Category Archives: conflict transformation

How Elite and Popular Discourse Supress Dialogue

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We are happy to share the announcement below about a new facilitation training opportunity in California from NCDD supporting member Donald Ellis from the University of Hartford. Donald shared this piece via our great Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news or thoughts you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Me Talk Prettier Than You: Elite and Popular Discourse

One of the divides that has emerged more starkly from the Brexit debate and the candidacy of Donald Trump is the distinction between elite and popular discourse. Just being overly general for the moment, elite discourse is most associated with the educated and professional classes and is characterized by what is considered to be acceptable forms of argument, the use of evidence, the recognition of complexity, and articulation. Popular discourse is more ethnopolitical and nationalistic. It is typically characterized by binary thinking, a simpler and more reductive understanding of the issue, and an ample amount of cognitive rigidity makes it difficult to change attitudes. To be sure, this is a general characterization because both genres are capable of each.

Still, consistent with the well-known polarization of society is the withdrawal of each side into a comfortable discourse structure where the two codes are increasingly removed from one another and the gap between them cannot be transcended very easily. Dialogue is a real challenge if possible at all.

Additionally, elite and popular discourses share some different sociological and economic orientations. Elites are more cosmopolitan and popular is more local and nationalistic. Elites live in more urban centers and are comfortable with and exposed regularly to diversity. Those who employ more popular discourse tend to live in smaller towns and are more provincial. They seem to resist cultural change more and are less comfortable with diversity.

These two orientations toward language divide the leave-remain vote over Brexit and the electorate that characterizes the differences between Clinton and Trump. But this distinction is more than a socioeconomic divide that reflects some typical differences between people. It symbolizes the polarization currently characterizing American politics and has the potential to spiral into dangerous violence as the “popular” form of discourse becomes more “nationalistic.” It lowers the quality of public discourse and typically degenerates into even more rigid differences and stereotypical exemplars of elite and popular discourse. Nationalist discourse substitutes close minded combativeness for elite debate which can be passionate but is geared toward deliberative conversation that can be constructive. Nationalism is the deep sense of commitment a group has to their collective including territory, history and language. When national “consciousness” sets in then one nation is exalted and considered sacred and worthy of protection even in the face of death. Trump’s catchphrase “make America great again” or “let’s take our country back” or his appeals to separation and distinctiveness by building walls that clearly demark “us” and “them” are all examples of a nationalist consciousness that glorifies the state.

The nationalism espoused by Trump and the “leave” camp during Britain’s vote on the EU question are the primary impediments to consolidating, integrating, and strengthening democracies. All states with any sort of diverse population must establish a civil order that protects those populations; that is, no society will remain integrated and coherent if it does not accommodate ethnic diversity. At the moment, Trump’s rhetoric is divisive and representative of a tribal mentality that clearly wants to separate in many ways various communities in the US. Trump’s references to Mexicans, Jews, Muslims, for example betrays his own nationalistic sentiments.

The two ways to handle ethnic diversity are either pluralistic integration or organizational isolation of groups. Isolating and separating groups is inherently destabilizing and foment ripe conditions for violence. Building a wall and making determinations about who can enter the United States and who can’t are all examples of isolating groups. Intensifying nationalist discourse and the privileging of rights for a dominant group is fundamentally unsustainable.

This gap in the United States between an elite discourse and the nationalist discourse has grown wider and deeper. Each side snickers at the other’s orientation toward language and communication and continues the cycle by reinforcing the superiority of his own discursive position.

Former Legislators Work with NICD to End Partisan “War”

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Recently, The Hill published a piece written by two former representatives, Republican Mickey Edwards and Democrat Zack Space – both of whom have worked with NCDD member organization the National Institute for Civil Discourse – on the current state of politics in Congress, and we wanted to share part of it here. The former reps urge us not to see politics in terms of warfare, instead calling on their colleagues to restore civility, bridge their divides, work toward solutions to national problems. We encourage you to read excerpts from their piece below or find the full original version here.

Politics Is Not War

One of the hardest things to do in Congress is to cease thinking of your opponent as your enemy.

Why wouldn’t you think of them as your enemy? You sit on opposite sides of the House chamber. You caucus in different rooms. You take opposing votes. Every two years they raise money to try and take your job.

The truth is those on the other side of the aisle are not the enemy. They are Americans, just like the citizens they represent back home in their districts.

