Tag: Narratives

The Horizons Project is growing! We are pleased to formally welcome both Nilanka Seneviratne as the Director for Systems and Operations, and Jonathan Pinckney as the Director for Applied Research. September is always a busy month.

We have new resources available on our website, including a compilation of “mapping” initiatives within the ecosystem of social change working on democracy, social justice, and bridgebuilding in the US. Please share others that we might have missed! Horizons also just released the first in a series of resources on the intersection of bridge-building and power-building.

We continue to be so inspired by all the amazing work and thought leadership happening throughout the country. Here’s a sampling of what we’re reading, watching, and listening to these days:

READING 

The Bridge Project: Reframing the Prevailing American Narrative for 2052

by Connie Razza and Angela Peoples

You don’t want to miss the Reframing the Prevailing American Narrative for 2052 Report, a narrative “destination” project that “takes a different approach from much of the narrative work that aims to win an election, to pass a policy, to make progress in the near term. The Bridge Project attempts to craft a story that aligns with who we are working to be in 30 years, and to strategize for transformation by building backward from that future narrative to inform the stories that shape our work today and in the coming years.”

My final column: 2024 and the Dangers Ahead 

by Margaret Sullivan 

Editorialist, Sullivan, extolled fellow journalists to tread carefully in covering the upcoming elections. “One thing is certain. News outlets can’t continue to do speech, rally and debate coverage — the heart of campaign reporting — in the same old way. They will need to lean less on knee-jerk live coverage and more on reporting that relentlessly provides meaningful context.”

Surviving Polarization

by Adrian Rutt

This is a meaty overview of several different takes on polarization, but one insight that was particularly powerful: “…we are all bundles of contradictions, whatever else we like to think about our expressed beliefs and their consistency and cogency…It is not the case that we possess rigorously formulated ‘belief systems’, which stamp out our thoughts and reactions in a fully determinable way. People alter their reactions and expressions to cope with the particularities of the situation they find themselves in.”

Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation: A Struggle for Democracy and Racial Justice

by Kitana Ananda

This Non-Profit Quarterly article provides an excellent summary of a rich webinar discussion, that left the audience with three key takeaways: (1) build networks that plug people into ongoing efforts to combat disinformation through narrative analysis and solution building; (2) hold Big Tech accountable through advocacy and legislation to advance a racially equitable digital society; and, (3) diversify media, tech, and academic institutions that are working on these issues to center the analyses and needs of impacted communities.

WATCHING

Joe Bubman, Executive Director of Urban Rural Action

Watch this great short video describing the work of Urban Rural Action, highlighting the experience of folks in Maryland coming together from different ideological perspectives to tackle issues of immigration, economic development, and inclusion with practical local solutions for their state.

Study Looks to Strengthen How We Feel About Democracy

Stanford University’s Robb Willer is interviewed on MSNBC to discuss their new study on reducing toxic polarization and reducing Americans’ anti-democratic attitudes. An overview of the study was also summarized by Fast Company or you can read the full report: Strengthening Democracy Challenge.

Faith and Polarization

Vice President for Programs at One America Movement, Chandra DeNap Whetstine gave an inspiring talk at Stand Together’s Catalyst Summit describing their approach to combatting toxic polarization, working with faith communities across the US.

LISTENING TO

Power Building with Alicia Garza

Finding Our Way Podcast 

In this episode, author, political strategist, and organizer Alicia Garza, breaks down what power is, how we build it, and why we need it in order to build a more equitable society.

The Power of Crisis, Ian Bremmer

Future Hindsight Podcast

This interview discusses The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change The World, a new book by Ian Bremmer which posits that the climate crisis, disruptive technologies, and pandemics are existential threats to humanity, but also offer an opportunity for real cooperation across the world.

Journeying on the Road to Reconciliation

Think Peace Podcast

“Going down the road of reconciliation is a daunting path that not many people can take. This road may test you in ways you couldn’t imagine but when the end result leads to tangible and sustainable change, you realize that the journey is worth it.” Director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation, Antti Pentikainen discusses his journey into reconciliation, his experiences working in different contexts, and what have been the most effective methods in working towards reconciliation.

INTERESTING TWEETS

FOR FUN

At The Horizons Project we love all genres of music, but we have a special place in our hearts for all those who can rock the mic. We were recently introduced to Harry Mack who brought us so much joy. Please enjoy his most recent freestyle and try really hard stop at one (or don’t because they are all great)!

In the Northern hemisphere, August is a quiet month when we try to stay cool, hopefully take time off, and then prepare for the academic year to kick off again. The slower pace has been a perfect time for the Horizons team to dig into so many new narrative resources, like this meaty compilation from the Narrative Initiative. Narrative competency is a key area of exploration for Horizons; and we remain committed to weaving bridgebuilding and powerbuilding concepts into our Narrative Engagement Across Difference initiative.

This IFIT report on Narrative, Power and Polarisation highlights that instead of one unifying narrative to counter polarization, we need to illuminate narrative biases, change narratives from within, and amplify smaller stories that help build social engagement at scale. This aligns with More In Common’s new report on American identity, which finds that personal stories of family history are a powerful way to break through the “us vs. them” narrative.

Many narrative practitioners are coming to the conclusion that we must be more conscious of fostering a sense of agency and community, rather than perpetuating a competitive, scarcity mindset that often comes with stories of crises. Framing choices have the power to inspire all of us to work through shared problems and to embrace a civic identity that respects differences, as also highlighted in this wonderful video series from Doing Things With Stories.

Here are some other resources we have found inspiring this month:

READING

Callings from “Fierce Civility”

By: Curtis Ogden

“Civility has (almost) become a dirty word, seen as naive and impossible by some (at least when considering certain cultural and political divides), and as harmful by others, if ‘being civil’ means not speaking or hearing truths or working for social justice.” Fierce civility is not about ‘chronic niceness’ or conflict avoidance, but rather advocates for stances of assertiveness (as opposed to aggression) and receptivity (as opposed to passivity.)”

Cancel Culture

By: Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

“In the United States today, the left and right alike have aggressively embraced cancelation campaigns. Each side has its own distinctive objectives, strategies, initiatives and networks—as well as its own particular strongholds.”

How to Be Influenced

By: Ian Leslie

“We live in age of social influence, and while there is no shortage of advice on [how] to influence others, how to build a following, how to change minds – there is a dearth of thinking on how to be influenced…Each human being is bounded but permeable, a creature capable of making its own thoughts and actions but prone to copying and adapting those of others. When everyone around us is doing the same thing, we feel a pressure to join in that is almost physical in its force.”

Not Knowing

By: Maree Conway

“If we accept that we don’t know why someone is doing something we don’t accept, we can begin to accept that it may not be a case of us right, them wrong. We’ve observed something that arouses something in us, but we can reject being judgemental as a response. We can accept that not knowing is okay. Of course, there are situations where this stance won’t apply and events that cause harm to others in particular are just wrong.”

A Funder’s Guide to Building Social Cohesion

By: The Democracy Funders Network, in collaboration with Civic Health Project, New Pluralists, and Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement

This guide is intended to orient funders to the different ways civil society actors are thinking about and addressing the problems of affective polarization and eroding social trust.

WATCHING

Building a Larger Us

Larger US put out this great video to accompany their new report on the need for collective psychology to counter tribalism and polarization. You can also find excellent explanatory Twitter threads here.

Are Americans Thinking More Systemically?

Check out this roundtable discussion hosted by the FrameWorks Institute featuring community leaders and organizers discussing the implications of shifting mindsets from individualistic to systemic level thinking and the impacts on health equity, the economy, race, and politics.

