Kent Shifferd: An appreciation

Aside from my Dad, the person who influenced me and mentored me more than any other human is the late Kent Shifferd, a peace historian and educator. I heard Dr. Shifferd give a talk at a small regional peace conference he organized at a college about 75 miles from where I was living on a pretty 40-acre forested site in my solar cabin with a lovely little river--a tributary to the St. Croix river, which itself was a tributary to the mighty Mississippi river. I was moving from there to Hayward, Wisconsin because my son wanted to live in a town, not in the woods, and I was working as a community organizer for Waging Peace, a collective of three of us--a former national AFSC organizer--Madge Cyrus--and a pastor's wife, Jeanne Larson. 

Hearing Kent planted a seed. Within a couple of years I sold my home in Hayward and moved to Ashland, Wisconsin, and started taking classes from him. His teaching content and style were revelatory, extremely engaged and engaging. His Ph.D. was in History so his Peace & Conflict Studies degree was history-centered but much more along the lines of those historians who bring the lessons of history straight into the news of the day. 

Kent also introduced me to the synthesis of peace and environmentalism, something I had come to on my own in a generalized fashion as an activist, but he turned it toward an academic melding of cause and effect for many of us. I recall one of my brilliant peace classmates (and my girlfriend for those years), Nikki Goldstein (now Nikki Main) writing a leaflet that we copied and handed out that she titled, Can you be a militarist and an environmentalist? It was before many were thinking about that connection and, in our case, it was an outgrowth of some of Kent's talks. He was even gracious enough to invite me to be a co-presenter of a workshop on exactly that at an academic conference when I was just a lowly undergraduate. 

Kent thought in structural, systemic terms and helped all of his students begin to do the same. Indeed, after he retired he wrote a great book that did all that exceedingly well, From War to Peace (Shifferd, 2011). I used it for several years in my Peace Studies class. 

Kent fired up the thirst for knowledge in his students--it certainly did so for me. I graduated from college top of my class, summa cum laude (back before there was Latin status inflation, so I was the only one of them in my graduating class). This was despite graduating in the bottom half of my high school graduating class and was largely due to Kent and his intellectual inspiration. 

Remarkably, Kent continued to boost my future even after. He co-created a blockbuster course, Dilemmas of War and Peace, offered through the University of Wisconsin Extension--distance learning in the pre-digital age. He succeeded in getting them to hire me to teach it as I was earning my masters degree, which broke a lot of rules and yet he did it. It furthered my education as I read the mammoth texts right along with students. Teaching an upper-division course with only a bachelor's degree was only possible because Kent created that opportunity for me. 

He didn't stop there in his profound effects on my life. When my resistance partner, the late Donna Howard and I did a Plowshares action of direct disarmament, Kent testified at our trial and set it up so the jury of 12 northwoods citizens understood how much I knew about the thermonuclear command center that we partially dismantled. The jury acquitted us on the major charge--Sabotage--thus obviating the potential for an extra decade in prison. The lesser charge, Destruction of Property, had no defense, we were convicted, and went to prison on a three-year sentence. 

So being part of our defense that succeeded in keeping us out of a long sentence was still not the end of Kent's powerful effects on my life. When I got out of prison, still on parole and wearing an ankle monitor, Kent called and said he was going to take a fall term sabbatical to do some writing and would I like to teach his Peace Studies course. Wow! Hells-yeah! I was super-excited and super-prepped because of not only taking that course from him but from teaching the amazing Dilemmas of War & Peace class he co-created.

So, one underpaid term as an adjunct--it was so enriching, so validating, so in line with what I wanted, but just temporary. Then, right in the middle of the fall term, my one and only semester, the college offered senior faculty a one-time early retirement payout and both Kent and Pat, his wife and Sociologist, took it. Kent called again, told me, and said he recommended to the Dean that I be hired on an ongoing basis until a national search could replace me. The Dean agreed and Kent basically handed me the Peace and Conflict Studies major and minor that he had created years before--the first one in Wisconsin.

Yes, my father shaped me most of all, but Kent was a close second. And, like my father, Kent kept friends on all sides of all questions except those that dealt with basic human rights. He modeled that for all his students, and it was no wonder that former military were avid peace students of his. 

Kent Shifferd, Ph.D., lived an examined life, standing up for peace, for people, and for the Earth. 

Shifferd, Kent D. (2011). From war to peace: A guide to the next hundred years. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Calling: in our out?

For many years I've noticed that the most effective activists have been those who refrain from the most negative aspects of woke culture, i.e., calling people out. That is relationally destructive and alienating. Calling them in is far more effective and can enhance the elements you describe. I raised two mixed-race boys as a single Dad. I learned that if I wanted them to have a better life, I needed to call in anyone who used racially offensive language instead of calling them out. For example, if someone used the n-word, I would tell them something like, "You're a better man than that." Calling them in like that opens their mind to a different reality in which they question their own racism rather than being defensive about it. Using conflict management techniques that elicit the best emotional qualities is part of how transformation happens. 