The frame of “politics as combat” is ingrained into our society. The language of war permeates media coverage… But the difference is that these war analogies are harmful to the state of civility in our politics. Language matters. We cannot ignore the innate violence of this rhetoric, which has spurred us further and further into a place of polarization and discord. For many, working across the aisle is synonymous with “colluding with the enemy.”

…When we both left Congress, it was bad, but not this bad. The 2016 election is shaping up to be one of the most uncivil in decades, from the presidential level to the local level… Whoever lands in the White House will have their work cut out for them to put back the pieces of our splintered populace and restore civility.

If we’re to ensure a bright future for our nation, we must stop thinking of politics as war where our opponents must be defeated at any cost. Politics isn’t war, it is debate – the democratic means by which we come together to move America forward.

That’s why we are working with the National Institute for Civil Discourse to revive civility in our politics. We expect our leaders to act like leaders, not bar-room brawlers, and we hope citizens will stand up, peacefully, to incivility.

We’re not calling for a return to some “magic center” of American politics. No such center exists. There will always be liberals and conservatives, folks from across the ideological spectrum that agree on little…

But we do agree that our leaders should seek solutions, not conflict. Working together takes a mutual respect. Comedians often ridicule the tradition of members of Congress calling each other “my friend from X state,” or “my colleague from across the aisle” while giving speeches. This tradition is an important step away from the war analogies pushed by the campaigns and the media…

Treating the opposition with civility and respect is the first step toward actually getting things done and solving problems…

You can find the full-length, original version of this article from The Hill at www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/282698-politics-is-not-war.

Bridging Police-Community Divides through Truth & Reconciliation Processes?

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As the country continues to reel from a week of high profile killings of both people of color and police officers, many feel a sense of despair about what can be done to change the patterns of violence that plague our country. There are no easy answers. But we are grateful to NCDD member Harold Fields for sharing the powerful Yes! Magazine piece below by restorative justice practitioner Fania Davis. Harold and Fania are helping launch truth and reconciliation processes across the country that seek to address the patterns that have created such a deep divide between police and African American communities, and the piece shares examples of similar processes that are already bridging our divides. We encourage you to read Fania’s piece below or find the original here.

This Country Needs a Truth and Reconciliation Process on Violence Against African Americans – Right Now

I am among the millions who have experienced the shock, grief, and fury of losing someone to racial violence.

When I was 15, two close friends were killed in the Birmingham Sunday School bombing carried out by white supremacists trying to terrorize the rising civil rights movement. Only six years later, my husband was shot and nearly killed by police who broke into our home, all because of our activism at the time, especially in support of the Black Panthers.

As a civil rights trial lawyer, I’ve spent much of my professional life protecting people from racial discrimination. In my early twenties, I devoted myself to organizing an international movement to defend my sister, Angela Davis, from politically motivated capital murder charges aimed at silencing her calls for racial and social justice. Early childhood experiences in the South set me on a quest for social transformation, and I’ve been a community organizer ever since, from the civil rights to the black power, women’s, anti-racial violence, peace, anti-apartheid, anti-imperialist, economic justice, political prisoner movements, and others.

After more than three decades of all the fighting, I started to feel out of balance and intuitively knew I needed more healing energies in my life. I ended up enrolling in a Ph.D. program in Indigenous Studies that allowed me to study with African healers.

Today, my focus is on restorative justice, which I believe offers a way for us to collectively face this epidemic, expose its deep historical roots, and stop it.

The killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York have sparked a national outcry to end the epidemic killings of black men. Many note that even if indictments had been handed down, that wouldn’t have been enough to stop the carnage. The problem goes far beyond the actions of any police officer or department. The problem is hundreds of years old, and it is one we must take on as a nation. Truth and reconciliation processes offer the greatest hope.

Truth and reconciliation in Ferguson and beyond

A Ferguson Truth and Reconciliation process based on restorative justice (RJ) principles could not only stop the epidemic but also allow us as a nation to take a first “step on the road to reconciliation,” to borrow a phrase from the South African experience.

A restorative justice model means that youth, families, and communities directly affected by the killings—along with allies – would partner with the federal government to establish a commission. Imagine a commission that serves as a facilitator, community organizer, or Council of Elders to catalyze, guide, and support participatory, inclusive, and community-based processes.

We know from experience that a quasi-legal body of high-level experts who hold hearings, examine the evidence, and prepare findings and recommendations telling us as a nation what we need to do won’t work. We’ve had plenty of those.