Radical Belonging and Bridging: A Path Forward for Societies in Crisis?

“…for too long, civic leaders concerned centrally with democracy and those concerned with the rights of marginalized and minority communities have worked in silos, despite the many shared goals and values that both groups share.” Watch this important conversation, the first in a series, that launched the Democracy & Belonging Forum of the Othering & Belonging Institute.

LISTENING

Hungarian Autocracy and The American Right

By: Fresh Air

“New Yorker journalist Andrew Marantz says Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s administration has rewritten Hungary’s constitution to consolidate his power. U.S. conservatives are taking note.”

Radical Grievance with Malkia Devich-Cyril

By: The Emergent Strategy Podcast

“Grief is power…and a way to strength and intimacy.” This is a great conversation about our collective embrace of grief that can also aid in our journey to build belonging.

Eboo Patel and the Vision for an Interfaith America

By: Ashoka

Eboo Patel discusses his most recent book, We Need to Build: Field Notes For Diverse Democracy, to inspire and equip changemakers to move beyond critique and begin to build the next pluralist chapter of American life.

INTERESTING TWEETS

FOR FUN

Reach for the stars! The images released by NASA’s Webb telescope captured everyone’s imaginations this month. Check out this great breakdown from The Washington Post, which provides more background into exactly what each photo portrays.

So much of the news is consumed with what’s going wrong in the world that it can be hard to point to the bright spots and beauty that also exists. Check out the Peace Dots Project, which seeks to do just that in Buffalo, NY.

To say June was an intense month in the US would be an understatement. We encourage everyone to keep tuning in to the January 6^th hearings, a testament to the rule of law and the importance of accountability that we cannot take for granted, as stated in this powerful op-ed by Pastor Evan Mawarire.

With the barrage of recent Supreme Court decisions sowing deeper divisions and disorientation, there are many resources such as those compiled by Citizen Connect to help us keep talking to each other and organizing for a just, inclusive, and plural democracy. Special thanks to The Fulcrum for highlighting the work of Horizons and for elevating the call for a mass pro-democracy movement. We agree!

Horizons’ Co-Leads published two articles marking our Independence Day describing the importance of individual and collective action to countering authoritarianism, and the healthy tensions between accountability and healing as a nation.  Finally, Scot Nakagawa offered up sage advice on how to keep up our energies to stay in the fight. The Horizons Project hopes the following compilation of insights will also provide you with some inspiration and needed energy:

READING

Beyond Conflict’s Renewing American Democracy: Navigating A Changing Nation is a treasure trove of information on the psychological drivers that are underlying our current social division and how they have been leveraged to erode democratic norms and processes. The authors include recommendations for how citizens and lawmakers can begin to counteract these forces.

The Frameworks Institute released a meaty report: How Is Culture Changing In This Time of Social Upheaval?, offering an in-depth look at mindset shifts taking place; the tacit assumptions that Americans are drawing on to think about social and political issues (for example individualistic vs systemic thinking.) Highlights from the report can be found here.

This article published by The Intercept, “Meltdowns Have Brought Progressive Advocacy Groups to a Standstill at a Critical Moment in World History“, also spurred a strong debate on Twitter about the systemic causes of the internal strife and challenges described in the article.

“America Is Growing Apart, Possibly for Good” is a sobering read in The Atlantic that includes a historical perspective from Michael Podhorzer, laying out a detailed case for thinking of the two blocs within the country as fundamentally different nations, uneasily sharing the same geographic space.

WATCHING

This edition of the Braver Angels video podcast includes John Woods Jr. interviewing Manu Meel from BridgeUSA on Gen Z and the “new center.” Manu shares some great wisdom on new theories of change coming from young people for making progress on our most pressing social challenges.

The Future Of, The Verge’s Netflix show about the future of everything is now streaming. Because our relationship to the future and our imagination skills are such an important aspect of successful organizing, this is a show intended to make people feel like an exciting and hopeful future is possible, “if we put our minds to it”.

Check out this series of five videos featuring panel discussions from the Global Democracy Champions Summit co-hosted by Keseb and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University intended to spur dialogue and action to advance inclusive democracy in the US and globally.

LISTENING TO

The Good Faith Podcast discusses Replacing White Replacement Theory with special guest Chuck Mingo, pastor and founder of Living Undivided. He helps unpack the history behind the insidious “theory” and why he feels its scarcity mindset is in direct contradiction to the “abundance of God revealed in the Bible.” The podcast also explores the connection of current tragedies to broader understandings of immigration, as well as to the nation’s history of racially motivated violence like the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

This episode of the How Do We Fix It Podcast features Elizabeth Doty, Director of the Erb Institute’s Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce at the University of Michigan, discussing constructive ways for businesses to help counter hyper-partisanship in society. We also highly recommend the Erb Institute’s overview of how the private sector can contribute to countering authoritarianism, a key institutional pillar needed to incentivize pro-democratic behavior.

Amanda Carpenter joins The Focus Group with Sarah Longwell Podcast to discuss the January 6^th Committee hearings, how they matter for history, and whether they’re contributing to the “Trump voters’ blues.”

On The World Unpacked Podcast by The Carnegie Endowment of Peace, author Moisés Naím discusses his new book The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats are Reinventing Power in the 21^st Century, covering the “three P’s” of authoritarian regimes: populism, polarization and post-truth.

INTERESTING TWEETS

Scholar-Activist Helen Neville shares all the resources accompanying a special Juneteenth edition of the Journal of Black Psychology focusing on the “Psychology of Black Activism in the 21^st Century”, including a series of podcasts that explore the topics in each article.

Sara Grossman tweeted details about the launch of the new Democracy and Belonging Forum, an initiative from the Othering & Belonging Institute to share efforts between Europe and the US. (Horizons is pleased to support this effort, with Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig, serving as an Advisor).

Tim Dixon breaks down new polling from More in Common to show that Americans are more concerned about threats from within the country than from abroad. And a related thread from Citizen Data describes their research on Americans’ views on electoral integrity and ways to combat election mistrust.

Professor Neil Lewis Jr. lays out the arguments in his recent article in FiveThirtyEight on various research that demonstrates what actually happens when we teach students critical lessons about American history.

James Savage from the Fund for Global Human Rights shares a thread on the amazing new resource, Narrative Spices: An Invitational Guide for Flavorful Human Rights, created together with JustLabs and based on the experiences of narrative change efforts in Mexico, Hungary, Venezuela, Australia, and Sri Lanka.

Arnaud Bertrand explains the ironic findings of the annual Global Democracy Perceptions Index in a twitter thread that highlights the challenges with defining what “democracy” is.

Nick Robinson, the head of US Programs at ICNL, put out a thread on the impact of the Supreme Court’s recent Bruen decision (gun control case) on assembly rights, democracy, and the insurrection.

FOR FUN

“It’s a summer day. You have a long drive ahead of you. No work to do. Cold beverages in the car. Windows down. You have to put on an album that sounds exactly like summer to you and listen to the whole thing, no skips. What are you playing?” Rachel Syme, staff writer at The New Yorker, posed this question that generated hundreds of great summer listening recommendations. Enjoy!

As we grapple with the horrific mass violence that occurred this past month – and that continues daily in the United States – one piece that gave us solace and inspiration came from Valarie Kaur, the founder of The Revolutionary Love Project, who offered up this Love Letter to You After Uvalde. At the Horizons Project, we believe in the power of staying connected; in joining together across difference to combat hate and violence; and, to organize for meaningful change. In that spirit, we’re sharing some of the great work and thought-provoking ideas that brought together peacebuilding, democracy, and social justice from recent weeks.

