Paul: This is Paul Ingles co-founder and executive producer of the Peace Talks radio series. And I'm supervising producer Jessica Ticktin. This hour, we're presenting another compendium of just one season, our Peace Talks radio series, a radio program and podcast devoted to peace and nonviolent conflict resolution.
After 911, co-founder Suzanne Kryder and I set out to create and maintain a forum for discussion on public radio about cultivating a culture of peace in our lives and in the world. On today's program, we'll be offering up samples of programs we delivered in our 22nd season in 2024. Our first season with Jessica on board as our supervising producer.
Jessica: Paul, I have to say, I'm excited to revisit some of the conversations from season 22. Our correspondents made some really interesting and thought-provoking episodes about peacemaking. 2024, like many years in recent times, was filled with conflict on a global scale, as well as within our local communities across the United States.
It can be easy to feel despair and a sense of hopelessness about the state of the world, but our mission is to help provide you with information about the peacemaking work so many people are doing, sharing everyday tools that you can use to create more peace in your own life.
Paul: Amidst ongoing polarization in the United States, we included an episode on bridging political divisions.
Our shows on improving political discourse over the entire history of our series have continued to be relevant, and this show and Season 22 also provided vital tools for communicating better with each other whenever we have differing opinions. According to the Pew Research Center, over half of Americans say they struggle with such tense divisions in their own families.
Our correspondent Emily Cohen explored several initiatives helping to find common ground, including an effort by the National Governors Association called Disagree Better, also a non profit organization called Braver Angels. Working to bring disparate sides together in groups to practice civil discourse.
So here's a segment from Season 22, Episode 1, where Emily Cullen speaks with Monica Guzman from Braver Angels.
Yeah, so Braver Angels workshops, we have something like 50 different programs, ranging from skills building workshops to our very popular debates. So, uh, A workshop, maybe our most signature one, is called the red blue workshop.
The way that one works is you start off with a small group of reds, so conservative leaning people, a small group of blues, and they do what's called the stereotypes exercise. So they each kind of separate out into rooms, and they make a list of, you know, if it's the reds, what are the stereotypes that the other side holds about us?
And then the blues do the same, and they have this other column. So you list out the stereotypes, and then you list out What are the corrections that we would offer that stereotype? And then there's a third column. What are the kernels of truth to this stereotype about our side? And then the two sides come back together, and they go through their list together, and each side is able to witness the other humbly admit to the shortcomings and the complexities of their side, you know, in the public eye.
And so that starts you in a place of humility, and then you go into this exercise where each side asks the other questions, Where they really want to try to better understand how they came to their views on climate change, on abortion, on whatever it is. Now, this sounds like it might happen very quickly, but it takes several hours, because it's, it can be hard to come up with a question, for example, that is not accusatory, or gotcha, or cornering people, but is actually driven curiously, meaning that it's trying to close the gap between something you know and something you want to know.
So you describe yourself as the liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted for Trump twice and you talk with your parents about politics and you have a good relationship with your parents. How do you do this in a civil way? What advice do you have? Yeah, so there's lots of things that we can try.
Some of them are really technically quite simple if they are psychologically difficult. So, when you are talking with someone and you want to jump in with your opinion, if you can make yourself ask one more curious question first, then you, you spend more time listening to the other person, and research shows us that people hear better when they are heard.
So the more time you spend listening to someone, the more likely that they will listen to you. It's not a guarantee, but it happens. Another thing is that curiosity is contagious. So if you use what is sometimes called hedging language or more flexible language as you express your own opinion. So for example, you know, not like this is this, but rather, you know, when I think about it right now, here's how this is coming up for me.
But what do you think? And studies show that using hedging language does not make you seem weaker, or it doesn't make your, your sort of, you know, command of the subject any less. Um, instead it just. It becomes this, this contagious thing, where the other person is more likely to use that sort of language with you, and you're not talking in absolutes, so you're able to really explore each other's perspectives.
Um, so that's two, uh, but one last one that I'll say that's helped a lot with my parents. I once asked her, what do you think, mom? Like, while I was writing my book, what do you think has helped us? And she immediately said, without skipping a beat, we acknowledge each other's good points. And I realized she was right.
We really do. A lot of people don't want to say, that's a good point, or I see what you mean, or anything like that, because they think that's giving ground. It's not giving ground. What you're saying is, I see something about what you're saying makes sense to me. What that does is it encourages the other person to go deeper, go farther, right?