To move toward a reconciled America, we have to do the work ourselves. Reconciliation is an ongoing and collective process. We must roll up our sleeves and do the messy, challenging, but hopeful work of creating transformed relationships and structures leading us into new futures. Someone like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed up South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, might come to Ferguson to inspire and guide us as we take the first steps on this journey.

And the impact wouldn’t be for Ferguson alone. Unfolding in hubs across the nation, a Truth and Reconciliation process could create safe public spaces for youth, families, neighbors, witnesses, and other survivors to share their stories.  Though this will happen in hubs, the truths learned and the knowledge gained would be broadly shared. Importantly, the process would also create skillfully facilitated dialogue where responsible parties engage in public truth-telling and take responsibility for wrongdoing.

Getting to the roots

Today, teenagers of color are coming of age in a culture that criminalizes and demonizes them, and all too often takes their lives.

I work with youth in Oakland, where it’s gut-wrenching to see the trauma and devastation up close. Black youth in the U.S. are fatally shot by police at 21 times the rate of white youth. Children of color are pushed through pipelines to prison instead of being put on pathways to opportunity. Some make it through this soul-crushing gauntlet against all odds. But too many do not.

Defining how long- and far-reaching a process like this would be is difficult because, sadly, the killing of Mike Brown is only one instance in a long and cyclical history of countless unhealed racial traumas that reaches all the way back to the birth of this nation. Changing form but not essence over four centuries, this history has morphed from slavery to the Black Codes, peonage and lynching, from Jim Crow to convict leasing, to mass incarceration and deadly police practices.

Bearing in mind its expansive historical context, the Truth and Reconciliation process would set us on a collective search for shared truths about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of extrajudicial killings of black youth, say, for the last two decades. Through the process, those truths will be told, understood, and made known far and wide. Its task would also include facing and beginning to heal the massive historical harms that threaten us all as a nation but take the lives of black and brown children especially. We would utilize the latest insights and methodologies from the field of trauma healing.

This is urgent. Continued failure to deal with our country’s race-based historical traumas dooms us to perpetually re-enact them.

Though national in scope, the inquiry would zero in on the city of Ferguson and several other key cities across the country that have been the site of extrajudicial killings during the last decade. Specifics like this are best left to a collaborative, inclusive, and community-based planning process.

The process will create public spaces where we face together the epidemic of killings and its root causes, identify the needs and responsibilities of those affected, and also figure out what to do as a nation to heal harms and restore relationships and institutions to forge a new future.

Truth and reconciliation works

There are precedents for this approach: Some 40 Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have been launched worldwide to transform historical and mass social harms such as those we are facing. Their experiences could help light a way forward.

The best-known example is the 1994 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was charged with exposing and remedying apartheid’s human rights abuses. Under the guidance of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission elevated apartheid victims’ voices, allowing the nation to hear their stories. Perpetrators had a means to engage in public truth-telling about and take responsibility for the atrocities they committed. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission facilitated encounters between harmed and responsible parties, decided amnesty petitions, and ordered reparations, and it recommended official apologies, memorials, and institutional reform to prevent recurrence.

With near-constant live coverage by national television networks, the attention of the nation was riveted on the process. Although South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was far from perfect, it is internationally hailed for exposing apartheid’s atrocities and evoking a spirit of reconciliation that helped the country transcend decades of racial hatred and violence.

There are North American examples as well, including the 2004 Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission in North Carolina, the first in the United States. This effort focused on the “Greensboro massacre” of anti-racist activists by the Ku Klux Klan in 1979.

In 2012, Maine’s governor and indigenous tribal chiefs established a truth commission to address the harms resulting from the forced assimilation of Native children by Maine’s child welfare system. It is still in operation.

And Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, also still functioning, addresses legacies of Indian residential schools that forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their homes, punished them for honoring their language and traditions, and subjected them to physical and sexual abuse.

Get to the truth, get to healing

Like South Africa’s and others, the Ferguson Truth and Reconciliation process would draw on the principles of restorative justice. Rooted in indigenous teachings, for some 40 years the international RJ movement has been creating safe spaces for encounters between persons harmed and persons responsible for harm, including their families and communities. These encounters encourage participants to get to truth, address needs, responsibilities, and root causes, make amends, and forge different futures through restored relationships based upon mutual respect and recognition.