READING

“Why Addressing the Historical Legacy of Racial Injustice is Essential for a Healthy Democracy.” Treston Codrington and Matt Leighninger reflect on different processes globally that support civic engagement in addressing historic injustices, and the interplay between truth-seeking and reconciliation.

“Women’s Rights and Democracy Are Inextricably Linked.” Jennifer Weiss-Wolf writes about decreases in women’s rights, “not merely the byproducts of a demo­cracy on the decline. Rather they also drive a down­ward spiral [that] can inev­it­ably lead to deeper inequal­ity and wider gaps in parti­cip­a­tion, a truly vicious cycle.”

“Culture, Deep Narratives and…. Whac-A-Mole?” by Ruth Taylor. “As campaigners and organizers, communicators, lobbyists and funders, much of our attention is placed on the immediate outcomes which we set out to achieve.” Taylor asks for deeper reflection, ‘what values does my work promote and foreground?’ and ‘what deep narratives about the world, and our role as human beings, does it reinforce or amplify?’

“Reducing Pernicious Polarization: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Depolarization.” This working paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace examines the conditions under which perniciously polarized countries have successfully depolarized for a sustainable period of time.

“The Doom Spiral of Pernicious Polarization.” Yascha Mounk offers another take on the Carnegie report mentioned above; he reflects on how the experience of polarization in the US is comparable (or not) to other countries.

WATCHING

“Democracy Set Aflame: Is Polarization Really the Problem?” You won’t want to miss this recording of a recent discussion by two giants in their fields, john a powell and Marshall Ganz, musing on the many intersections of bridging and social movements.

“America’s Empathy Deficit: Our Bloody Heirloom and the Invisible Backpack.” It’s graduation season! Enjoy this provocative and inspiring commencement speech by Dr. Jae Williams, an award-winning storyteller and social justice advocate, as he received Northeastern University’s Dean’s Medal for Outstanding Doctoral Work.

“An Anti-Immigration Media Machine: Study Tracks White Supremacist Talking Points Online.” Watch this short news clip with Shauna Siggelkow, Hassan Ahmad, and Alicia Menendez discussing a new report by Define American that tracked the impact, tactics, and reach of anti-immigration narratives on YouTube — and tools to fight back.

“Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, and Extremism.” In Part 2 of a 5-part series, be/longing: Asian Americans Now, Dr. Richard Park discusses his mission to serve poor and elderly Asian immigrants, which has become more urgent as hate crimes have surged against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders community.

LISTENING TO

“How To Free Our Minds — with Cult Deprogramming Expert Dr. Steven Hassan.” This episode of the podcast Your Undivided Attention offers an interesting discussion on the degree to which we are all under some form of undue influence, especially because of technology and social media, and the extent we are aware of this influence.

“The Good Fight Podcast: Daniel Ziblatt.” Yascha Mounk and Daniel Ziblatt have a conversation about the impact of COVID-19 on populism and democracy.

“The Limits of Forgiveness.” In this Vox Conversations podcast, philosopher Lucy Allais reflects on human nature, concepts of power, and the limits of forgiveness. From her perspective as a South African living in the US, she discusses the contours of forgiveness as a political tool to move forward as a polarized democracy.

“Anne Applebaum on What Liberals Misunderstand About Authoritarianism.” This podcast discussion with Ezra Klein reflects on how “radical loneliness” can lay the groundwork for authoritarianism, the seductive allure of conspiracy theories, and how modern propaganda feeds off a combination of gullibility and cynicism.

INTERESTING TWEETS

Ruth Taylor compiled a meaty Twitter thread of resources and experts for those interested in learning more about narrative change. Trevor Smith then complemented this compilation with additional resources, expertise, and perspectives from people of color.

Debra Caplan breaks down Alfred Crosby’s America’s Forgotten Pandemic about the 1918 Flu; and she applies those lessons to our current lack of memorializing the societal impact of COVID-19.

Ros Atkins recently gave a speech at the Society of Editors in the UK on the future of journalism and posted it as a Twitter thread.

Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan tweeted a summary of the Migration Policy Institute’s new study on public opinions and narratives on refugees around the globe, and what does and does not work.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

The Othering & Belonging Institute curated a playlist by those who attended their recent Culture of Care event.

WHAT WE’RE READING, WATCHING & LISTENING TO AT HORIZONS

In March, as the war in Ukraine took up so much of our news feeds, we have been inspired by the renewed attention to the need for a global democracy movement and the recognition of our interconnection in a shared fight against authoritarianism. The Horizons team remains committed to elevating the many voices of different disciplines and different perspectives who are committed to finding a way forward together towards a pluralistic, inclusive democracy in the United States and around the world. We have so much to learn from each other. So, in the words of the late and great Secretary Madeleine Albright, “let us buckle our boots, grab a cane if we need one, and march.”

Here are some of the recommendations the Horizons team is inspired to share for this month’s VISTA:

READING

Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?, New York Times Magazine

If we are going to come together to form a larger movement to work for democracy in the United States, we first need to find a common of understanding of the problems we are facing. In this article, six experts across the ideological spectrum discuss how worried we should be out democracy’s future in the US.

How to Resist Manipulation by Embracing All Your Identities: Learning to celebrate complex identities in ourselves and others could help make the world a better place, Greater Good Science Center

“We all contain multiple identities, with those identities vying for primacy in our heads…there is quite a bit of evidence that the world would be a better, more peaceful place if we could hold space for different identities in ourselves and in other people. How can we do that, while resisting efforts to elevate one over all the others in situations of conflict? This article provides some research-based tips.”

Civic Virus: Why Polarization is a Misdiagnosis, The Harwood Institute

Interesting take on the polarization debate. This report posits that Americans don’t really feel polarized or antagonistic toward one another. Rather, that we feel isolated and disoriented, like we are “trapped in a house of mirrors with no way out; in the grips of a perilous fight or flight response.” The authors offer recommendations for “a society that is breaking apart, to give people safe passage to hope” with concrete steps to help us move forward.

Transformative Organizing, Martha Mackenzie, Executive Director of the Civic Power Fund

Coinciding with the recent launch of European Community Organizing Network’s new report on ‘The Power of Organizing’ this article discusses a form of Transformative Organizing that enables the needed transformation of both the individual and society necessary for large scale systemic change.

A Future for All of Us; Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy, Race Forward

“Whether you are an advocate or artist or thinking about how to apply narrative or cultural strategy for the first time, this new report on Immigrant Narrative Strategies is designed to help you think and act at multiple levels —locally, regionally, and nationally.”

Releasing New Data on Civic Language Perceptions, Kristen Cambell, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE)

PACE partnered with Citizen Data to conduct a survey of 5,000 registered voters to understand people’s perceptions of the language associated with “civic engagement and democracy work.” They recently released their data on 21 commonly used terms, and are offering mini grants to support others to dig into the data to surface new findings, and create “bite-sized” content.

A Call to Connection, The Einhorn Collaborative, The Sacred Design Lab, and The Greater Good Science Center

The Einhorn Collaborative commissioned A Call to Connection to help leaders in multiple sectors better understand how vital human connection is to effectively address the challenges of our time. “Weaving together extensive scientific findings, insights from ancient wisdom traditions, beautiful stories, and concrete practices, this primer captures why and how human connection is a necessary and often missing ingredient in many of our efforts to ignite positive social change.”

