The Way Out

CHAPTER 8: MOVE—ACTIVATE NOVEL PATHWAYS AND RHYTHMS

If agonizing, antagonizing conflicts result in The Big Collapse and leave you feeling trapped and confined in Us-v-Them, then perhaps you might consider movement as a remedy.
Both empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that movement can help us to break free of narrow, engrained patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Neuroscience research has found that our brains show much more plasticity and flexibility than previously thought, even well into adulthood. This suggests that certain types of movement can help us to shake off attitudes and positions that we have actually come to be embodied in our neural structures.
Most relevant, research has shown that movement is particularly conducive to increasing many aspects of constructive conflict, such as creativity, flexibility and positivity.
We can integrate movement into our depolarizing practices, by introducing joint movement, mapping, traveling and interactive activities into them.
And integrating moving together – side-by-side and ideally outside – has shown great promise for connecting disputants and helping to synchronize them in ways that promote more empathy, rapport and flexibility.

Exercise #1

Exercise #2

Reflect on how you might incorporate more movement and flexibility – physical and psychological – into your own preparation before engaging with the more difficult people and relationships in your life.

What are the more problematic habits in your life (media and social media consumption, visits with hyper-partisan friends, etc.), that trigger associated neurons to fire in ways that create problematic pathways in your brain that can become neural ‘superhighways’?

Consider incorporating joint movement – walking together, exercising, building in teams, cooking big meals, and so on – into your strategies for addressing the more divisive conflicts in your life.

Are you more inclined toward locomotion – moving on with things – or assessment – critically evaluating things? Both are useful and necessary, but locomotion seems to incline people to want to work things out and move on.
How is your level of conflict adaptivity, or the capacity to use different resolution strategies in different types of conflict situations in a manner fitting and effective within the situational differences? If curious, consider perusing a copy of my last book, Making Conflict Work: Harnessing the Power of Disagreement.

What are the resources available to you in your community that you might leverage to help you incorporate more movement and flexibility – physical and psychological – into your own preparation before engaging in conflict.

Identify the groups and organizations in your community that integrate joint movement – walking together, exercising, building in teams, cooking big meals, and so on – into strategies for addressing the more divisive conflicts in the community.

Try to identify the groups in your community that have introduced complexity mapping into their problem-solving toolkit.

Are there inter-partisan groups in your community that may be open to sponsoring group walks, dinners, tours or other activities that will get you and them up and moving together in preferably meaningful ways?

Who are the more creative and ambitious public officials in your community who might think together with you to envision policies like the transfer policy in Botswana, which would encourage partisans to move out of their silos and develop relations across the divide?
How often do you and your family travel to places in the U.S. where you meet members of the other political party?