Culture Club

In the best workbook on how to be a consensus organizer (Ohmer & DeMasi, 2009), the authors begin a detailed roadmap to help introduce consensus organizing to virtually any organization with two words: "Be curious" (p. 304).

As anyone knows who has despaired of the culture within an organization of which they are a part, this is an even tougher problem at times than a radical revision of policies because it gets deeper than the what? and confronts the why? in any organization. 

Being curious is how we evolve as individuals and as collectives. Failure to do so is often framed as respect for those who came before or those who founded whatever organization of which we are a part. It can lead to a stagnant, ossified, hidebound group incapable of relating to the rest of the world, unable to meet challenges or change, even if they align with some triumphant party. As this is written, it is exactly what has happened to many Christian evangelicals, hyper-religious people who latch onto anyone who pretends to champion one or more of their goals. That people who call themselves devout followers of Jesus should virtually bow down to an immoral philandering conman like Donald Trump is an astonishing case of failure to be curious. Indeed, at one event I witnessed a peace person--a small woman holding an apolitical sign for peace--yelled at by a self-identified Christian, "Jesus said 'An eye for an eye!" It was an amazing instance of a profound ignorance of the New Testament, which repudiates the eye-for-an-eye approach. Stuck in the retributive and jealous God Old Testament, exhibiting a failure to even be curious about a "new" shift some 2000 years ago, is how some get almost hopelessly stuck.

But Ohmer and DeMasi's advice to start with "be curious" can help shake up an organizational culture. Kwame Christian (2018) also focuses on that orientation, calling it "compassionate curiosity." Similarly, the iconic civil rights strategist, the late Reverend James Lawson, advised civil society campaigns to always begin with a thorough assessment and investigation into all aspects of a question, of a general goal, of any deciders and influencers, and of any potential opposition. 

This is how any investigator starts--police, lawyer, researcher, and it should be how any social campaign or community organization begins anything.

References

Christian, Kwame (2018). Finding confidence in conflict. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Zg65eK9XU&t=325s

Ohmer, Mary L. & DeMasi, Karen (2009). Consensus organizing: A community development workbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bedtime stories in the nightmare house of our mind

Grenny, et al. (2023) give examples of how we tell ourselves stories, sometimes blindingly fast, that can lead to flare-ups and destructive conflict. For instance, I work hard to create a course that gives students numerous paths to success, with self-actualizing options that can earn them extra credit. I not only quickly provide required accommodations for students with disabilities as the Disability Resource Center on my campus sends me notices about individual students, I informally create additional accommodations for students who are studying under circumstances I regard as special and worthy of greater leeway. I ask for notice in week one introductions to let me know if English is not their first language. If so, I set the online quizzes to allow them extra time. When I find out a student is a single parent, working, and studying full time, I am quick to grant extensions for assignments that are due. All this is extra work for me that I happily do to help students I regard as climbing the mountain of higher education while also carrying extra burdens. 

Imagine my internal storytelling when a new student begins by posting snarky comments about the required assignments, then contacts me privately to instruct me on exactly how they expect me to accommodate them, with some snappish or snarky element in every email. Finally, they accuse me of ableism.

In the wild I would likely react with some expression indicative of how angry I felt. As a professional faculty member, I don't. But my inner story has me quite defensive, with an interpretation of the student's character and motives. That story began with the first dismissive post and was underscored with each communication. 

As a professional who has begun to learn about trauma-informed care, however, I can change the stories I tell myself. I can recall times past when I was in pain and lashed out, and can allow for that possibility for the student who is dysfunctionally and unfairly confrontive. I can hold back from coming to any conclusion until more context is available.

What Grenny, et al. say about this is that we can deëscalate ourselves fairly quickly when we look to the conclusions we reach really quickly and question the possibility of other stories that might plausibly lead to different interpretations. We can then choose to seek more context or, if we feel the other is too intent on off-loading their pain by inflicting it on others, we can step away, or, as William Ury tells us, Go to the balcony--stand aside and observe our own role and those of others in a time of reflection. These steps can help us avoid what Kwame Christian notes is the amygdala hijack--the sudden takeover of our minds by the most primitive part of our brain, that which evolved to spring us into fight, flight, abject surrender, or posing as scary in the face of existential threat.

References

Christian, Kwame (2018). Finding confidence in conflict. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Zg65eK9XU&t=325s

Grenny, Joseph; Patterson, Kerry; McMillan, Ron; Switzler, Al; Gregory, Emily (2023). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. 3rd ed. VitalSmarts.

Ury, William (2014). Go to the balcony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXFoCzjdozQ

Outsider Alert!

There are three ways community organizers approach a community and possible external resources. 