The Pause, Newsletter of Pádraig Ó Tuama with On Being

Great newsletter to check out! This edition focuses on how even in times of conflict and upheaval, we can train our energy and attention on wonder not wounding; on awe, not war. Links to the recent re-airing of an interview with the esteemed astrophysicist Mario Livio, who spent 24 years working at the Space Telescope Science Institute of the Hubble Telescope. Shares his views of how the languages of art, science, and wonder can open up the human condition to the magnitude of the fact that we are here at all.

WATCHING

The Neuroscience of Trauma and Chronic Stress, Beyond Conflict

As a part of the March Brain Awareness Week of the Dana Foundation, you can re-watch this great panel discussion on how trauma and chronic stress impact the brain, including Vivian Khedari DePierro, Mike Niconchuk and moderated by Sloka Iyengar.

Shifting Mindsets to Shift Development Systems, Laurel Patterson, Head SDG Integration, UNDP

The UNDP describes a new approach to systems change with a focus on inner transformation, highlighting the fact that the ways social divisions, short-termism and siloed ways of responding to interconnected issues are no longer working. They are partnering with the Presencing Institute to help open new spaces to connect and make sense of what we’re all seeing and experiencing. Embedded in the article is a link to a series of videos on “awareness-based collective action”

Reframing History: A Conversation at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

You can re-watch the launch of the report on Reframing History, including a panel of historians and museum curators, including Clint Smith author of How the Word is Passed  and the head of the Hard Histories program at Johns Hopkins who shared the inspiring tagline: “History tells us how we got here. Hard Histories show us a way forward.”

LISTENING

How to Change the World, Podcast: Hidden Brain

Great interview highlighting the research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan on why nonviolent civil resistance works. “Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true?”

Probing the Past: How Companies can Address Historical Transgressions, Podcast: The Crux

In this episode Dr. Sarah Federman discusses why she feels every Fortune 500 company should hire a historian an how understanding the past contributes to today’s DEI efforts and the need to accept responsibility, understand the past and respond meaningfully.

Cynefin, Sense Making & Complexity, Podcast: The Deep Dive

Conversation with Dave Snowden, creator of the Cynefin Framework about a range of social change issues, ways of solving complex problems and sensemaking.

INTERESTING TWEETS

The recent Arnold Schwarzenegger video appealing to Russians was given a lot of attention on social media. This is an overview of a social science study on the real persuasive impact of his messages given our polarized context.

Overview of new academic paper on how that parties to a conflict systematically mis-predict our counterparts emotions, specifically feelings of self-threat.

Reflections on Pastor Andy Stanley’s recent remarks to the Georgia House of Representatives. “Do you love the state of Georgia more than you love your party? If not, maybe you should do something else. Disagreement is always going to be there. Disunity is a choice.”

Great narrative advice on why it’s important to NOT amplify the messages you want people to forget.

Western States Center breaks down the recently released Southern Poverty Law Center’s Annual Year in Hate and Extremism Report.

WHAT WE’RE READING, WATCHING & LISTENING TO AT HORIZONS

The Horizons Project continues to reflect deeply as a team and with our partners on the wonderful resources produced by so many inspiring actors within the ecosystem of social change in the US. For example, during the month of February, we had the opportunity to connect with several key partners on developing future narratives within movement campaigns. This spurred us to compile our favorite resources on Narratives, Imagination Skills and Futures Literacy.

Also in February, Chief Organizer Maria Stephan participated in a discussion on the launch of the new book Checklist To End Tyranny with author Peter Ackerman and other colleagues; and Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig celebrated her chapter on Adaptive Leadership for Peacebuilders at the virtual launch of the new e-book on 21^st Century Mediation by the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies in Cambodia.

Here are some other recommendations the Horizons Team would like to share for this month’s VISTA:

READING

Radicalism or pragmatism? A look at another divide in racial justice advocacy

By: Stephen Menendian

This blog discusses the recently released Structural Racism Remedies Project from The Othering & Belonging Institute and describes the tensions between urgency and gradualism. Learn more about this tension and others the Horizons team have also identified in the overall social change ecosystem here.

“One form or mode might be more accurately described as a ‘technocratic’ position…based on a close and careful assessment of the available empirical evidence, and pushes toward a set of policy prescriptions or recommendations that emphasize pragmatism and feasibility. The other approach might be described as a ‘radical’ position. This approach is informed by lived experience, emphasizing ground-truth and community power rather than technocratic expertise, but it is also more explicitly and clearly tied to an expression of values and ideals. One difference between these two modes is the relevant time horizon. The more radical policy stance on each of these issues is defined, in part, by the immediacy of its demands, for example, by ending use of fossil fuels immediately. In contrast, the more pragmatic position tends towards gradualism, for example, transitioning to renewable energy sources within a realistic timeframe.”

Black History Month is about Seeing America Clearly

By: Esau McCaulley, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College.

“Black history offers America a chance to see itself both as what we have failed to become and as we wish ourselves to be. It is not to inspire hate for one race or to foment division. America seeing itself clearly is the first step toward owning and then learning from its mistakes. The second step is the long journey to become that which we hope to be: a more perfect — and just — union.”

The Reframing History Report and Toolkit

This resource was recently released as a collaboration between the FrameWorks Institute, National Council on Public History, and Organization of American Historians

“Amid ongoing national controversy, it is more important than ever to be able to clearly explain what history is, how we come to understand the past, and why it matters to society. This report provides historians and others with a new set of evidence-backed recommendations for communicating about history.”

The Corporate Civic Playbook 

By: The Civic Alliance

This playbook provides companies with guidance on helping to strengthen democracy in the U.S. It provides the business case for companies engaging in democracy and provides interesting resources, including scaled levels of engagement and corporate activism.

Reset Narratives Community: The story so far…

This is a beautiful reflection of the learning journey of Ella Saltmarshe and Paddy Loughman as they created the Reset Narratives Community in the UK over the last 18 months and are investing in narrative infrastructure, with a lot of insights on the intersectionality of movement narratives.

Running Headlong Into the Limits of Love

By: Pastor Greg Arthur from the Ideos Institute

This blog discussing issues of empathy and love within the evangelical community in the US:

“Much of the turmoil within the American church, especially in evangelical circles, has come around these issues… Politics, immigration, the realities of a racialized society, the LGBTQ community, how we teach our country’s history, these are topics that continue to reveal and accentuate the divisions within the church. The question many have been asking is what these antagonisms reveal about us as followers of Christ? An equally important question might be how can what is being revealed in these antagonisms become a catalyst to the healing of the church and of a broken world?”

Emergent Strategy

By: adrienne maree brown

“Inspired by Octavia Butler’s explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.”

WATCHING

Next Normal Introduction Video

Short discussion from Jigsaw Foresight of the 10 Principles for the next normal for our work effectiveness. Favorite insight: “Becoming Indistractable is the skill of the century” By: Nir Eyal

Tackling Extremism: The Greek experience and comparisons with the US

This event from The Social Change Initiative includes great resources on how Greek civil society came together to fight against rising extremism from the far right with insights on lessons learned from US organizers.

LISTENING

The Complex Truth About American Patriotism

This episode of The Argument podcast with Jane Coastan features a discussion with Ben Rhodes (who recently wrote This is No Time For Passive Patriotism in The Atlantic) and Jamelle Bouie. It’s a fascinating debate about whether we can build a new unifying “story” of America, or whether we are too diverse to rally around a “baseline of meaning” and rather need to move forward based on our distinct values.

Forward: Practical Ways to Create Narrative Change 

On this episode of Forward: How Stories Drive Change, Rinku Sen, from Narrative Initiative discusses her organization’s approach to narrative change and gives some great examples of their current work in practice.

