The Grand democratic Bargain — Humanity's Best Defense Against "I'll Fight You for It" Rules | Beyond Intractability

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A window into what we collectively know about more constructive ways of handling the intractable conflicts that threaten both our relationships and our societies.

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A window into what we collectively know about more constructive ways of handling the intractable conflicts that threaten both our relationships and our societies.

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We have just completed a major reorganization and upgrade of the BI system — an upgrade that includes the addition of a new Constructive Conflict Guide which organizes BI resources around a comprehensive framework for thinking about conflict problems and identifying realistic things that can be done to limit or even solve those problems. The new system also continues to provide access to all prior BI content (at the original URLS) plus a version of our "classic" homepage.

Welcome to the New Beyond Intractability
Find out about the recent upgrades to BI including our new Constructive Conflict Guide which organizes BI content around a framework for analyzing and then limiting or solving conflict problems.

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The second "Big Picture" essay, this one explaining why democracy is worth defending by looking at the systems it is designed to replace. While no democracies are perfect, they are clearly better than the alternative authoritarian or anarchistic approaches to societal organization.

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The Grand democratic Bargain — Humanity's Best Defense Against "I'll Fight You …

Post Date

Friday, October 3, 2025 - 12:00

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Include in BI Newsletter (Old CRQ)

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About Beyond Intractability

Built over the last 35 years by over 500 contributors, Beyond Intractability is a free information system that supports those wanting to more constructively address conflict at all levels — from the individual to the societal. More...

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Our inability to constructively handle intractable conflict is the most serious, and the most neglected, problem facing humanity. Solving today's tough problems depends upon finding better ways of dealing with these conflicts. More...

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BI's free Substack newsletter highlights the latest thinking on democratic decline, hyper-polarization, intractable conflict, and what can, and is, being done to address these challenges. More...

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A free Guide to understanding the causes and consequences of intractable conflicts and the ways in which we can all help handle these conflicts more constructively — from the interpersonal to the societal level. More...

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Organized links to the thousands of outside resources describing elements of the massively parallel effort to strengthen democracy and constructively handle intractable conflicts. More...

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