Restorative justice is founded on a worldview that affirms our participation in a vast web of interrelatedness. It sees crimes as acts that rupture the web, damaging the relationship not only between the individuals directly involved but also vibrating out to injure relationships with families and communities. The purpose of RJ is to repair the harm caused to the whole of the web, restoring relationships to move into a brighter future.

Applied to schools, communities, the justice system, and to redress mass social harm and create new futures, restorative justice is increasingly being recognized internationally. In Oakland, California, where I co-founded and direct Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), school-based programs are eliminating violence, reducing racial disparity in discipline, slashing suspension rates, dramatically boosting academic outcomes, and creating pathways to opportunity instead of pipelines to incarceration. These outcomes are documented in a 2010 study by UC Berkeley Law School and a soon-to-be-released report by the school district. Oakland’s RJ youth diversion pilot is interrupting racialized mass incarceration strategies and reducing recidivism rates to 15 percent. (Based on discussions with folks who run the program – no studies as yet.)

Police and probation officers are being trained in RJ principles and practices. Youth and police are sitting together in healing circles, and creating new relationships based on increased trust and a mutual recognition of one another’s humanity.

It’s impossible to predict whether similar outcomes would emerge from a Truth and Reconciliation process in Ferguson – and the United States. But it’s our best chance. And, if history is any guide, it could result in restitution to those harmed, memorials to the fallen, including films, statues, museums, street renamings, public art, or theatrical re-enactments. It might also engender calls to use restorative and other practices to stop violence and interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and mass incarceration strategies. New curricula could emerge that teach both about historic injustices and movements resisting those injustices. Teach-ins, police trainings, restorative policing practices, and police review commissions are also among the universe of possibilities.

In the face of the immense terrain to be covered on the journey toward a more reconciled America, no single process will be enough. However, a Ferguson Truth and Reconciliation process could be a first step towards reconciliation. It could put us on the path of a new future based on more equitable structures and with relationships founded on mutual recognition and respect. It could also serve as a prototype to guide future truth and reconciliation efforts addressing related epidemics such as domestic violence, poverty, the school-to-prison pipeline, and mass incarceration. A Ferguson Truth and Reconciliation Commission could light the way into a new future.

You can find the original version of this Yes! Magazine piece at www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/this-country-needs-a-truth-and-reconciliation-process-on-violence-against-african-americans.

A Story of Bridging Partisan Divides in the Legislature

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A major goal of NCDD2016 is to lift up stories of how people across the country are Bridging Our Divides through D&D work, despite pervasive narratives telling us we can’t. So we wanted to share just such a story that NCDD member Jessica Weaver of the Public Conversations Project recently wrote about. The piece tells the story of women legislators who are resisting the urge to focus on the negative and instead look to solutions. You can read the story below or find Jessica’s original post here.

Shining a Light Beyond Polarization

PCP new logoWe’ve all seen the headlines. Gridlock. Paralysis. Incivility. All the result of widening political polarization in the United States government, and also among its people. Like other aspects of identity, political ideology can be a dividing factor in our national conversation. We refuse to engage with the “other side” and reflect critically on our own views.

The science shows that polarization has indeed worsened – almost exponentially – over the last ten years. Pew Research also indicates that in addition to estrangement, this trend has seen increased venom and antipathy between liberals and conservatives. There’s evidence that this trend is worsening, and that it has had profoundly destructive effects on American governance and its public discourse. We know that story.

But at a women’s leadership conference a couple of weeks ago, I heard a very different story. Women from all levels of government – senators, state legislators, and city council members – came together to talk about their experiences, challenges, and lessons from careers spent proving they were worthy of hard-earned entry into a sector dominated by men. In addition to stressing the importance of building personal relationships across the aisle to operate effectively, several legislators had a surprising response to the inevitable question about the seemingly irreversible tides of polarization and incivility.

Image via Politico

Instead of bemoaning how partisan bickering had stymied their work, Senator Barbara Mikulski (pictured center above) was almost indignant. “That’s not the whole story,” she said, and argued that in fact this had been one of the most productive years for women in the Senate that she could remember. And she would know: Mikulski started a monthly bipartisan dinner group just for female senators that encourages relationships between women across the aisle, and creates mentorship opportunities between generations of politicians.