INTERESTING TWEETS

• A discussion of “populism” and the truckers’ protest in Canada
• A thread featuring new “Solidarity Is” resources from Building Movement Project
• Meaty thread about the work of Monica Guzman at Braver Angels, and the benefit of the Bridgebuilding community and lessons for journalists

We are thrilled to announce that in January 2022, The Horizons Project has launched under the auspices of our fiscal sponsor, the New Venture Fund. We are very grateful for the support of Humanity United and the Packard Foundation to begin this next phase of the Project’s journey.

As systems-level organizers, we are committed to proactively sharing our insights and reflections as they emerge about how peacebuilders, social justice movement leaders and democracy advocates operate and can potentially collaborate more effectively. Over the course of many insightful conversations and deep reflections with colleagues and network leaders in 2021, we have compiled some of the key tension points within that ecosystem. We hope that this evolving list may help to illuminate how we can deepen our understanding of each other’s perspectives and continue to find common cause in the future.

• Calls for understanding, “healing divisions” and unity are often criticized as not addressing the root causes of the problems we are facing as a nation (e.g., inequality, racism, rising authoritarianism, etc.), or as being disconnected from those efforts. Meanwhile, more confrontational forms of direct action (protests, boycotts, strikes, etc.) can be misunderstood or seen as overly divisive and unhelpful. It can be hard to see how these approaches can be complementary.
• Peacebuilders and bridge-builders who feel the need to maintain “neutrality” can be seen as propping up the status quo and not in solidarity with movements calling for equal rights and justice. Meanwhile, activists’ “polarize to organize” approaches can be seen as creating overly simplistic binaries and vilifying the “other.”
• Certain approaches to “calling out” those who are causing harm, or are perceived to be causing harm, can erect walls between people and create simplistic categories of “good” and “bad”. Calling in, or “calling out done with love,” can be a way to address harm in a way that centers relationships over shame while offering people onramps to changing their behaviors.
• Tactics of engaging the “exhausted middle” (where complexity of thought may still be flourishing) are criticized as a waste of time because the mythical moderate/independent voter is seen as “wishy washy.” Instead, activating the base is prioritized, with less attention paid to how to reach people beyond the base.
• Toxic polarization may be recognized as a problem across the board, but there is blame, defensiveness and othering (based on a lot of trauma on all sides) that drives us back to our ingroups and prevents intra-group self-reflection and dialogue around dehumanizing behavior and tactics. Emphasizing how polarized we are can also be a self-fulling prophesy.
• Bridgebuilding efforts to address toxic polarization can lead to greater hostility and inequality if done without paying proper attention to power relationships and wider societal factors (e.g., active disinformation efforts, historical traumas and injustices). Meanwhile, focusing on reaching out across divisions can downplay the importance of intra-group work to shift norms and behaviors.
• Many want to “focus on the future” as a way of finding common ground and coming together around shared values. This can be deeply troubling and hurtful for those who feel that we need to first recognize past injustices and harms and finally confront the painful history of white supremacy that continues to bleed into our present. Yet, the future-oriented framing can also be off-putting to those who don’t want change (or fear change) – so any call to “build back better” or for “democratic renewal” are met with resistance because of nostalgia for the way things were in a romanticized past.
• We struggle with lack of shared definitions of terms, and we don’t acknowledge that humans make sense of the world in different ways based on the multiple narrative streams flowing within the ecosystem. What does peace and peacebuilding mean? Is it finding calm and togetherness? What about “justice?” There are many negative connotations (or simple lack of understanding) of peace, peacebuilding, democracy and social justice across different groups that impede our ability to find common purpose.
• What does “democracy” mean and is it a shared goal for the US anymore? For some, the focus is on pushing for renewed civic culture and to embed the values of respectful dialogue, tolerance and empathy within society. Many hear these calls for “civility” with cynicism. They are more concerned about power imbalances around race and class and building power to participate equally in society and to push back against undemocratic forces. Others understand calls for “inclusive” democracy as only for liberals that seek to exclude more conservative perspectives.
• There is existential dread that is flowing within our country, and we see how a different sense of urgency plays out in many of these debates. While many movements are working for those who feel a daily fear for their physical safety, this is juxtaposed with those who are also expressing fear of losing their way of life and/or feeling left behind in a changing society. Some don’t feel the same sense of urgency regarding the pace of change, the threats to our democracy, and/or have the luxury of not being as directly affected on a daily basis. This leads not only to a difference in tactics, but it can also cause resentment, distrust, and the inability to hear each other’s experience or find common cause.

There is truth and need in all these various approaches and perspectives. Yet, until we name and wrestle with these tensions within the ecosystem, we won’t be able to deal effectively with our trauma, better hold space within ingroups, and lessen the criticism and resentment towards outgroups who may nevertheless be potential allies. New tools and conversations are necessary to rediscover our shared, higher-level goals of upholding democracy and to prevent the very real threat of increasing levels of violent conflict. The Horizons team looks forward to working with our partners to continue to explore and expand on the current research and tools available to hold these tensions in such a way that we can better connect with each other, encourage innovation and avoid toxicity in our relationships.

Get a quick glimpse of The Horizons Projects’ areas of work in this graphic illustration from artist Adriana Fainstein! You can find more of Adriana’s work here.

*This article was written by Chief Organizer Maria J. Stephan and was first published on Just Security.

As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th, it is crucial to recognize the gravity of the threats still facing U.S. democracy, even after Donald Trump left the presidential stage. And it is more vital – and possible — than ever to mobilize a powerful movement in response.

That means, first and foremost, to find ways of talking about the threat that transcend partisan narratives, which limit the national conversation and shrink the collective imagination about how to respond together. Second, we Americans have to intensify community and national dialogue efforts with the aim of dismantling walls that prevent people from humanizing each other and recognizing that the fight for democracy is a shared struggle – and that confronting the legacy of slavery and white supremacy is an integral part of that struggle. Third, grassroots pressure must be sustained – including, when necessary, through organized non-cooperation and civil disobedience — to defend against attacks on fundamental democratic practices like free and fair elections. Americans have done it before and can do it again.

Starting with the declaration of independence from British rule, to the struggles to abolish slavery and win universal suffrage, to the Civil Rights movement, the people have flexed the muscle of democracy to expand meaningful participation and inclusion. In 2016, with Trump’s election, the United States confronted the prospect of losing its democracy altogether. Now, six months after the Jan. 6 insurrectionary attack on the Capitol, more than 100 democracy scholars have warned that U.S. democracy remains in grave danger. Citing state-level restrictions on voting rights and efforts to politicize election administration, they argue the foundations of American democracy are cracking, risking future violence and chaos, and they propose steps to prevent a downward spiral.

While Americans like to think that their democracy is exceptional, bolstered by a powerful Constitution and a set of institutional checks and balances that can serve as bulwarks against democratic breakdowns, the past few years, punctuated by the Jan. 6 attack, revealed how fragile it really is. This is the story playing out around the world, in places like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, the Philippines, Venezuela, or Brazil. Those dramatic cases of backsliding did not occur as a result of a revolution or a military coup. Rather, as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the authors of “How Democracies Die,” remind us, “Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.”

The electoral road to democratic breakdown, these authors note, is often dangerously deceptive and imperceptible to most people. It happens when democratically elected leaders, supported by politicians and others outside of government, subvert democratic norms and gradually eviscerate the substance of democracy. They use “legal” means that are approved by legislatures and accepted in the courts, and their efforts are often portrayed as being necessary to combat corruption, or to reform electoral processes. With the veneer of legality, elected autocrats and their backers have weaponized democratic institutions and changed the rules of the game to ensure they remain in power.

