive and useful to humanity only if the student goes to the second level after putting in sufficient effort to inherit the legacy of the past in the first level. If a student tries to prematurely jump to the second level without first thoroughly getting rooted in the first level, then it leads to destruction and confusion. The problem with some "progressives" is that they try to jump to the second level without fully understanding the first level. It is like trying to jump to PhD without completing 12th standard.
Ashok responded:
I agree with you, students need to first develop basic competence in the language of the subject of study. For instance, a poor foundation in mathematics (I changed schools too many times) left me (a) struggling to understand the subject and (b) unable to use it creatively or even ask mathematically intelligent questions.
I will not dwell on Indian schools and colleges because rote-learning and corruption have made them certificate factories.
The greater tragedy is that which has befallen American education. Despite enormous investment and an enthusiasm for innovation, graduates of American schools routinely score at the bottom in reading, writing and math (amongst developed countries). The condition of higher education is, if anything, worse. Much of what I write below pertains to the humanities and the social sciences- even if STEM fields are not immune to this corruption. The factors responsible for the wanton destruction of American education are many, here are a few:
- Capitalism: Treating the student/ parent as 'customer'/ 'consumer' has commercialized the education system. It has turned education into a 'product' that can be bought or (worse) an entitlement that can be demanded. This has completely destroyed the relationship between the learner and the teacher.
- Power: The idea of a teacher as an expert has been replaced by that of a teacher as a service provider and 'co-learner'. As a result power in the classroom now lies with the student and the teacher is forced to underplay her own domain expertise, experience or work ethic—unless it aligns with that of the student/ consumer.
- Pedagogy: To add to the mess, the idea of teacher as facilitator (an idea that I had myself embraced for decades) has been taken to an extreme, where the onus is now on the teacher, not on the student. The student (as consumer) has been absolved of much of the responsibility for their own learning. Uncomfortable ideas that challenge the student are deemed as offensive, threatening and unsafe. Grade inflation is merely a symptom of the free market forces at play. If students don't learn or fails, it is the teacher's fault. Holding the student responsible for not paying attention or slacking off is not useful customer relations.
- Politics: The politicizing of academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences, has turned every subject, event and space into a political one. Similar to Maoist, Nazi or Islamist education, contemporary American (and British) education has placed a premium on absorbing politically 'correct' (Social justice, Decolonization?) values. This has played havoc with the need to acquire domain knowledge on subjects such as history, geopolitics and critical thinking skills.
Even pedagogically vital ideas such as inquiry, empathy, concern for the underdog and 'reflection' have been hijacked and turned into dogma. As someone who has hired and worked with a few generations of US and Western college/university graduates, I can attest to this:
- Many Western graduates emerge with unearned clarity about the world and an extremely rigid moral system (not unlike that of religious fanatics).
- This leaves them with very little appreciation of the extraordinary complexities of life in the 21st century—where simplistic Left/Right positions are laughable and dangerous.
- Worst of all, like their activist professors, they have little curiosity or aptitude for expanding their own learning.
- They graduate as social activists determined to dismantle everything that doesn't square with their narrow moralistic world view, rather than strengthen their own society.
If you care about your own freedoms and wish to slow down the xenophobic avalanche—inspire a college student/ graduate to question their passions and politics! If you think I am being unfair, please connect me with some of your students, I'd love to meet them and rid myself of my prejudices.
We are sending out Ashok's inquiry again. Do you find his assessment unfair? Untrue? Or do you concur to some extent?
Heidi and Guy's Response
Ashok's experience correlates with much of Heidi's teaching experience, though more so at one institution, and less so at others.
It also explains something that we have been puzzling about ever since October 7, 2023 — how so many students at America's elite schools (as well as our local University of Colorado) were so sure that Hamas was worthy of support, and Israel of contempt. Some explain this based on what many consider Israel's "over the top" response to Hamas' initial attack. But the sudden outburst of support for Hamas emerged before Israel had launched any counterattack at all. We also have difficulty understanding why on so many college campuses, Israel is accused of committing "genocide" for trying to defend itself, while those who have vowed to wipe out Israel and kill all the Jews in it (as well as attacking Jews worldwide), are not.