One, let the community know that outside resources are crucial to any possibility of success and that without some major assistance or dealmaking with external parties success in reaching any community goals would be unlikely. 

Two, reinforce any and all suspicions the community may have of external parties and counsel rejection of any overtures to the community from the outside.

Three, facilitate negotiations with external parties if the community sees potential advantages, and help get valid guarantees against any unethical practices that can harm the community in any way. Also help fend off external approaches that the community is convinced are malicious at some level. 

The adversarial-orientation of some community organizers is adaptive at times and dysfunctional at others. A good consensus organizer doesn't push a point of view, but takes cues from the community and applies skills as they can further the success of reaching goals the community has developed via processes as close to consensus as possible. Once that bonding has created a community prepared to do more effective outward-facing negotiations, a good consensus organizer will assist in developing the bridging relationships that can benefit the community.

In short, grappling with the questions surrounding partnerships with outside groups or people is sometimes eliciting enough to explore the possibilities thought impossible until now. Acknowledging the high barriers and risks and asking, So, can we think of any way that being in partnership with that company can help us without any serious risks? 

Some dialog coaches or community organizers call this eliciting process a query into the "magic wand" ideation that can prompt actual creativity without any imagined constraints, just an aspirational vision. If the community can imagine no risk-free way to make such a partnership succeed, even on a limited basis, it is likely that such a discernment process will produce a more unified rejection and some deeper consideration of some of the variables that may not have emerged previously. It is also very likely that one or more community members will feel that they have contributed valuable insights to their neighbors, which continues the process of cohesion and asset mapping.

Organizing with humility

In one of the James Lawson Institutes, a professional community organizer told us that one of the rules on their crew was that if any one of their names was mentioned in any news story that person would buy beers for everyone that day. It was a lighthearted "punishment" meant to underscore the centering of the community members, not the organizers. 

On the Portland Peace Team, we teach "listening with humility," which includes practices such as paraphrasing but not telling the person what they said. Instead, offer something like, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I think you said..." You hand them the power to control the message, showing them respect, which can serve to deëscalate them and assure them that someone is truly listening. 

At one of the Indigenous Environmental Network gatherings, this one in Oregon, I was doing some interviewing of some of the leaders in attendance for possible use at a tribal station back where I was then living, in northern Wisconsin. I approached Winona LaDuke, easily the Native American leader at that gathering of a few hundred with the most name recognition in tribal country or in the US. She told me, "Interview that young indigenous Chicana first. Then interview that Apache elder. Once you've interviewed them, I will sit with you." LaDuke was practicing what we might call organizing with humility, centering others and helping those who did some media work to do the same. This is part of consensus organizing. 

Which women deserve rights?

 (Hint: All)

In the Oxford University Press peace text Approaches to Peace: A reader in peace studies, 4th ed., David Barash writes about the evolution of human rights and international law, noting that, pertaining to the humans who make up more than half of the species--women--rights in many societies in both previously colonized and colonizer nations are often protected more often for men.

"...forced seclusion and isolation of women in certain contemporary Hindu and Muslim societies; sexual mutilation, as currently practiced on millions of young women in numerous African societies; polygyny; restricted or nonexistent choice as to marriage; substantial discrimination regarding educational opportunities, especially in some conservative Islamic countries, and--even in such ostensibly liberated societies as that of the U.S. and the UK--restricted economic and professional opportunities along with underrepresentation in political life" (p. 187).

We see it in the US in large pockets of various subcultures, such as Christian nationalists who abide by some of their pastors' commands[1] to women to vote as their husbands instruct them to vote. Donald Trump--who famously threatens to sue any school he attended which releases his transcripts--consistently refers to women he likes as "really attractive," and women he doesn't like as "dumb" (or equivalents[2] to those terms). It absolutely follows that "conservative" politicians and "justices" are anything but conservative with the rights of women, overturning a half century of a woman's right to make her own health care decisions.

This moral arc of the universe is not a smooth one, with some jagged edges as rights fought for and won are erased, setting the stage for the next struggle to both regain lost rights and win new ones. That is the long story, which will only continue when we help each other and the next generations understand what previous generations suffered, struggled for, and succeeded in getting.

References

Barash, D. P. (Ed.) (2018). Approaches to peace: A reader in Peace Studies (4^th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

 

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/01/maga-trump-men-supporters-womens-rights

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/21/trump-harris-dumb-stupid-low-iq/

Systemic conversion: War to peace

In a war system, the rational thing to do is to strive for global dominance by means of overwhelming force.

--Kent Shifferd (2011, p. 98)

Kent Shifferd (1940-2024), a renaissance man of the highest order, started the first Peace and Conflict Studies academic degree program in Wisconsin. I was one of his many students in his 30+ years of teaching. We, his students, knew that he would challenge us with the logic of the destructive methods of conflict before seeking, with us, a path to the constructive methods of conflict. We knew two things when we finished such deliberations: 1) We would be facilitated to find possibilities in the most collaborative possible way, and, 2) Dr. Shifferd would gently intervene to help us regain momentum if we began to sputter and stall. 

