🎧Ep18: Our Broken System is Dividing Us
“America belongs to everyone who lives here.”
It's time to upgrade our democracy. If you're fed up with the status quo and want to catalyze political and societal change, you're in the right place.
The Omni-Win Project Podcast is ready to shed light on the many opportunities we have to revolutionize our political culture.
We’re all in this together, so join us in co-creating the future of democracy.
Episode #18: “We Must Change Our Broken System” with Guy and Heidi Burgess (Part Two)
Watch here:
Listen here:
This week, Guy and Heidi Burgess are back to finish their conversation with Duncan.
Check out the episode notes for the first part, and listen here.
While it’s important to break down oppressive structures, we don’t have a concrete vision for what we’d replace them with. How can we ensure the replacement system doesn’t continue oppressing others? Duncan explains how important nonviolent protest is for real change.
Guy and Duncan talk about the importance of treating the “losers” of any political process fairly and respecting their views. We need to be able to empathize with people, even when we don’t agree with them.
We have to open up to new perspectives, and Heidi tells a moving story about the power of bringing different viewpoints together.
Highlights in this episode:
Guy talks about the importance of how we treat the “losers” in our current election system.
Heidi explains why we have to start at the end.
Guy talks about why forcing our views on other people is wrong, but we all have a right to an opinion.
Heidi tells a powerful anecdote about abortion.
Discover why certain books with progressive-sounding views are actually making the situation worse.
Learn the difference between neutrality and impartiality.
Duncan explains the importance of empathy, even when we don’t understand or agree with someone.
Understand how we inadvertently drive hostility and extremism.
Guy: “Part of the test of making a democracy really work is what happens to the losers. If you have a democracy in which somebody who comes up with this 51% really can hammer the other side, then all elections become absolutely positively, you just can't lose. And once that's the case, then you will use any and all means available to win.
And if you have to go outside of the norms and laws of democracy, so be it. If it has to be violent, so be it. So the real key is, if you think you're gonna win, to reassure the losers that their interests will be protected. That you're not gonna be crazy about this.
One of the speeches that I always played for my students was King's ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. A big part of that was reassuring people that this was not gonna be a continuing demand and we're always gonna be angry and there's no way through this. It was a relatively tightly focused set of policy changes that he wanted, and they got with the Civil Rights Act and all of that.
And it wasn't this open-ended long-term hostility. And that's part of why we're in trouble at the moment. But giving losers in a democracy, a future that they can really look forward to, not grudgingly accept, is a big part of making it work. And this requires thinking of democracy in terms of coexistence and mutual tolerance and respect, rather than having your views, the ‘right’ views prevail.”
About this week’s guests:
Guy and Heidi Burgess are a husband-and-wife team of Ph.D. social scientists. They have been studying, teaching, and practicing conflict resolution for 40+ years. They co-direct the Conflict Information Consortium and its underlying projects, Beyond Intractability and the Constructive Conflict Initiative. Their biggest focus is creating an online resource library on www.beyondintractability.org about peacebuilding, strengthening democracy, and conflict resolution.
Connect with Guy and Heidi:
Email: burgess@beyondintractability.org
Here are some resources from the show:
The Hyper-Polarization Crisis: A Conflict Resolution Challenge
A feature article, published in the Conflict Resolution Quarterly
Check out the info-packed episode page for more awesome resources.
Have you subscribed to the Omni-Win Project Podcast yet? Find it on your preferred platform and join the co-creation journey. Don’t miss your chance to make a difference.
Check out the new Omni-Win Project website and follow me on other platfo
Thanks for reading The Omni-Win Project! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.