To better address such problems, we need an educational system which teaches students about complex systems and complex conflicts. They should understand that complex societal relationships cannot be simplified into binary categories, such as "oppressor" and "oppressed." The story is almost always more complex than that. Relationships are not binary "good/bad" or "virtuous/evil." Certainly the relationship between the races and genders in the U.S. is not that simple, nor is the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.
Students also need to learn about history — and the importance thereof — before issuing judgments about things they don't understand. They need to learn what, from various perspectives, are legitimate grievances and what are not, and what are legitimate ways to pursue remedies and what are not. In the United States and other Western democracies, we would have thought that students would learn that unbridled terror is not a legitimate way to express or remedy a grievance. They should also understand that Gaza was not, before the war started, a territory occupied by Israel. Israel unilaterally gave Gaza back to the Palestinians in 2005, and it has been rewarded with attacks coming from the territory ever since. That, it seems to us, is a legitimate "grievance." Israeli "occupation" of Gaza is not, as it didn't even happen until Hamas attacked on October 7, and it isn't even happening now.
More importantly, we need to recognize that the kind of education system that Ashok is rebelling against threatens to undo much of history's past progress. Modern societies have evolved over the centuries by taking advantage of the invisible hand or what we call "the engine of social learning" — the fact that all problems create opportunities for those with the skills and energy to help solve them. These efforts have produced a society that consists of a gigantic, messy, and surprisingly workable collection of incremental improvements to all aspects of social life.
As is true for all complex social systems, successful efforts to address the problems of the past have frequently resulted in unintended and sometimes adverse side effects. This process has left society littered with an inexhaustible supply of new problems. While efforts to address those problems and aid those who have been harmed are highly desirable, this must be done in ways that don't undo past progress at the same time. We need the kind of sophisticated problem-solving that enables us to successfully address contemporary concerns, while maintaining the effectiveness of solutions to past problems that did work.
Doing this requires passing along to each new generation a sophisticated understanding of society's complex strengths, not just its weaknesses. The goal is to give students the foundation they need to solve problems in ways that will continue to strengthen society (and not open the door to the reemergence of even more serious past problems).
At the macro level, we need to recognize that, while democracy and capitalism have many problems that desperately need to be addressed, they have also been an enormously successful form of social organization. Democracy has protected us from the kind of brutal authoritarianism that continues to plague so much of the human experience. Today's inequities, as serious as they are, are nothing compared to the kind of brutal repression that true authoritarianism can unleash. And, capitalism's invisible hand has, despite its many flaws, been able to unleash human creativity in ways that have provided humanity with continual improvements in material well-being that would have otherwise been impossible. We need a new generation capable of wisely and equitably addressing the multitude of issues associated with preserving and strengthening these systems — not throwing them out because they don't like the results at the moment.
Anne Leslie: When did you last show someone they matter?
Originally published on Anne's LinkedIn page on January 18, 2025.
“Always remember you matter. You’re important and you are loved, and you bring to this world things no one else can.” — Charlie Mackesy
What does it mean to matter?
It’s one of those questions thrown at me by my mind that can feel so obvious and borderline asinine as to be not worth asking, stirring in me an inner feeling of absurdity.
But I have come to recognise these bodily and cognitive sensations as signals nudging me towards the questions that desperately do need to be asked, pondered deeply and given space.
I have been thinking about when I feel like I matter. And conversely, when I have felt like I don't.
The feeling of not mattering is an all-consuming one, an abject state of deep emotional pain, inherently subjective and utterly real to the person feeling it.
Difficult to express, it begs to be understood.
For the person feeling it, it is as much of a truth as gravity.
It has manifested for me when people in my orbit fail or choose not to acknowledge things that are important to me, when people in whom I vest trust and love fail to show up with consideration in the everyday, when people feign to listen but ostensibly never care to truly hear.