In the end, in his 2011 book From War to Peace: A guide to the next hundred years, was all about the incremental yet quickest and surest road to a peace system, something which would all but obviate the need or even the possibility of war. He never had a magic one-step whoosh of a wand, but rather the recognition of the infinite subsystems that needed conversion from war to peace, thereby flattening the hierarchy of peacemakers. A preschool teacher could account for a key component of such conversion as well as a Pentagon strategic planner or an elected official. Everyone is part of a system every day and Dr. Shifferd's challenge to all of us was to be, insofar as daily possible, a great or small part of converting some societal subsystem away from war and toward peace. That is a feminist, uplifting, nurturing analysis and picture of a line of sight from war system to peace system.

References

Shifferd, Kent D. (2011). From war to peace: A guide to the next hundred years. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Make America Hate Again

I'm writing this bit three days before the 2024 US election. Jess Bidgood just noted in the New York Times[1] that: 

When Trump won the presidency in 2016, the Me Too movement had not yet forced a reckoning among women about the way sexism shaped their lives. The Dobbs decision had not turned women’s right to an abortion into a matter of geographic privilege, nor had it imprinted searing stories about those denied care into the national consciousness.

It is this logic that persuades me that the polls are wrong; Harris will sweep the swing states and run the table. Mark my words. Also know how erroneous I have been in the past about these matters. Perhaps I have made a career out of overestimating the decency of the American people, my people, my fellow citizens, co-workers, and neighbors...

Nah. I got one thing right every time; where I live I understand. What I have come to realize is that the US is not some extension of where I live. I've lived in Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Oregon. Where I've lived and when I've lived there the voters--my people, my country fellows, voted for good decent people, and I joined them. 

When I lived in Massachusetts I could feel the strength of the George McGovern campaign--but, as it turned out, only in the state where I lived. 

Obviously, the common decency of the folks in Minnesota when Walter Mondale lost big was my environment, but more isolated than I understood. 

 When I lived in Wisconsin it was safe for me to vote for Winona LaDuke (yeah, and Ralph Nader) because it was overwhelmingly clear that Al Gore would take the state, so my vote was not "thrown away." It's been the same in Oregon. 

So the fact that I "know" that Harris is about to win and Trump is about to become a sadass footnote is something to take with a block of salt.

But if Trump wins fair and square it will fire up the secessionist in me. His time in the White House was the longest lucid nightmare of my life; I have no desire to enter that waking horror picture show again. Maybe a new Confederacy can secede, but without the violence this time. 

---

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/us/politics/harris-trump-womens-health-election.html

 

But isn't the Third Side much more work?

It has been noted that cities with the highest crime rates are "liberal" cities. 

Yes, and the bulk of the populace expresses that via voting for empathic human social safety nets, which helps both the deserving poor and the criminal poor. We know that. 

The Third Side challenge is to have both empathic social services and robust law enforcement, which would feature restorative justice and rehabilitation in proven ways to reduce recidivism. We can be both empathic and strong on law and order. 

The ongoing challenge is that cities with strong social safety nets constantly attract new people from elsewhere who need that, some of whom prey on others. It's much more work to be a successful liberal city than a lock-em-up or light-em-up rightwing city. But many of us feel it's worth the work.

The mystic and sandals on the ground

Fisher and Ury accomplished enormous things nationally and internationally by their method of principled negotiation. It is so clear and straightforward. In my pantheon of core readings in conflict, I include the little text from Lederach, literally called The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, because he speaks to aspects in a more metaphorical and even mystical manner that I find piercingly revealing. 

I was fortunate enough to attend some of his talks at Notre Dame some years ago and he asked me to lunch one day. His commitment to work with the most disregarded people in the world, people in conflict but not doing so in violent ways, was inspiring. He told me of his work with the most disregarded people in Nepal, the landless tribal people who basically survive outside the official economy, outside the official political structure, owning nothing, living in the forests. 

Lederach said he's told those foundations who fund his work that, while it's a boost to get a one-time grant to do some work for a year, he would no longer seek funding that isn't committed to less than a decade. "The people on the ground--literally on the ground--in places like the indigenous villages along the coast of Nicaragua or the deep forests of Nepal need a sustained commitment to build sustainable structures of justice that serve to shield them from the traditional dominance and oppression inflicted on them from the governments of their countries. This requires long process work, not a flash of only a year." 

It was one of the most illuminating conversations I've ever had. Lederach is revered in the field of Conflict Transformation for his vision, groundtruthing based on lived, direct experience, and his penetrating analysis. Some find his work impenetrable, some find it the most revelatory of any writer in our field.