The exchange made me think about something we talk about often at Public Conversations: the danger of focusing solely on conflict, especially in binary terms. By rehearsing the narrative of polarization, we are at one level simply making reference to a political reality, but at another, are pushing a wheel over the same groove, in jeopardy of deepening the schism. The story is self-fulfilling, according to recent research out of University of California – Berkeley, titled “Self-Fulfilling Misperceptions of Public Polarization,” which concluded that citizens across the political spectrum perceive one another’s views as being more extreme than they really are:

“Thus, citizens appear to consider peers’ positions within public debate when forming their own opinions and adopt slightly more extreme positions as a consequence.” In other words, being inundated with information about polarization doesn’t make us more moderate, it makes us more extreme.

This is a difficult position: how can we acknowledge the realities of deep conflicts without reinforcing narratives that are devoid of anything else? The question isn’t just relevant for polarization or other identity-based conflicts; it’s a question about how to discuss humanity’s most destructive creations – hate, bigotry, fear – without letting negativity define the whole story. I think an important answer lies in choosing to “shine a light on the good and the beautiful,” in the elegant language of writer and Muslim thinker Omid Safi. He writes, “Why shine the spotlight on the hate? This is somehow part of our national discourse. Someone does something offensive and crazy, and we immediately advertise it. But I do wonder about the mindset of always being quick to rush to publicize bigotry against us — and forget about the many who rise to connect their humanity with ours.” He ends his reflection by naming specific people whose work he wants to “shine a light on.”

So, Senator Mikulski and your dinner companions, I want to shine a light on you. Perhaps more importantly, I want to shine more lights in this often black or white world. This isn’t a call to end conversations that are challenging, simply to make space for celebrating good work that is of equal importance in the stories we tell. As Safi concludes:

So, friends, let us stand next to one another, shoulder to shoulder, mirroring the good and the beautiful. Shine a light on the good. Applaud the good. Become an advocate of the good and the beautiful. Let us hang on to the faith that ultimately light overcomes darkness, and love conquers hate. It is the only thing that ever has, ever will, and does today.

You can find the original version of this Public Conversations Project piece at www.publicconversations.org/blog/shining-light-beyond-polarization

NCDD Resources for Responding to the Orlando Shooting

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In the wake of the awful attacks in Orlando, it can be hard to know what to say or even how and when to begin a conversation. But as people who work in dialogue, many of us have been and will be called upon or feel compelled to help grieving, angry, and fearful communities talk with each other about what happened, about our differences, and about where we can go from here.

To try to help those wanting and needing to start these conversations, we wanted to share a few helpful links to items from our NCDD Resource Center that are relevant places to start. There is no resource we can link you to that tailored to a tragedy so visceral and complex, but we hope that reviewing this list will at least give you some direction.

Places to look

There are many layers to unpacking the Orlando shooting: sexual orientation, race, guns, religion, and more. So we suggest that you start by looking at the tags in our resource center that have to do with those topics. You can look at:

We also recommend you use the search feature in the resource center to query specific topics you want to find resources on. Especially since the Orlando shooter’s religion is a key point of friction for many, we recommend running a search for “Islam” and “Muslim” for those looking to discuss the role of religion and how to support the Muslim community in this trying time.

Specific Resources

We also want to highlight a few specific resources that may be helpful for talking about key dynamics present in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. We recommend that you take a look at:

We know it’s not much, but we hope that these resources can help those NCDD members who are seeking to help their communities process and heal from this tragedy. Whatever you do, please take good care of yourselves and your loved ones in the coming weeks.

OSU Launches Divided Community Project

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We were happy to receive the announcement below from The Ohio State University, which recently launched an important and timely project called the Divided Community Project, and they have selected NCDD supporting member Grande Lum, one of our featured speakers at NCDD2014 when he headed the US Dept. of Justice’s Community Relations Service. We congratulate Grande and look forward to seeing the Project’s work develop. Learn more at the Project’s website by clicking here.

Ohio State announces Divided Community Project – Grande Lum joins as Director

Today The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law announces the Divided Community Project.  The project aims to strengthen community efforts to transform division into action and focuses on how communities can respond constructively to civil unrest as well as on how they can identify and meaningfully address the reasons underlying community division.  Earlier this year the Project published its first publications:

 

Both documents are licensed using the Creative Commons so that (with attribution) they may be copied, shared, adapted and tailored to fit the needs of a community or interest group.

The Project is pleased to announce that Grande Lum, Gould Research Fellow and Lecturer at Stanford Law and former Director of the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, has joined Ohio State’s Divided Community Project as the Director.  In guiding the project, Grande will draw on his extensive experience dealing with civil unrest with the Community Relations Service, where he directed a staff of about 40 conciliators intervening in major domestic conflicts over the last few years, as well as his past experience working, writing and teaching in the dispute resolution field.  Grande will advance the Project’s initiatives to establish pilot programs which plan in advance of civil unrest, offer suggestions for improving practice, develop conflict assessment tools, and advocate for the use of collaborative methods for turning community division into positive action. 