Because I have felt it and know the enveloping darkness that comes with it, I have vowed to do my utmost to never inflict that searing wound on another.
And if I ever sense that someone else might be feeling they don’t matter, to do something about it.
The act of showing people they matter is perhaps the single most possible thing we can all do, in any moment, anywhere. I tend to consider that it, of all things, is the thing which matters most.
“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” — Robin Williams
When the people in our periphery are in struggle, it often isn't visible. People can be utterly masterful in masking on the surface the turmoil they experience within. The thing is, even when it is visible and patently clear to the naked eye that things are not OK, how often do we, spectators to the situation, actually engage with it?
I realised this only just a few weeks ago when talking to someone about someone else. And it struck me: just how many hours have we speculated about the wellness and well-being of this someone else, compared to how much time we have actually spent talking with this person about their own wellness and well-being.
How much time and effort and care have we shown to this person in a way that would leave them in no doubt that they matter immensely? How much have we pushed ourselves out of our own inhibitions and emotional stuntedness to confront the rawness of their pain and meet them in it, showing them they’re important enough to us to warrant the discomfort of trying to reach them.
I think the answer is: nowhere near enough.
And it’s not because people like us are selfish, or self-absorbed or unabashedly self-centered. Yes, it can happen that we are on occasion, for sure. But I don’t believe it’s universally true of everyone all of the time.
It’s more that we tend to be rather ill-equipped to know what to do with emotional pain.
Our own.
And that of our fellow humans.
“The ones who are hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most.” — Dan Millman
It’s easier to talk about the person in difficulty than to talk to the person in difficulty and learn about their difficulty.
Or maybe not even about their difficulty. Talk with them about whatever salves their soul.
To know what that salve is, to know what they need, means having the courage to openly and gently enquire with a bona fide desire to hear and to understand.
It’s a very different question to “how can I help?”
“Please tell me what you need” opens a space for truthful vulnerability. A space where permission is granted to lay bare the existential desiderata that torture the mind. The words that come out could be something as mundane as “I need a chicken sandwich with lots of mayonnaise” to “I need my father to tell me he loves me and I’m enough as I am”.
The point is, the space is created for words to be said.
For words to be heard.
And held.
With no judgment.
With no argument.
With no additional wrapper.
The space belongs entirely to the other person, to do with it what they will.
Our gift is in offering it and holding it.
To show them they matter.
To show them we care.
Out of all of the things I might do with my life, finding ways to help people feel they matter is what matters most to me.
And the greatest thing about it is that it’s always possible, no matter what the circumstances.
There’s always a way.
My friend, my ask to you today is this: pick a person, any person, and show them love. Show them they matter.
It is the most precious gift you and any one of us has to offer.
Emmy Irobi on Transcending Ethnicity in Burundi
Our last item is a brief note about a new case study we have posted on Beyond Intractability entitled "Transcending Ethnicity in Burundi: Prospects for Sovereign National Conference," by Emmy Irobi. Emmy is one of my heroes. He was forced to serve as a child soldier in Biafra in the Nigerian civil war in the 1960s. But he overcame that horrific experience, immigrated to Poland, where he earned a MA in international relations from the University of Warsaw and went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Leipzig, in Germany in May 2025. Somewhere in there he became interested in conflict resolution, and we have been "pen pals" ever since.
His latest article gives those of us who don't know or don't remember the long, terrible conflict history in Burundi, which has been suffering from ethnic conflict ever since it was granted independence in 1962. This conflict began and was exacerbated with the struggle for political power that occurred after Burundi's independence, and what Emmy calls the "instrumentalization of ethnicity by politicians for personal gains and ambitions" (a concept that I found myself applying to the United States). This conflict has finally reached a lull, but only one of "negative peace." Emmy shares a number of ideas at the end of the paper on how to transform this fragile negative peace into a much more stable positive peace. For our readers who are interested in African politics, or are concerned about the dangers of using ethnic conflict for political gain, this is an excellent read.
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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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