Increase the peace

"How do we address conflict in ways that reduce violence and increase justice in human relationships?" (Lederach, 2003, p. 20)

Far too often, vexingly, justice is defined as punishment, even killing. "Our family demands justice!" as they clamor for the death penalty. "Lock her up! Lock her up!" is framed by some as a call for justice. 

Part of the core approach inherent in the discipline of Conflict Transformation is that nonviolent methods achieve more justice and more sustainable justice than the tired old notions of justice by additional harm. 

This is not a path toward cowardice and injustice. This is not about abolishing law or law enforcement. This is not about allowing bullies to do what they want without costs. It's also not about Just War doctrines. 

Instead, it's about imposing costs that don't physically harm people's bodies. Those costs may be imposed in many other ways, which is the challenge to creativity rather than the simplistic "hang 'em high" code of vengeance.

Lederach, John Paul (2003). The little book of conflict transformation. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

Ubuntu

Each culture has its own landmark philosophies and practices. With its many (44-51) countries, European philosophies and social norms and tools vary in the popular literature from country to country, culture to culture. However, even with its 54 nation-states and hundreds of historically distinct tribal or linguistic nations, some Eurocentric scholars, philosophers, and intercultural "experts" refer to Ubuntu as "African" humanism, encapsulating the norms, ethics, and humanistic values of the most diverse continent on Earth. 

This is clearly reductionist (Ujomu, 2024). Nevertheless, enough indigenous African cultures, especially at the tribal granularity levels, call Ubuntu their locus of social values, some of them stressing consensus processes, some stressing rationality and the African version of what Europeans call the Enlightenment. Far more than any European culture (except possibly Romany), Ubuntu also encompasses a collectivist view of life, of decisions made--even about the direction of a villager's life--by a far more consensus and collectivist method.

One of the most helpful questions might be, "Where has Western culture stumbled, failing many?" While Western cultures have clearly succeeded at a great deal, is there something they can learn from others, from indigenous ideas and practices? Bringing an intercultural lens to conflict, to decision-making, to philosophy, to ethics, and to problem-solving can be what William Ury refers to as Possible (2024). In short, what are the ideas from elsewhere that may solve heretofore perduring, seemingly intractable conflictual problems? 

As my father--our hockey coach when I was a boy--used to say, "When you are losing, change something." 

References

Ujomu, P. O. (2024). ‘Ubuntu’ African Philosophy or ‘Ubuntu’ as a Philosophy for Africa? Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi, 33(5), 53–90. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.58945/UYHB1683

Ury, William (2024). Possible: How we survive (and thrive) in an age of conflict. Harper Business.

My strength is what counts!...well...

Folks who develop a great position leading into a negotiation, and whose work on their power produces a great alternative to an actual agreement can come to a rude surprise at times. The feeling when one has thought through what one can accomplish without any negotiation is a dangerous assumption unless "the other side's" best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) is also well understood (Fisher, Ury & Patton, 2011, p. 167).

One key to a successful process is to know the difference between a bottom line--the absolute minimum you will accept--and the BATNA--what you achieve unilaterally, with no agreement. The bottom line is not something to share ("I can only go as high as $4000" is not a wise opening line to a used car salesperson). The BATNA, on the other hand, is best made quite transparent. Why?

When I am made aware that my opponent is capable of proceeding with another party toward a project that we are negotiating over, and if I really want that project to go forth with me integrally involved, I will tend to negotiate in better faith and look for ways to enhance collaboration, even ceding some power and rights that clearly matter more to the other party and not so much to me. That means it was quite advantageous for the other party to be open about their BATNA so that I understood their ability and willingness to just go ahead without me. And of course I want to be transparent about my BATNA if I want to incentivize them to negotiate in good faith with me, to really see their benefit in trying to work something out.

Of course it's crucial and best practice to do one's due diligence in investigating the BATNA revelation of the other party. If it turns out to be exaggerated, that only makes me the more powerful party in the talks. By the same token, I need to be crystal clear and correct when I reveal my BATNA, understating it a bit to be safe. I want to help them get to yes, not seem as though I'm trying to swindle them or bluff.

Understanding each other's alternatives is often a way to increase the desire to negotiate earnestly. On the other hand, if their BATNA is quite strong and I am not willing to give in much, they will likely see the futility of continuing to spend time and energy on negotiating with me. These are all important considerations that may or may not lead to an agreement, but they do make conditions more efficient for all parties.

In short, all this is essentially the direct opposite of what we often see in "peace talks" or "ceasefire negotiations," when apparently nobody is at the table in good faith, only to provide performative optics for public consumption, the opposite of best practices aiming for wise outcomes.

Reference

Fisher, Roger; Ury, William; Patton, Bruce (2011). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. (3^rd ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. 