This is, essentially, how democracy died in the American South during the post-Reconstruction period in the 1870s, when “reform” measures (like poll taxes and literacy tests) were imposed by post-Confederate state governments to disenfranchise Black Americans. The result was nearly a century of institutionalized white supremacy and single-party (Democratic party) rule, and a lingering and pernicious ignorance of the role white people played in ending reconstruction.

As much as we like to focus on the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump, it is important to recognize that his actions were supported by enablers within his administration, within Congress, and within civil society. It is equally important to recognize that it took a broad-based coalition, including progressive organizers, civil servants, Republican and Democratic state and local election officials, military leaders, religious groups, and the business community, to forestall this subversion of democracy.

Devastatingly Effective Disinformation

Still, the United States came alarmingly close to the brink, as the violent Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the result of the election made clear. The #StopTheSteal campaign is, by one account, “the most audacious disinformation campaign ever attempted against Americans by any actor, foreign or domestic.” It has been devastatingly effective. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe that the election was stolen, and almost half of independents think the election was rigged or are unsure. These dynamics help explain why the Fund for Peace’s Fragile State Index 2021 found that “the country which saw the largest year-on-year worsening in their total score [is] the United States.”

Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder recently laid out a chilling scenario: that key U.S. states adopt voter suppression laws now and the Republican Party recaptures control of the U.S. House and Senate in the 2022 midterms. Then in the 2024 presidential election, even if a Democratic Party candidate wins the popular vote and the electoral college with a few states, several key states challenge the count and overturn the results. Snyder continues: “The House and Senate accept that altered count.  The losing candidate becomes the president.  We no longer have `democratically elected government.’ And people are angry.”

So, with such a plausible scenario looming, how can Americans once again rise to the challenge of upholding the country’s democracy, especially coming out of a pandemic that has devastated so many, particularly the poor and communities of color?

First, we need to find ways to talk about the situation that break out of the traditional script of Republicans vs. Democrats. Stories and narratives need to make clear that this is not a struggle between red and blue America; this is a struggle between an anti-democratic faction in the country and a movement for an inclusive, multiethnic democracy.

We need to reflect together on what democracy means for us in today’s age, and the values that underpin our conviction to both a system of government and to each other as citizens. Our new democracy narratives need to convey urgency, transcend partisan formulations, and invite the maximum number of people to join the movement. This was critically important during the 1930s, when a national conversation about democracy played a significant role in challenging the rise of fascism in the United States and globally. Artists, entertainers, scholars, journalists, unions, and others spearheaded television series, town halls, lectures, and other fora to debate and discuss various topics on democracy.

Social science research shows that people tend to consume stories that affirm their social identities and disengage from stories that challenge them. Individuals and groups hold certain values and narratives to be sacred, or non-negotiable, and will perceive attacks on those values (both real and perceived) to be attacks on their identities. The choices we make in communicating about democracy therefore can either further entrench opposing identities and non-negotiable sacred values or can open up discussions for further understanding and a commitment to joint action.

Pro-democracy narratives need to embrace nuance and accept that human beings are complex and capable of change. This will take organizers, analysts, communications experts, peacebuilders, and creatives being willing to cross ideological, demographic, and political divides. As Levitsky and Ziblatt noted, “Coalitions of the likeminded are important, but they are not enough to defend democracy. The most effective coalitions are those that bring together groups with dissimilar — even opposing — views on many issues. They are built not among friends but among adversaries.”

Important, research-backed progressive efforts are underway to develop democracy narratives, including the Race Class Narrative Action project. These initiatives must be complemented and expanded by efforts that intentionally engage conservatives and others from across the political and ideological spectrum. Our Common Purpose, a report drafted last year by the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, offered a blueprint for reimagining 21st century American democracy. The new, trans-partisan Partnership for American Democracy could be one such platform for developing and disseminating inclusive democracy narratives. Embedding narrative competency for restorative movements and creating spaces for shared democracy narratives is one of the main lines of work of the Horizons Project (on which I’m advising).

Second and relatedly, there should be an expansion of national and community-level dialogue efforts to challenge the social media-amped toxic polarization that is eroding U.S. democracy. While debate, argument, and fact-finding have their place, there is also a need for nonjudgmental spaces where people can come together and listen to each other with openness and curiosity. This work is not for everyone, and meeting with people does not mean endorsing their views. The purpose of this work is not to find the middle ground between opposing sides, but to find common ground anchored in shared values and shared humanity.

There are hundreds of dialogue and bridge-building efforts taking place across the country, including those led by networks including the Listen First Project, the Bridge Alliance, and the TRUST Network. Organizations like Search for Common Ground, Urban Rural Action, Braver Angels, and Hand Across the Hills are experimenting with different dialogue models designed to bring people together across difference. Organizations like Over Zero are working with local communities to recognize and prevent cycles of identity-related violence.

Counterintuitive Effects

However, not all initiatives to bring people together across divisions have had a positive impact, and some have been harmful. A growing body of research on intergroup contact has found that in some cases, increased contact with members of the other side actually increased prejudice, anxiety, and avoidance. In still other cases, interaction with the other side undermined the willingness of historically marginalized groups to challenge social injustice. The evidence suggests that dialogue efforts should ensure participants have equal status and share a common goal, and that the contact is endorsed by communal authorities. Bringing people together in ways that do not emphasize their partisan identities holds particular promise at a time when people are exhausted with politics.

One particular dialogue tool used to advance social change, deep canvassing, could play a helpful role in bolstering popular support for basic democratic norms, like free and fair elections. Deep canvassing focuses on non-judgmentally asking people about their views on particular issues and includes follow-up questions that emphasize personal stories and experiences – of both the voter and the canvasser. A growing body of research has documented the effectiveness of deep canvassing in generating increased support for LGBTQ+ non-discriminatory laws and more humane immigration policies.

Developing a democracy-oriented deep canvassing script could involve the active participation of thoughtful Americans from across the ideological and political spectrum. It’s powerful to imagine a diverse, inter-generational group of organizers and volunteers going door to door together to talk with fellow Americans about what it would take to build a truly inclusive, multi-ethnic democracy that works for all Americans.

While dialogue is a critical element of social change, so too is mobilization and direct action. From the mass refusal by the colonists to pay taxes to British overlords, to the creation of the underground railroad for ushering enslaved Black people to freedom, to the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins aimed at defunding Jim Crow, to worker strikes demanding fair pay and safe working conditions, to sit-ins and “die-ins” to demand urgent action on climate change, people power has motored American democracy. Last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police were the largest and most persistent demonstrations in U.S. history – and they were overwhelmingly nonviolent.

Nonviolent direct action of all sorts is necessary to push back against racist, anti-democratic behavior and to shift power in favor of organizations and institutions that defend democracy. The very purpose of nonviolent direct action, as Dr. Martin Luther King wrote so eloquently in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, is to raise the urgency of issues, shift power, and to make meaningful dialogue and negotiation possible.

During the 2020 election, Americans organized “joy to the polls” campaigns filled with music and dance to encourage people to vote in the midst of a deadly pandemic. They organized rallies and vigils to demand that everyone’s vote be counted and to recognize election officials for doing their part to defend democracy. At critical moments, leaders from entertainment and business issued statements affirming the results of the election and calling for a peaceful transfer of power. After the Jan. 6 attack, military leaders reminded those in uniform that their oath was foremost to the Constitution – not to any particular political leader. The success of this peaceful pro-democracy movement was probably one of the most consequential victories in U.S. history.