So these are, these are just a few strategies. That help a conversation become more curious and more flexible and more about exploring perspectives rather than performing perspective.
Jessica: That was Monica Guzman from Braver Angels speaking with Emily Cohen. You can hear the entire program from which our excerpts today are drawn at our website peacetalksradio.com. Click on the episodes tab on the homepage, scroll down to season 22 of 2024, and you'll find links to everything we're sampling today. Another nugget of wisdom to create more understanding between people that Monica Guzman offered is instead of asking someone why they believe something, if you shift the word why to how, you're inviting each other to be storytellers. And as she says, it just so happens that we're each the reigning experts on our own story.
This leads us to our next episode in the year about how the power of story builds understanding and compassion. That's the idea behind the nonprofit group, Narrative 4, which brings together authors with educators and students for story exchange workshops.
Since its founding in 2010, the group has held story exchange workshops with people around the world with a particular focus on classrooms, independent studies of student cohorts who engaged with narrative four have found increased attendance rates and graduation rates but also more positive emotions and better communication skills. The workshops have brought together college students with people who were incarcerated, students in the Bronx with students from rural Kentucky, and queer victims of bullying with their former bullies. The idea is that you exchange stories and then each tell the larger group your partner's story.
Here's producer Megan Kamerick speaking with co founders Colum McCann and Lisa Consiglio in Season 22, Episode 2.
So one of the great things about the narrative for Exchange is that it can sort of belong to everyone. So there's no Olympics for storytelling. You don't get the gold medal for a certain type of, you know, grief that you had or difficulty in your story.
The story can be any type of story. And people connect then in the most extraordinary ways. It could be a funny story. It could be a love story. It can be a tale of terrible grief or belonging or loss. All of these different things. The world is knit together. That's how we recognize and know one another.
Even across barriers, boundaries, this is the one thing that we have. It's sort of the essence of democratic intent that everybody has. and everyone has a deep need to tell a story, but even better, to listen to someone else's story. Just to add on to that, we're not out to change minds. We're out to help open them to a certain extent.
We're not asking people to change their values. You can hold on to the integrity of your beliefs and your values, but to really understand, as Colum said, we're human, and stories are the thing that changes us. make us the most human. Sometimes we ask young people, tell us a story that if you buried it in the ground and someone came along a hundred years from now and dug it up and listened to it, they would know the essence of you.
And so people tell some really profound and fascinating stories. When one of the groups broke, one of the women who was in that particular group, She came up to me and said, I just became a 17 year old again. And she said, I cannot believe. She had tears in her eyes. How much of myself I recognize in that person.
And that's the power. This is a very, very simple thing. It's storytelling. But what happens is you recognize yourself in almost every single person that you connect with through a story exchange and otherwise. And that's, that is the power. That's the atom right there that's being split. It's not just something where we all get together and go, you know, Running over the hills singing the sound of music.
It isn't like that. In fact, I feel after I've done an historic change, incredibly raw and alive at the same time, which is a really wonderful place to be. People can fall in love with their, or stuck in their own stories or narratives, which could stop them moving forward. Does this seem to shake that loose?
Well, I think what happens is people realize that they're not, One story, you know, we contain so many narratives. But also what happens is, when you hear someone else tell your story as if it is their own, you're hearing the way that you're telling your own narrative. And so it might be like, wow, that's the way I sound.
Right? Like that's what people are getting. And maybe it jogs something within you that says, Oh, maybe that's what people are stereotyping me. Or maybe that's why I've been perceived as X, Y, or Z. And I do think it shakes it loose and these perceptions of ourselves and how we're being portrayed or how we're portraying ourselves.
And that's what a story change can do. It's not just about learning about somebody else. It is, as Colin said, about learning more about yourself and shaking some of that. I'm going to ask you a question. How does this make you feel? Hi, my name is Megan. Uh, a little guarded, intrigued. What's going to happen?
Right, so if I get a chance to tell your story, you know, it's strange that there's a lot of brain power going behind telling somebody else's story. I think the key is that we're not just telling someone else's story. We're telling it as if it is our own. I think that we have to keep coming back to that.
My name is we're not just saying when you were and that's when the pinball machine starts lighting up in the brain, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, everything because you're suspending engagement with the rest of the world. It is an honor to hold that person's story, a piece of their life, a piece of their narrative.
You want to stop. You have to. Public speaking and, you know, is so terrifying already. But when you're telling somebody else's story, is it terrifying? Yes. It's like Colum said, you're being vulnerable and vulnerability is a muscle and it takes exercise and once you, but it's also fun and imaginative and heartwarming and takes us out of our shell and our comfort zone to the point where we were like, I want to get out there, engage with the rest of the world.
