All Recent Posts
Recent Posts are also available seperately for each BI Section:
Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Building Trust, Confidence and Collective Action in the Age of COVID-19 -- A first-rate, must-read analysis of larger social context of the COVID-19 crisis with realistic, concrete steps we can all take to minimize the damage. #mbi_context
- Coronavirus, Beyond Intractability, and the Constructive Conflict Initiative -- Please help us pool what we collectively know about working together to fight the virus (and resisting the forces of social disintegration). #mbi_cci
- Coronavirus: The Case for Canceling Everything -- The time has clearly come to de-escalate the rhetoric, abandon us-versus-them thinking, and start doing all that we can to protect one another. #mbi_context
- Intractable Conflict: A "Climate Change-Class" Problem -- For a time when we are rightly worried about the threat posed by climate change, an argument that destructive conflict poses a similar challenge. #mbi_frontiers
- The Evolutionary Choice: "Power With" or "Power Over" -- When I prepared this 2017 talk on the evolutionary choice between democracy and authoritarianism I was afraid I was overreacting. Not anymore. #mbi_frontiers
- Cultural Lag -- Today's culture wars are largely attributable to the fact that the different generations adapted their beliefs to very different social conditions. #mbi_fundamentals
- Focus on Fixing the Problem, Not Attacking People -- Excellent, time-tested advice that's worth remembering as we struggle with the bunch of very difficult problems. #mbi_to_do
- The Divide and Conquer Authoritarian / Plutocratic Threat -- Today's most serious conflicts are, in large part, being engineered by those who seek power over the rest of the society. #mbi_frontiers
- Reconciliation Index -- Something to think about on a day when the US seems more irreconcilable than ever -- what would reconciliation look like? #mbi_videos
- Intervenors Coming to the US? A Role-Switch Thought Exercise -- Turn about is fair play: what if outside "experts" came to the U.S. to help us solve OUR conflicts? #mbi_activities
- Be Willing to Consider the Possibility That You May Be Wrong -- Most of us are so enmeshed in our own worldviews that we don't consider that we might be wrong. It helps to listen to outsiders and consider that possibility. #mbi_to_do
- Constructive Conflict Initiative Volunteer Opportunities -- The destructive way in which we handle conflict is the biggest threat to our common future. Join our effort to help address the problem. #mbi_cci
- Finding Common Ground / Constructive Addressing Differences: a Discussion Guide -- For students (and everyone else) a strategy for unpacking our conflicts that illuminates common ground and constructively addresses differences. #mbi_activities
- Enemy Images -- Enemy images deepen our socio-economics and political problems, while they make effective problem solving impossible. #mbi_fundamentals
- Allow Your Opponents to "Save Face." -- Key to solving a great many problems is giving people a face-saving way to change their behavior and admit that they've learned things. #mbi_to_do
- Understand Your--and Others'--Fundamental Human Needs -- What would happen if we focused on meeting the fundamental human needs of our adversary and then asked them to do the same? #mbi_to_do
- Why Chain Exercise -- An exercise for students (and everyone else). Instead of a single cause, think in terms of a chain of causes that explain why things happen. #mbi_activities
- Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong -- A story about an important new effort to get closer to the truth by encouraging people to admit and then work to correct their own misconceptions. #mbi_context
- The Meaning of Civility -- Before civility can provide an alternative to today's hyper-partisan dysfunction we need a clear image of what it is and isn't. #mbi_frontiers
- When Everything Is a Human Right, Nothing Is -- Amid the ongoing proliferation of "rights," an argument for focusing on building support for a few fundamental rights. #mbi_context
- Coexistence -- We used to talk about coexistence between the US and the USSR. Now, is it time to talk about coexistence between the left and the right? #mbi_fundamentals
- Engineering and Medical Troubleshooting Models -- An argument that medicine not engineering offers a better model for dealing with the complexities of large-scale intractable conflict. conflict. #mbi_frontiers
- The Constructive Conflict Imperative -- For students, an article explaining why the promotion more constructive approaches to conflict is central to solving all of society's big problems. #mbi_cci
- Donations and Support Needed! -- Beyond Intractability is launching a Go Fund Me campaign to raise a little money to cover core program expenses. Please contribute what you can. #mbi_challenge
- Business As Usual-4: Power and the Power Strategy Mix -- What is power? The ability to get things done? The ability to push other people around? Which is right? (Actually, they both are.) #mbi_frontiers