People pleasers and principles

People pleasers are wonderful, and are ultimately suffering from self-harm if they yield on principle because of pressure. A former student of mine will always be a people pleaser, but he has built a successful career by only yielding to pressure that doesn't violate his principles. He took his Conflict Resolution degree and applied to be Human Resources Director for a franchise of seven restaurants. Even though there was no mention of Conflict Resolution in the job application announcement, he was about 15 minutes into the job interview when the owner of this string of restaurants said, "You're hired. This is exactly what we need."  The owner held no more interviews.

Now, two years later, my former student runs the employment of more than 300 people, with conflict management systems and subsystems that keep the inevitable conflicts from growing to harmful proportions. He does all this by being a people pleaser whose principles still ultimately serve as his beacons, his guardrails. He has, for example, managed conflicts that have included overt racism, conflicts that his boss, the owner of these seven restaurants, was willing to compromise on, but my former student was not. In instances like this, our principles can theoretically get us fired, and sometimes they do. 

Usually, however, when we show that we are of value, we can uphold our principles against all odds without dire consequences, even if it looks like we are not going to be people pleasers in this case. The longer we have shown our value, the more this is true. 

My former student--his name is Adam--literally finishes virtually every conversation with a version of, "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help." Could there be any more obvious definition of a people pleaser? Still, he never yields on principle, and he makes that a feature, not a bug, of his mode of management style. He's so good at relieving the pressures on others that, when he stands for something, the pressures on him, in turn, diminish.

BTW, as I write this, he has applied for a position in a neighboring state that would be much like his current position, except he'd be overseeing literally an order of magnitude more people in multiple states--more than 3,000 of them--and his salary would be approximately doubled. Not bad for a people pleaser...

Calling a penalty

How do we short-circuit that amygdala hijack in ourselves?

William Ury writes and speaks about "going to the balcony," to take a break and observe without acting or reacting.

In a football game, the ref might throw a red flag to stop the game and rule on a penalty committed by a player.

When can we call a penalty on ourselves and why would we do that?

If we are "seeing red" we are so enraged we may say to ourselves, the hell with conflict transformation, mediation, and win-win. Fire someone. Divorce. Quit a job. Sue somebody. Lock them out. It's a battle and only one is going to win.

Sadly, while absolutely understandable and commonplace, that amygdala hijack is no longer as adaptive as it was when we were up against a bear coming into our cave in prehistoric times. Despite Hollywood versions of the amygdala hijack being just what we need on a routine basis, in real life it is a losing path in the overwhelming majority of situations. Not only does it usually result in a lose-lose outcome, or even a complete victory for the other guy, it damages reputations and future prospects in most cases. "He's not dumb, but he lets his temper control him instead of him controlling his temper." "She's abrasive." "He is abusive to his staff." "She is abrupt and insulting."

This can result in a feedback loop in which someone hears about your prickly nature and either avoids working with you or begins an interaction aggressively in order to gain the advantage over your well known aggression. You may have only acted in service to your amygdala once but now it's triggered more frequently because people "know" that's how you engage and so they come into relationship with you doing the things they believe they need to in order to handle your normal manner of reacting to conflict of any sort.

This is why calling a penalty on myself is helpful. When I feel my self-control beginning to slip away as I'm triggered and my amygdala begins to assert dominance over my attitude and actions, my vestigial pre-frontal cortex, my executive, evolved portion of my brain needs to toss a red flag, calling a halt to the game. I need to leave the field and walk up the long stairs to the balcony, as William Ury advises.

Sometimes that means literally leaving the room, hanging up the phone, or exiting the Zoom session. If possible, do so in a way that leaves some hope. "OK, I have to pause to think about all this. We can talk later. I'll process some of this and get back to you." But if your only choice is Attack or Leave, you will almost always be best served by just leaving. Harsh words linger. They can taint future interactions far more than the abrupt exit.

In it to win it

Hibakusha won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. The history of the organization and of the Japanese government's efforts to warn the world that nuclear arms are little more than a suicide pact is an important one right now. Those weapons, like so many aspects of war, are dependent on lies and cover-ups, as well as hidden agendas. 

Hiroshima is the classic, canonical piece that helped the US citizenry and others understand the effects of "just" one atomic bomb, written by John Hersey and published in 1946 first in The New Yorker and then as a small and highly influential book. I would estimate that literally tens of millions of us have read it, based on observations of the immediate aftermath: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima

The next iconic writing read by many more millions of us came out in 1982 in The New Yorker, also published subsequently as a book, Fate of the Earth, by Jonathan Schell. It was published on the cusp of the Euromissile Crisis of 1983, when Ronald Reagan was flippantly musing that nuclear war could be waged in Europe, confined to Europe, and that we could win it. Europe lost its collective mind at that ignorant, provocative US presidential idiocy and tens of thousands were arrested across the continent, largely at the gates of US military bases there, bases that not only were on other nation's "sovereign" soil but that housed US nuclear missiles, making them all absolute targets by Soviet SS-20s, which were not all that far away, and which were more crude, bigger, and more susceptible to accidental launch in periods of tension. Schell and the Nuclear Freeze movement were largely prompted by the analysis of Randy Forsberg, a previously little-known American analyst working at a disarmament organization in Scandinavia. She published alarming findings in the late 1970s, ironically based on the combination of the Cold War posturing and weapons production by the US under Jimmy Carter and the Soviets under a succession of strongmen leaders. https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1982-02-01/flipbook/046/

I was privileged to meet the late Randy Forsberg in St Louis at a national Nuclear Freeze conference, as we ramped up thousands of volunteers to get the Freeze onto the ballots of any state with initiative and referendum. We succeeded in doing so in many states--every one we tried except Arizona. It was, and still is, the largest direct democracy exercise in American history (in contrast to representative democracy, in which we vote for a person to make policy, direct democracy, as we use in Oregon and some other states, allows citizens to create and vote on particular public policy). 

After observing the impressive power of our global movement to rise up against the stupidest nuclear initiatives, Jonathan Schell went on to study and write about it in another book, Unconquerable world: Power, nonviolence, and the will of the people. Like many of us, he was interested in it strategically, not so much as a philosophy or as some religious mandate. Indeed, I met him in New York at Manhattan College where he gave a talk to an academic association for which I was co-chair for a couple terms, the Peace and Justice Studies Association. As he separated his thinking about the power of nonviolence as mass action contrasted with the nice but usually ineffective religous commitment to nonviolence, he challenged those who eschewed the strategic focus, "I am so tired of going down in noble defeat," he said, really summing up the weakness of just acting out of a wish to be a nice person. 

Indeed, at another such conference earlier in Albany, New York, the father of nonviolence history, Dr. Gene Sharp, offered a similar challenge. He said that reliance on nice ethical and moral values was fine as a baby first step but pointed to the many times when nonviolent action was victorious and they were essentially all based on a careful strategy, mixing politics, resistance, and media work.

Yes, part of the strategy is willingness to suffer, to sacrifice for the advancement of the campaign. In that, there is effectively no difference from a military campaign. The idea is to win, and in the case of social movements, winning is dependent on remaining nonviolent and thus increasingly attractive to, and recruiting from, the greater populace. 

Golden bridging and bonding

Sun Tzu advised leaders to build a golden bridge over which your opponent can retreat. In other words, make any option except retreat seem inadvisable and unattractive. Corner your adversary so that even a modest gain can seem preferable to massive loss. Do not make them fight to the death; do not make them choose between losing face or experiencing massive loss. The sense of an honorable "negotiated" outcome is a way to tie up the conflict faster and make the outcome more sustainable. A home on the French Riviera for the dictator is a small price to end a brutal war. 

The other common use of bridge in our social science lexicon was most popularized by Robert Putnam in his germinal volume, Bowling Alone. Putnam's exegesis called the relational development within a community "bonding" and the relational development between a community and an external party "bridging." 

For example, a community that is in a food desert is approached by a grocery chain specializing in health foods and it buys the building first, only eventually announcing their plans. They are resisted by the community and eventually give up, sell the building, and move somewhere else.

A good community organizer might have worked on the bridging possibilities to get the external party to develop a relationship first, discuss advantages to the community, and to ask the community to help plan its move, and to just generally listen. That bridging can be a golden bridge bringing advantages back and forth to both the external investor and to the community. 

Build more golden bridges...

Set the table

Every conflict transformation authority says it in some fashion: if you fail to invite all the stakeholders to meetings you will more likely fail in your project because you convince the neglected parties that you don't respect them or you intend to deceive them. 

What?! You do not disrespect them! You have no intention of deceiving them! Why would they jump to either or both of those erroneous conclusions?

Say it: Human Nature. If Mom gives your brother a big grilled cheese and only gives you a half, or a small one, you feel left out and you will often wail until you are treated better, but that may just as easily lead to you being punished or treated even worse. This can set up some lifetime issues, especially when you begin to socialize outside the family and a couple other children ignore you and clearly just want to play together without you. Hateful!

Yes, there are those who are either extraordinarily well adjusted or who have been trained not to jump to ill-informed conclusions, but most days they feel like the minority. 

If you are part of a planning group, double check with your colleagues. Who needs to be in the loop? Who needs a voice in the deliberations as we make our group decisions? Make sure you've really given this full consideration.

So what if someone mistakenly feels disrespected or left out? Why is that your problem?

From business deals to neighborhood initiatives to peace accords to any number of decision-making processes, those who feel scorned can become spoilers--the ones who manage to halt all forward motion. They might do so in any number of ways and, by the time they do, you may not understand that all you had to do was include them from the beginning and they would have been just one voice in the negotiated goals of the group, rather than the one who felt humiliated and whose blood was up seeking to inflict hurt in return. 