Grassroots Action

Today, direct action will likely be necessary to prevent state-level attempts to restrict voting and to politicize the election administration and certification process, particularly given Senate Republicans’ vote against federal voting rights protection. Progressive groups like Indivisible are organizing grassroots actions and campaigns to defend voting rights. Moral leaders and grassroots organizers from For All, Faith for Black Lives, Until Freedom, and others are pledging to join or help organize nonviolent direct action this summer across the country to suspend the congressional filibuster, which has historically been a tool to defend segregation and block civil rights legislation.

The challenge and opportunity now is to find common cause with key groups, including within the business community, veterans’ groups, and faith-based groups (including Catholic and Christian Evangelical groups), who are committed to multi-ethnic democracy and are willing to take action to defend it. Historically, large, diverse movements that innovate tactically, maintain organizational resilience and nonviolent discipline in the face of violence and disinformation, and that prompt defections from key pillars have been most effective at advancing change in the United States and around the world. Maximizing and diversifying participation in a new movement for democracy is key, since it expands pressure points that will be critical in the lead-up to the 2022 and 2024 elections.

This is truly an all-hands-on-deck moment for U.S. democracy – and that will go a long way to setting the pace for democracy around the world. Now is the time for progressives, conservatives, and everyone in between to come together to defend the very basic foundations of America’s republican, constitutional system of democratic governance. The United States needs a national democracy narrative that liberates the populace from the red vs. blue stranglehold that is blocking a positive vision of freedom and democracy. It needs a vision that invites the maximum number of people into a shared movement for democracy. Americans must invest in dialogue spaces that embrace shared humanity and encourage multi-racial democratic solidarity. Direct action at all levels can raise the urgency of this moment and generate moral, political, and economic pressure to preserve the great American democratic experiment.

Nonviolence is a cornerstone of activism and radical change, but less attention has been given to the restorative power of nonviolent resistance. In this recent Horizons Project event, Senior Advisor Maria J. Stephan interviewed author and Kingian nonviolence practitioner Kazu Haga on his book, Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. The event publicly launched the Horizons Project.

Kazu Haga is the founder and coordinator of East Point Peace Academy in Oakland, California. He was introduced to social change and nonviolence in 1998 when he participated in a six-month interfaith walking pilgrimage from Massachusetts to New Orleans to retrace the Middle Passage and the slave trade in the United States. He began a lifelong path of social justice work. For over twenty years, he has practiced and taught Kingian Nonviolence – a philosophy of nonviolent conflict reconciliation based on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and the organizing strategy used during the Civil Rights Movement. This discussion explores Haga’s philosophy and experience with Kingian Nonviolence training, social justice work, and conflict reconciliation. It centers the question: how can nonviolent resistance challenge injustices while fostering societal healing?
This online event was co-hosted with Humanity United, East Point Peace Academy, On Earth Peace, and the Kingian Nonviolence Network. This interview was condensed and edited for clarity. A full transcript can be found here.

Why did you feel compelled to write this book? What do you mean by “healing with teeth” and how does it motivate healing resistance work?

In progressive circles, the concept of healing has almost become mainstream, and in a way, that’s good, right? We want nonviolence, healing justice, all these things, to become mainstream. And at the same time, whenever something becomes mainstream, there’s a danger to it because it loses some of the essence. Oftentimes, when people talk about healing modalities, those conversations are happening in the absence of an analysis around systemic harm and historical harm. We don’t realize that a lot of the harm that people are living with today that we have to heal through is the result of a system that has brought violence to certain communities and not to other communities for 500 years, and that those systems still exist, and that those systems are continuing to cause harm in this moment.

If we don’t have the fierceness and the power and the teeth to really challenge these systems that are causing so much harm today, then we can be healing people’s traumas all we want, but these systems are causing more trauma at a faster rate than we can ever heal them on a one-to-one personal basis.

What do you mean by disrupting negative peace? What are some of the challenges and misperceptions of disrupting peace in healing work?

The example that I always use when I talk about negative peace is the story of Autherine Lucy, who was the first Black student ever to go to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. As you can imagine, the first day that a Black student showed up at the University of Alabama, which had always been a segregated school in the South in Alabama in Tuscaloosa, there was violence. A riot broke out, and the KKK showed up, and a mob surrounded the car she was traveling in and climbed up on top of it. And to respond to this violence, the University expelled Autherine Lucy, saying this was her fault and so they kicked her out. And the next day, because she was no longer on campus, the riots had stopped, and the local newspaper ran a headline that read “Things are Quiet in Tuscaloosa. Today, there is peace on the campus of the University of Alabama.” And in response to that incident, Doctor King gave one of my all-time favorite sermons. The sermon is called “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” and in that sermon, he said that what happened at the campus the next morning wasn’t a real peace. He called it a negative peace, which is a term that was coined by peace educator Johan Galtung.

Dr. King said, “Negative peace is the absence of tension that comes at the expense of justice.” If someone is screaming at my face, and I punch them and knock them out, they’re no longer screaming at me, so it’s quiet. Did I just create peace? As absurd as that thought is, because of our gross misunderstanding in our society of what peace is, we think as long as things are quiet, then things are peaceful. We justify these crazy ways of trying to achieve “peace,” so we go to war to try to create peace, we incarcerate people to try to create peace, we lock up all the protesters to try to create peace and that’s not a path to creating real peace. At best, what it creates is negative peace, it’s a very temporary surface-level thing by repressing the real issues that need to be brought to the surface.

One of the things that I always talk about is how Doctor King was arrested 29 times in his life, and a bunch of those times, he was charged with disturbing the peace, and it’s what nonviolent activists are oftentimes accused of. But we have to realize that in nonviolence when we use nonviolent tactics to bring issues to the surface, we’re not disturbing the peace, we’re disturbing complacency, and we’re disturbing the normalization of violence.

The path to real peace, which includes justice for all people, is going to be disruptive, it’s a messy process. Peace is a messy process, and I think that’s a lot of the misunderstandings that we need to kind of dispel around the idea of peace, and the idea of nonviolence, like, peace isn’t just about harmony. It’s about justice, and justice is loud, especially in a society that has normalized so much injustice.

How do you balance the need for accountability and the recognition of harm while at the same time creating a space and recognizing the humanity of the other? How do we create safe spaces for anger and rage?

Oftentimes, we wait until there’s a riot, or we wait until someone’s been killed, and then we ask, ‘well, what can nonviolence do about it?’ And there’s a lot that nonviolence needs to do in response to it, but that’s almost like asking someone to wait until you’re in a fight to start learning about martial arts and self-defense. It’s a little late in the game,” Haga said. “A lot of the work that we try to do is what we are doing in our communities every single day so that when these heightened moments happen, we’re already grounded.

When a community has faced nothing but violence from the state for 400 years, every bit of that rage gets poured out into the streets. Regardless of how it gets expressed, it is legitimate, and it is righteous. I think as community leaders, we need to create more safe containers for that rage to be seen and for that rage to be honored because if we don’t create safe containers for that to be released, it’s going to get released on a gas station, and there’s no point in talking about whether it’s right or wrong or effective or not because it’s inevitable.

I think what that means in movement contexts is before going into the demonstration, relying heavily on healers and faith leaders and people who have those skills to hold grief circles, to use art to express our rage, to create spaces where we’re sitting in a circle crying together, screaming together, grieving together in a container where that expression of rage isn’t going to be misinterpreted, and then we’re going to get tear-gassed as a result of it. Because that can be retraumatizing. It’s important for us to create these spaces where rage and grief can be expressed, but if we’re getting arrested while we’re doing that can be retraumatizing.