On joining the Divided Community Project, Grande wrote: “I am thrilled to be joining the Divided Community Project, at a time when the country is grappling with polarization at seemingly every turn. I look forward to working with the Project’s extraordinary team to move divided communities toward peace and justice.”

The Divided Community Project’s steering committee is composed of seasoned dispute resolution practitioners and academics: Nancy Rogers, Josh Stulberg, Chris Carlson, Susan Carpenter, Craig McEwen,Sarah Rubin, and Andrew Thomas. Bill Froehlich, Langdon Fellow in the Program on Dispute Resolution at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, serves as the Project’s Associate Director.

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Program on Dispute Resolution serves as the host institution. The JAMS Foundation provided significant funding for the creation of the Project and the Kettering Foundation partnered in its early work.  The OSU Democracy Studies Program and Emeritus Academy have both awarded financial assistance that has supported valuable student research assistance for the project.

Lessons from NCDD Members Bridging Partisan Divides

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One of the most salient divides in our nation today that we will be focusing on during NCDD 2016 is the divide between the left and right sides of the political spectrum. Bridging the partisan divide, especially in an election year, is crucial work that many of our NCDD members have taken on, and we wanted to share the article below in which NCDD member Mark Gerzon of the Mediators Foundation poignantly shares lessons to be learned from their efforts. The original version of Mark’s piece appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and can be found here.

Four Ways to Fix American Politics

It’s not just young revolutionary Bernie Sanders supporters or angry-as-hell Donald Trump fans who want to “change the system.” It’s also the president of the United States of America.

The future we want “will only happen if we fix our politics,” said President Obama in his 2016 State of the Union address. “If we want a better politics, it’s not enough just to change a congressman or change a senator or even change a president. We have to change the system to reflect our better selves.”

But exactly how do we do that? The president did not say. And when William Jefferson Clinton in 1992 and George W. Bush in 2000 expressed the same noble sentiment, they didn’t tell us how either.

Our last three presidents did not tell us because they don’t know. They are products of the system and clearly are not going to reform much less revolutionize it. They have risen to the top of the leadership pyramid by playing the partisan game. Them telling us how to work together would be like an alcoholic telling us how to get sober: He knows everything about the topic except doing it.

On both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans are recognizing that they are in a long-term political marriage that needs help. But even if both donkeys and elephants want to repair their broken relationship, they still need to learn how. The primary causes of dysfunction that Obama identified – the gerrymandering of congressional districts and the tyranny of money in campaigns – are certainly real. But these and other causes will never be effectively addressed unless we stop restating the problem and start focusing on the solutions.

The good news is that we not only can bridge this political divide; in fact, we already are.

I have recently interviewed and profiled dozens of Americans who know how to solve problems across the divide. They are doing so in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill; in living rooms and town halls; between corporations and anti-corporate activists; with police departments and minority communities; and in almost every sector of our society. When diverse groups connect in constructive dialogue, they make progress on issues ranging from criminal justice reform to internet privacy to education reform.

Literally dozens of major initiatives have had concrete successes bringing Left and Right together to break down the partisan wall and find common ground. They have succeeded where Capitol Hill has failed. This movement to reunite America is gaining momentum because it starts with four fundamental shifts that are a vital part of fixing our politics.

From Confirming to Learning.
Anyone who thinks that political leadership means thinking that whatever we believe is automatically right – and anyone who disagrees with us is wrong – is not part of the solution. Simply confirming what one already knows is not leadership; it is an addiction to being right. The movement to reunite America is redefining leadership to be about learning rather than about being know-it-alls. (Check out Public Conversations Project, Everyday Democracy or Citizen University as examples of this shift.)

From Control to Relationship.
Particularly during elections, winning seems to be everything. “Controlling” the Congress and the White House appears to be the goal. But on the day after the election, whoever won or lost must forge a relationship with the opposition. Making relationships across the divide strong and healthy is today the key to accomplishing anything that endures. (Learn more from Living Room Conversations or the 2000-member National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation).

