Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Richard Heinberg explores why societies become polarized and traces the causes and history of polarization in the U.S. He unpacks the dangers of polarization and the ways it tears societies apart, before seeing what can be done to reverse polarization.
Richard Heinberg explores questions about democracy and political polarization in the context of profound changes in environmental, economic, and technological conditions, including whether democracies or autocracies are better able to respond to crises.
This live online event features Lilliana Mason, Associate Professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and author of Radical American Partisanship, and Cecilie Surasky, Director of Communications & Narrative at the Othering & Belonging Institute. Post Carbon Institute’s Asher Miller will join Lilliana and Cecilie for an expansive conversation on the drivers of polarization and othering, and methods for fostering belonging and mutuality.
This live online discussion event features Trisha Dehrone, a PhD candidate and NSF Fellow at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Trisha has designed and analyzed interventions that bridge group differences in divided societies and has evaluated interventions in the U.S., Rwanda, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Journalist and podcaster Rachel Donald interviews Nichole Argo, co-director of the Needham Resilience Network, a coalition of community leaders working together to establish relationships across silos, support belonging (rather than othering), and co-create solutions to community problems. Rachel and Johanna discuss toxic polarization, why people get stuck in absolutism, and how to encourage belonging to achieve wellbeing for all. A mini-documentary on the Needham Resilience Network follows the interview.
This list of resources is meant to give Resilience+ members a collection of ideas, tools, and organizations that can help them better understand and respond to political polarization.
It was the cows themselves who had impressed on me so deeply this alignment with rhythms borne not of the mind but some deeper undercurrent, a trust that the quietness brings all into its own order.
How the Rojavan democracy was made to happen should be of deep interest to everyone seeking a democracy built and nurtured from the bottom up.
But the question remains, will New Yorkers invest that activist energy into cultivating sustainable ways to do more with less, while more equitably redistributing the shrinking pie, or simply force the redirection of goods from other parts of the world that have less power or force of will?
Faced with the towering set of concerns raised in this series, and the glaring unsustainability of modernity—which is not only familiar and comfortable, but seemingly essential for modern survival—it is natural that a top-of-mind question for many is: What Can I Do?
Rewilding, or what I present as kincentric rewilding, is the awakening of memory, the rising together into ancient dreams as a collective memoir of individuals and not just a collective, like loving letters cast carefully in crafted words within the most wonderfully magical sentences.
Social engineering is when a small group of people advance their own interests by using widespread, “industrial scale” messaging that goes out to large numbers of people, with the purpose to influence and shape their thinking, beliefs, values and decision making.