Bill Ury writes about the various "tables" that stakeholders should be at. One is the general table of parties who may ultimately be affected by whatever project we devise, but the other, earlier table is the internal parties as we contemplate what sort of possible project we wish to launch. 

Plotting to lose--I know how!

One of the stupidest, most ineffective, maladaptive approaches is very common in Portland, Oregon, which is to dehumanize and vilify cops. ACAB is a common spraypainted bit if poor activism and when it is chanted at cops it's just beyond a loser practice. It's the sort of thing that an undercover cop would do as an agent provocateur in order to make sure the campaign fails.

I've worked with the Serbs who overthrew Milosevic and they went out of their way to draw police and soldiers to them, which they achieved in three ways. 

One, cops stopped beating them. 

Two, cops got out of their way. 

Three, at the end, cops and soldiers joined them. 

The nonviolent campaign to overthrow Augusto Pinochet in Chile did the same thing. It was brutal, the campaign worked to recruit the armed agents of the state, and the beatings and arrests stopped even as--after a three-day stalemate in which the people knew they had voted out Pinochet but he remained in the presidential palace while the streets filled with demonstrators--the other generals announced that they accepted the vote of the people. 

This sort of dynamic is part of many of the stories of successfully defending democracy against autocrats. I would mark it as the most important sub-theme of defending democracy against election theft. 

Does peace count?

Who counts the costs of war? Historically--and sadly, still in many "analyses," the costs of war are just two, referred to reflexively as "blood and treasure." 

Stop. Please stop. 

The battlefield deaths are the blood. The money it takes to wage war is the treasure. In truth, those are simply the obvious opening costs. More include, but are not limited to: 

·       pollution

·       infrastructure

·       mental health

·       education

·       healthcare

·       morals

·       norms and ethics

·       cultural care and compassion

·       regard for the humanity of all

These costs linger for years, sometimes generations. They produce populations whose distorted outlooks auger new destruction--the victors viewing others as inferior and the losers nursing deep desires for vengeance no matter how long it takes. 

Breaking the war cycle means unilateral sacrifice for the long-term greater good. This is hard. Often that unilateral sacrifice is destined to come from traumatized people, making it immeasurably harder. But it's been done, movingly so, from time-to-time. 

·       Liberian women set aside all legitimate desire for revenge and ended their poor country's godawful war.

·       Serbians who had been victimized horrifically by Slobodan Milosevic set aside their historical culture of vendetta and used mass nonviolence to bring down the dictator. 

·       Chileans, repressed violently for more than a decade and a half, rose up in joy and resistance, ending the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and restoring democracy.

·       Filipinos and Filipinas had been traumatized by brute force under Marcos for many years and yet set all the normal need for a bloodbath aside to nonviolently stop a civil war. 

The list goes on. People have proven again and again we are not irrevocably chained to the ultimate dysfunctional craving for vengeance and bloodshed. 

We cannot change the past. But the future is ours to create anew.

Hating hate, war on war, victory over political enemies, and other malfunctioning approaches

To transform conflict, transformative methods are required. If our primary goal is to gain decisive victory over others, we will quickly resort to destructive methods--demonizing the other, using parliamentary tricks that flout ethical standards, and lying when "necessary." 

As this is written we in the US are finishing the 2024 election season and one side is relying on this method every day. Opponents are called enemies, they are given pejorative nicknames, and the lies are both planned and spontaneous. When fact-checked and proven false, there is no acknowledgement, certainly no apology, I'm constantly reminded of Nixon's deplorable maxim, "Contrition is bullshit." 

While engaging in word battles in the political trenches isn't going to always give us infinite patience or good humor, it remains a polestar aspiration to heed Michele Obama, "When they go low, we go high." 

Or, in the poem[1] from more than a century ago by Edward Markham, 
“He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!”

(Edwin Markham, 1852-1940)

This contrast in models is evident as well in evolving community organizing. While breakout organizers like Saul Alinsky showed us how to roll up our sleeves, do battle, and win, evolving approaches have given us a gentler paradigm, not meant to skirt tough struggles but to leave the door open a bit to unity, to consensus, and to growing, however slowly, toward Dr. King's Beloved Community. The best workbook on these newer models is one from a school of thought and action called Consensus Organizing (Ohmer & DeMasi, 2009).

From a focus on what works (asset mapping) to developing next-gen youth leadership to rigorous assessment and evaluation, community organizers are far more likely to succeed sustainably by creating the parallel structures based on egalitarian and transformative values and practices. 

Reference

Ohmer, Mary L. & DeMasi, Karen (2009). Consensus organizing: A community development workbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

---

[1] https://hebfdn.org/echoes/outwitted/