So much of the world, we're coming indoors these days. We're locking down ourselves. We're putting GPS coordinates on our imaginative intent. We're closing the curtains. We're all coming into these smaller and smaller rooms. We're becoming so much more atomized. Uh, what happens then? Uh, when you break out of those rooms and you begin to acknowledge others is that the world is actually just, it's a more joyful, fascinating place to exist.And also you recognize deeply human things, but it's a bigger, better place.
Paul: That was our correspondent, Megan Kamerick, speaking with co-founders of Narrative4, which is an organization that uses storytelling in classrooms to help young people connect with each other across cultural, racial, and geographic divides.
To hear the entire program, our full episode that also features Father Greg Boyle talking on the rehabilitation of former gang members through his homeboy industries. Go to peace talksradio. com, that's peacetalksradio. com, and click on the Episodes tab on our homepage, then scroll down to Season 22, Episode 2 in this case.
You can also make a small donation there to help us keep this program going into the future. We need your support now more than ever. There's a donate button easy to find at peacetalksradio. com.
Jessica: Our episode three in season 22 featured an expert in dealing with conflict, especially across racial and cultural divides, who also uses storytelling and teaches a way of reframing the narrative in his work.
Jay Rothman is a widely published scholar on identity based conflicts and conflict resolution theory. Here's a segment of that episode as he explains the name of his organization and how he mediates conflict.
It's called the ARIA group. And ARIA is the acronym that I came up for when I was systematizing the problem solving workshop approach of Kalman, Burton and Azar.
And basically what I discovered in working with Israelis and Palestinians is the first thing you have to do is have an, uh, a choreographed explosion. If you don't do it on purpose, it'll happen when you're not looking. And it's really easy. All you have to say is what's this problem about? And what they say will be them.
And I say, okay, say more. And they say, they do, they are, they behave. You know, so they do an attributional analysis. The other side is who they are because that's their nature. If I'm aggressive or hostile, it's because they made me so. Situation. That's a vicious loop. Then they'll blame the other side. They may even project some of their own shadows on the other side.
And they'll certainly polarize. So that's, that's what happens. And I've summarized that as antagonism. So that's the first A for ARIA. Then a lot of the field of conflict resolution, I call it creative conflict engagement. There's some major reasons I do that. One of the main things that we need to do to defang conflict, to make it move from destructive to constructive is reframe.
So if our main frame is you're the bad one, this is happening because of you, et cetera, et cetera. What's the reframe? The reframe is, It's simple and excruciatingly hard to do. The simple is, why does it matter to me? Why does it matter to you? Not what did you do, but why do I care so much? And that's really hard to do.
And then once we've reframed from antagonism to resonance, the inventions are about the resonance. We're not saying, how do we invent ways to stop hurting and hating each other? That's going to happen. But if we can build more resonance of less fear and more hope, and that's what we started inventing, what I call in pieces of peace, you know, things that are big enough to matter, but small enough to work.
That means very basic things like better education, like different approaches to learning about each other, like better municipal services in Jerusalem, like more possibilities for encounter with the other side. So very practical, concrete, small things. And then finally, developing an action plan. So, so that's ARIA, Antagonism, Resonance, Invention, Creative Inventions, Integrative Inventions.
And action is the last step. But what about finding ways to resolve conflict through compromise? There is a common idea in the field of conflict resolution that compromise is the best way. And that's rarely the case when it's identity based. For example, between Israelis and Palestinians. He lays out three ways of solving problems.
There's really three approaches to solving problems. One is domination. One side wins. The other side loses. That's called lose, win, lose. There's another approach that's called compromise, where people think I give up a little, they give up a little. And if it's about material issues, that's right. It's about identity issues.
You can't give up a little bit of yourself. You can expand yourself and therefore be more inclusive, but you can't give up a little. So, so the third approach is called integrative problem solving. And so we do integrative invention where both sides feels like they feel like they get more of their needs met and their frustration level is reduced.
So that's a good invent integrative invention. And then finally, we've We try to sustain it through some kind of action. So that's ARIA, the acronym. ARIA is also a metaphor, and the metaphor is very central to my work. In addition to being, wanting to be a writer, I also wanted to be a musician, and then I got diverted by this Israeli Palestinian piece of stuff.