From Position-Taking to Problem-Solving.
America has a surplus of leaders with rigid positions and a deficit of leaders who solve problems. It’s time to reverse that imbalance. Across the country, a host of problem-solving organizations are gaining ground. (Examples include No Labels in Washington, D.C., to Future 500 in San Francisco, from the Village Square in Tallahassee to the American Public Square in Kansas City.)

From Endless Campaigning to Effective Governance.
The line between campaigning and governing used to be clear. Campaigns were brief preludes before Election Day, not never-ending tit-for-tat attacks that became a permanent part of civic life. But today campaigning is benefiting from unprecedented levels of investment, and governing is being paralyzed. Fortunately, from the offices of city mayors to state-level initiatives and even on the edges of Capitol Hill, red-blue coalitions are finding common ground on a wide range of policy issues ranging from criminal justice reform to education to defense spending. (The National Institute of Civil Discourse’s “Next Generation” project, for example, has convened across-the-aisle collaboration in scores of state legislatures.)

So we Americans do know how to work together. But we have to get past the soaring rhetoric from the right and the left about how they alone can “save America.” We have to get down to the real business of learning and applying boundary-crossing skills. If we actually want a “system that reflects our better selves,” let’s start with what works. Let’s take to scale the scores of projects where that is already happening.

You can find the original version of this Christian Science Monitor article at www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2016/0425/Four-ways-to-fix-American-politics?cmpid=gigya-tw.

Bridging Divides in the Methodist Church on LGBTQ Issues

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As we prepare to think together about how we can bridge our nation’s divides during our NCDD 2016 conference, there’s much to be learned from the piece we’ve shared below from the Public Conversations Project, an NCDD member organization. In it, PCP’s Jessica Weaver reflects on key lessons that can be learned how the Methodist Church has been dealing with its perennial conflict about LGBTQ people in the church. You can read her article below or find the original piece here.

Three Lessons About Embracing Difficult Conversations from The Methodist Church

PCP new logoAs you may have read in the last few weeks, a deep conflict within the Methodist Church has surfaced once again. More than 750 congregations within the Church have formed the Reconciling Ministries Network, which advocates for the inclusion of LGBT people in a denomination that has barred them from being ordained, and from marrying a person of the same sex.

“It’s the perennial issue that will not go away, and for better or for worse, it’s the main battle flag issue between the liberal side of the Church and the conservative side of the Church,” said Mark Tooley, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Religion & Democracy, as quoted in the Religion News Service.

Understandably, this conversation has a history of being emotionally and politically fraught, disrupting conversations, gatherings, and relationships. The narrative I’ve noticed emerging from major media outlets about this movement is that it’s a sign of struggle, of irrevocable conflict, of failure. But I look at this story and I see something beyond a deeply emotional, and seemingly intractable conflict. I see resilience, a willingness to come to the table in the midst of deep differences, and an intentional approach, not only to the outcome of this critical discussion, but to how those conversations take place and how relationships can be preserved. Here are three strengths I think we should celebrate amidst this very difficult – and very public – divide.

1. A perennial conflict isn’t a sign of failure, it’s a fundamental reality of being part of any human community: there are differences we have to live with, not overcome.

The mainstream media has drawn out notes of exasperation in its coverage of this resurfacing issue. From within the U.S., where same-sex marriage is legalized and supported by the majority of the American public, the Church’s struggle is being criticized as backwards and behind the times. Research reveals, however, that almost two-thirds of church members accept homosexuality in society, simply not within the Church (i.e. would not want the Church to ordain someone who identifies as LGBTQ). Broader social acceptance of gays and lesbians in American society is complicated by the Church’s recent expansion into regions of the world where homosexuality is flatly banned.

In other words, it’s far more complicated than “liberals vs. conservatives,” as a number of factors are pulling factions of the church in different directions. That it is once again up for debate is not a sign of the Church’s failure to engage in a difficult conversation, or a sign that previous conversations have failed. There will always be differences in identity: in sexual orientation, faith, and relationship to scripture. What matters most is the community’s continued willingness to engage in these difficult conversations; to keep listening through the hard conversations.

2. How the conversation happens is just as important as the outcome.

Before diving into the specifics of the issue, the Church’s top lawmaking assembly (the Commission on the General Conference) decided to define a structure for discussing this divisive and often emotional issue. “We need to expand the ways that we can make decisions and be in conversation with each other,” said Judi Kenaston, the commission’s chair. The resulting “Group Discernment Process” called for smaller committees to meet and draft petitions to be submitted to a larger body of elected members. On Wednesday, however, that process was voted down.