You emphasize the importance of training and preparation throughout your book. What are the collective muscles that we need built up individually and as a society? How do we think about training and practically flexing those muscles to be prepared for these moments?

We know that when our trauma is triggered, we see everything in black and white because that’s what survival is about. Survival is about black and white. It’s about you’re either a threat to my life or you’re not, and so it makes sense from a survival mechanism, but the reality is that our world is never black and white. Our ability to see nuance is so important in seeing the truth for what it is, and so anything we can do to see nuance, anything we can practice to help regulate our emotions – all of that I think has to be incorporated in this kind of new generation of nonviolent direct action trainings.

How do you explicitly integrate anti-racism with Kingian nonviolence?

I think part of why racial healing and racial reconciliation feels impossible at times is because in a lot of the places where that conversation is happening, we skip the step of accountability and restitution and reparations. But reparations are a prerequisite to healing and reconciliation. Accountability has to be part of the process if we’re really going to heal through harm, and so I think if we’re really serious about racial healing and racial reconciliation in this country, we have to tell the truth of what happened and do what we can to repair the harm in a real concrete way.

Are these ideals for healing resistance difficult for the mainstream? What strategies do you recommend to help people have these difficult conversations?

The path to liberation is to actually go against the flow of what feels natural and to lean into suffering to lean into what hurts so that we can really face it,” Haga said. “It doesn’t feel natural for me to try to cultivate compassion for the person that hurt me, but that it turns out is the path to liberation.

It definitely goes against mainstream values, and I think the best we can do to kind of cross that chasm is to tell stories. People don’t remember theory, they remember stories, like what are the stories from your life you remember what it felt like for you that you had so much hatred and resentment towards someone that you couldn’t do anything like to move forward in your life. I think the more we can start telling our own stories, the more we can cross that gap.

What are the common values that underpin US democracy? What is the “big story” we all share about how society should work and how we fit together as citizens?

In the US today, with levels of toxic polarization astoundingly high, the narratives we use to make sense of the system and the sacred values we hold around democracy seem to be as divergent as ever. But by understanding these narratives and values, we can begin to rediscover how to respect different world views and commit to America’s future together.

Experts shared some of their latest research and practice in a recent session on Democracy Narratives and Sacred Values co-convened by the Horizons Project with the Alliance for Peacebuilding for their Spring Series on Preventing and Reducing Conflict and Instability in the United States: Shaping What Comes Next.

Narratives matters

Narratives are about how we make sense of the world and the overarching way we understand what’s happening around us and our place in it. The Opportunity Agenda describes the concept as “a Big Story, rooted in shared values and common themes, that influences how audiences process information and make decisions.” They are shaped and reinforced by political discourse, media, social media, symbols, and even conversations at the dinner table.

What does all this mean for American democracy? Julia Roig, President of PartnersGlobal says that being curious about the big stories we and our fellow citizens tell ourselves about our system is essential.

“Finding the right big story for US democracy is so important right now,” she said. “This is not about clever messaging campaigns. It’s about engaging with our deepest understanding of what democracy means to us, why it’s important, and how our engagement at this level of meaning-making is needed to drive new behavior and systemic change.”

When sacred values get activated

Like narratives, sacred values operate at a subconscious level. They are the values we act on as a duty, rather than a choice.

“They are literally processed in the brain differently than normal values and in different places,” explained Nichole Argo, PhD, is the Director of Research and Field Advancement at Over Zero.

While anything can be sacralized, in our democracy sacred values often form around issues like family separation, gun rights, or being pro-choice or pro-life. Argo pointed out that if someone breaks your moral rule and treats your sacred value like a regular value, it will backfire.

“Your brain just knows you shouldn’t break the rule. If it feels like you might, or you are being asked to, you’ll be enveloped in anger, shame and moral outrage.”

Her research shows that values tend to become more sacred when people thing they are at risk of losing something that matters (economic security for example); their in-group cares deeply about a value; or they experience discrimination or rejection. These slights can be real or perceived, but the result is the same if your sacred value is in jeopardy: outrage, anger and a disgust toward the person violating your sacred value.

The lesson here is that sacred values themselves are not a problem. But when citizens disagree over what should be sacralized and don’t understand how to communicate around these values, we get begin to denigrate or dismiss those who think differently.

“We need to recognize that when sacred values exist, you can’t make marketplace tradeoffs or try to persuade someone their value is wrong. But you can seek to understand what’s beneath it, acknowledge it, demonstrate respect for them and their value, and preserve the relationship,” she said.

How well do we know “the other side”?

Interestingly, the left/right political divides that don’t always hold when it comes to sacred values. A 2020 survey by Over Zero and the American Immigration Council found that immigration issues were considered sacred by at least a third of the sample, both on the left and the right. More than half of respondents (56%) sacralized family separation, for example.

The study also found that while liberals generally sacralize open stances (i.e.  open immigration) and vice versa for conservatives (i.e., withholding public support for unauthorized immigrants), there are issues where those on the left and right converge. Several members of both groups support the open stance of creating a pathway to citizens for DACA recipients.

The democratic norms we hold on the left and right also don’t fall that far apart, but our perceptions of how those outside our groups connect to these norms are very off-base.

In a recent nationally representative experiment led by Dr. Michael Pasek at The New School and Dr. Samantha Moore-Berg at UPenn, participants were asked about norms around fraud-free elections, equal rights, abuse of power by government officials, and protections from political interference in law enforcement investigations. Scores ranged from 1 (not at all important) to 100 (extremely important). Both Democrats (Mean = 90) and Republicans (Mean = 87) held these democratic norms to be important.

The researchers then asked Democrats and Republicans to indicate how important they thought the average member of their political in-group and out-group would find these norms to be. Both groups were accurate in rating their own group’s value placed on these norms but were severely inaccurate in ranking their out-group. Democrats scored Republicans at a 55 and Republicans ranked democrats at a 48.

In another recent study, America’s Divided Mind from Beyond Conflict, Program Director Michelle Barsa and her team found that Democrats and Republicans tend to overestimate the extent to which members of the other party disagree with, dislike, and dehumanize them. When asked how cold (0) or warm (100) they feel about the other party, Republicans give Democrats a score of approximately 34 out of 100, while Democrats give Republicans a score of 28 out of 100.

This drastic difference in perception of our in- and out-groups has huge implications for American democracy, explains Barsa.

“We found that the more inaccurate and biased participants were in their meta-perceptions (believing that ingroup members valued norms that outgroup members did not) the more willing they were to violate democratic norms themselves.”

The path forward

So where do we go from here given our divergent narratives, behaviors around sacred values, and wildly inaccurate perceptions about out-group norms?

Tod Lindberg, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute says that despite these tensions, we shouldn’t underestimate the sources of resiliency

“I think the answer does not lie in adjusting our ideals to bring them in line with our practices. We should be working on bringing our practice more in line with our ideals.”

Argo offers that future research could test strategies like employing threat reduction narratives, signaling norms of deliberation and dialogue within our political groups, or affirming the shared values and intentions of different segments of the population as they pertain to immigration stances, for example.

Barsa suggested that “Since we know that group norms impact sacralization, there may be potential to target in-group norms.”

She proposes looking at norm change or demonstrating that a perceived norm is not in fact sacralized by the group to the extent members might think it is. She also suggests we should try to cultivate a superordinate American identity beyond our political or group identities.

The path out of this is long and complicated but not impossible. Ultimately, as Julia Roig said, “We are called to stay curious, to interrogate our own worldviews and the stories we tell ourselves about our own identity and those who disagree with us. In a healthy democracy, different points of view of policy are welcomed and should lead to better outcomes.”