When I got married, my, my father in law to be under the canopy said, I'm so lucky. I have a son in law who's going to have lifelong employment. He's going to work on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So before I got diverted into that, I thought I was going to be a writer or a musician. And so aria becomes my, my, my pathway to reclaim my musical artistry.
And also the notion of moving from antagonism. From, from dissonance to resonance, right? There's all sorts of metaphors. Aria suggests that conflict is also a source of tremendous creativity, right? Maybe, maybe the deepest creativity, right? I don't think you have to suffer in order to be an artist, but you certainly have to know about conflict.
Not often suggest suffering of some kind, but Aria is suggesting it also can be very beautiful and we can make great discoveries in that, you know, answering that question, why do I care so much is also answering the question, who am I? What, what, what are my values? What makes me tick? So contact is also this possibility for discovery.
And who are you? What do you care about? And, and this opportunity for connection. Um, and then when we get to into invention, right? Old things to solve old problems often don't work. We need new ways.
Paul: That was Jay Rothman, an expert in creative conflict engagement and author of five books. To hear more of this episode and how Jay helped sow the seeds of peace in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio, after years of conflict and division over a sticky school levy vote, go to Peacetalksradio.com and look for Episode 3 in Season 22. You're listening to Seeking Peace On Earth, one of our compilation specials. Where we revisit important conversations on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution from a single season in our series. The United States has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the world.
And for many years, gun violence has been the leading cause of death for children in the U. S. In Season 22, Episode 4 of the Peace Talks radio series, Emily Cohen explored what solutions are making some progress in addressing this devastating problem. In this segment, Emily speaks with Chico Tillman from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Dr. Tillman is the Director of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, which trains people working in violence intervention in cities across the U. S. And he speaks about the mission of violence intervention and the way it interacts with other institutions, including policing. Here's correspondent Emily Cohen speaking with Dr.Tillman.
So can you walk us through an example of what community violence intervention actually looks and feels like in practice? I think the most important thing people need to know is 90 percent of our work is done when there's no incident. So if you think about it. I often use this analogy, if you wanted to stop smoking in the bathrooms at a high school, who would be the best ones to hire?
The students, why? Because the students already know who's smoking in the bathroom, and they could walk directly to the smokers and say hey, they said no more smoking in the bathroom, they're, they're, they're hampering down on it, I better call the bathroom monitor or whatever, and I'm coming directly to you and say hey, don't come in my bathroom smoking.
So when we hire interventionists, The interventionists already know who are the individuals in their community that are at the highest risk. And they access them, they love all of them, they give them opportunities to transition into a pro social lifestyle by doing an assessment to see what they really need.
Are you having challenges with housing? Is it education where you need a GED or high school diploma or want to enroll in college? Do you want to get a trade? Do you want to get a job? Do you have mental health issues? After the assessment, we connect them with someone else. in the ecosystem who specialize it in the particular need that they might have.
So you're trying to provide the social supports for the person at risk because the theory is that the lack of those resources is at the heart of violence. Well, really at the highest risk, the whole community is at risk of being shot. If there's in communities like the Austin community or Englewood, where there's a hundred to 200 people shot a year.
Everybody in the community at a risk to being shot because it's so normalized that people shoot in the community. The highest risks are the less than 1%. I want to say that again, less than 1 percent are the drivers of violence. Sometimes we over magnify the problem and say, and make it appear as though everybody is doing it in the community.
No, it's less than 1%. So we're a hyper focused. On that less than 1 percent to getting them services and getting them enrolled in programming such as cognitive behavior intervention to change the way they think about situational decision making so they can make non aggressive resolutions to problems and challenges.
I think the question on a lot of minds is the easy access to guns. What role does that play and are you trying to address that on any level? That's a complicated. Issue because we believe in the constitution, so we don't infringe upon individuals, second amendment, right? But what we don't condone is illegal use of gun individuals who are not supposed to have guns.
And the challenge with dealing with individuals at the highest risk. Who live in vulnerable communities, typically they have a path and even if they're enrolled in a program and trying to change their life, the people who they might have had conflicts with may not be in the program. So, what we do advise them to do is, to limit their use of guns, to limit the people they hang around who are involved in those type of activities.
And utilize different resources, such as time management, so that they don't put themselves in situations where using a gun has to be an option.
Jessica: To listen to the full program on seeking solutions to gun violence, go to our website, peacetalksradio. com and look for Season 22, Episode 4. You can see photos of our guests, read and share transcripts, and become a peace ambassador by contributing to the non profit work we do. Just look for the donate button on the site.