While deep disagreements persist around how to even have this conversation, at least the “how” is being broached with intentionality and transparency. That’s not the case for so many divisive community issues. So it seems the Methodist Church acknowledges something critically important: no constructive conversation can proceed without an effective process in place.

3. “Togetherness” isn’t a monolith, and it doesn’t mean consensus.

In such a divided environment, talk of schism or splintering has inevitably arisen. Prominent leaders in the Church have openly admitted that it’s a possible outcome, especially in the midst of such a polarized age, when the “nation’s third-largest denomination and many of the political and theological divisions that divide America into its red and blue camps.” Those same leaders, and many more, are also exploring the nuances of what “unity” means and are unwilling to prematurely name the future of the Church. Said the president of the Methodist Council of Bishops, “we remain open to new and innovative ways to be in unity. We will remain in dialogue with one another and others about how God may be leading us to explore new beginnings, new expressions, perhaps even new structures for our United Methodist mission and witness.”

So what we have here is messy. It’s the hard, raw stuff of deep differences and human pain. But it’s worth noticing when public conflicts are handled with resilience and curiosity instead of posturing and accusation. This is a community struggling to remain intact and understand exactly what that means, how to reconcile individual beliefs with a community’s story. Let’s not shame them; let’s name what they’re doing right.

You can find the original version of this Public Conversations Project piece at www.publicconversations.org/blog/three-lessons-about-embracing-difficult-conversations-methodist-church.

Join NICD’s “Revive Civility” Campaign this Election Season

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As many of you may have heard yesterday, the National Institute for Civil Discourse – one of our NCDD member organizations – just launched a new campaign, and we want to encourage our NCDD members to participate. The effort is known as the Revive Civility, Our Democracy Depends On It Campaign.

Through the campaign, NICD is inviting people across the country to join them in trying to shift from the toxic tone of US politics and the rhetoric that this year’s election is generating. They have laid out a strategy that they feel will give people options of actions to take to move our politics toward more civility and respect, and they’re asking for everyone – average citizens, media, and candidates – to sign on to their Standards of Conduct for civil politics.

But don’t take it from us. Below is the call the NICD has sent out to join the campaign:

Please join the National Institute for Civil Discourse as we launch our Revive Civility, Our Democracy Depends On It Campaign this Wednesday, May 25th: www.nicd.arizona.edu/revivecivility.

This nationwide campaign provides tools every American can use to help revive civility during one of the most negative campaigns we have seen. The citizen toolkit provides ideas and actions everyone can take to help Revive Civility.

On Wednesday, please go to our website, read our Standards of Conduct, and if you agree, sign them. Your support along with others across the country will help us get out the message that Civility Matters, especially when we are talking about the future of our country. Upon signing the Standards, you will become a Citizen for Reviving Civility, and we will send you a weekly bulletin on the Revive Civility campaign and how you can take action to revive civility in our politics and everyday lives.

Please also pass this information along to all your friends, colleagues and neighbors who are as concerned as the rest of us about the impact of the incivility in the 2016 campaign.

We encourage all of our NCDD members to consider signing on to the Standards of Conduct, and to spread the word to your networks. You can join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #ReviveCivility. We hope to see many of our members become Citizens for Reviving Civility!

Change for the Audacious: A Doer’s Guide

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We are happy to share the announcement below about a new resource available at a 25% discount for D&D practitioners. NCDD Member Steve Waddell of NetworkingAction shared the announcement below via our great Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Those working for large systems change have a new resource with the book Change for the Audacious: a doer’s guide.

It presents “large systems change” as an emerging field of practice and knowledge united by the need to involve many, many people and organizations in transformational change in contrast to incremental change. It draws on the author’s more than 30 years experience and the experience of leading practitioners around the world from diverse traditions such as community development, environmental concerns, peace building, corporate social responsibility, and spirituality / psychology.

The heart of the book is five examples of large systems change work: a global network developing “human revolution”, the German electricity transformation, apartheid in South Africa, marriage equality in the US, and our global environmental epochal shift to the anthropocene.

The book aims to present a comprehensive view of the large systems change behind this cases by identifying four core strategies, organizing structures and processes, a typology of tools that integrates NCDD’s Streams framework, and personal guidance for practitioners.

NCDD members can get a 25% discount by using the code “NCDD” by June 1st when they order here: www.networkingaction.net/product/change-for-the-audacious.