What we do and say to each other can cause conflict, but our appearance is another source of conflict, both inner and outer. For centuries, humans have placed significant importance on beauty, being fit, being healthy. Society, and more so in recent decades, media and pop culture, have often shaped these views and set the standards by which we compare ourselves to those standards and to each other.
In our fifth episode of season 22 of Peace Talks Radio, Julia Joubert explored peace and equality in the body positivity movement. Julia's guests shared their personal stories of body image, the role that their communities played in how they saw themselves, and the role that language and social media played in maintaining sometimes harmful views.
Julia then turned to Alicia McCullough, a licensed clinical mental health therapist and founder of Black and Embodied Consulting, to get more context and understanding of these issues.
So, what does that mean when I know, I know for example, that images are hyper edited or photoshopped, or I know that there are so many different bodies and therefore my body should be valid, yet I am still affected by it so much.
Why am I still impacted by it as much as I am? And to follow on from that, and I'm hoping you can help me here, is then how do I better filter this messaging so that it doesn't affect me as much as it does? That's a wonderful question. I want to really normalize that comparison is a superhuman experience, firstly, and also say that I think that the way that we view comparison now in our culture comes from this very deficit based comparison versus this abundance based comparison.
When we look at comparison from an abundant perspective, we're able to see the differences, the nuances, the beauty in other people and celebrate that while also seeing it in ourselves. And in some ways, seeing ourselves as a reflection of that other person through that shared sense of beauty. And our individuality and how that all comes together to create this human experience.
When we're looking at it from a deficit base, we're solely looking at, I don't measure up. I'm missing something. I need to change. I need to alter. And so it reminds me, for example, when engaging social media, the filters. And so while we might cognitively know my friend is using a filter, my family, the celebrity, Because the goal of media is to keep us on for as long as possible in the hopes that we'll buy something.
We're often quickly just consuming picture, real story so quickly and rapidly that our mind is not actually taking the time to consciously process what we're taking in. And so for us, as we're seeing the filters, we're just seeing it and we're like, That's real. They look so good. And then we're feeling like, Oh, I must go and alter my appearance to get that.
And so that's why we do now have a culture where kids, teenagers are asking their parents. Can I get fillers? Can I get Botox at such young ages? And the brain development is not there to say. Actually, this is like a curated AI imaging, a type of product that's being put onto this real person. And so one of the ways I think that we can combat that is.
Firstly, setting time limits around the time we're on social media. So even if it's like, I'm going to set a time limit for 30 minutes and then take a break, experience something else, give your eyes like a reset and then come back. It can also look like if you're able to intentionally engaging your content and then pulling back and saying, how am I feeling by consuming this picture?
Like, what are the thoughts that are happening for me as I'm looking at this picture of this person? What am I feeling in my body? What sensations and impulses do I have as I'm taking in this content? And if that means you're journaling about it, you're talking to a friend, you're just taking that mental note.
Even that little pause can offer space for us to really reshape the way that we're thinking about this experience of being online.
Paul: That was Alicia McCullough, a licensed clinical mental health therapist and founder of Black and Embodied Consulting, talking with our correspondent Julia Joubert about how to mitigate harm to our self esteem when constantly comparing ourselves to others on social media. To hear more about the Body Positivity Movement, click the link Go to Peace Talks radio.com.
That's Peace Talks radio.com. Choose the episode tab at the top of our homepage. Scroll down to season 22, episode five, season 22, episode five. Here at Peace Talks Radio. Our weekly series on public radio is devoted to conversations about peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution strategies that can be used to reduce conflict in daily life.
And in our society at large, part of that mission is to learn how to get along with each other. No matter how different we see.
Jessica: After this short break, you'll hear about intergenerational connection and how to seek out more age diversity in our social lives. More of our year end special seeking peace on earth coming up in a moment.
Thanks for listening to, and for supporting Peace Talks Radio, stay tuned.
Paul: I'm PauI Ingles, co- founder and executive producer of Peace Talks Radio. And I'm supervising producer Jessica Ticktin. And this is Seeking Peace on Earth, another of our compendium programs highlighting a particular season in our series, a special program featuring excerpts from the programming we delivered over the course of season 22 in 2024.
How often do you hang out with someone from a different generation than you? When was the last time you had a real conversation with someone a few generations younger than you? Or a few generations older than you. In recent years, studies have shown that at least six distinct generations live side by side in the United States currently, and there are almost equal numbers of people of every age alive today.
To put that into perspective, we have the same number of people who are 7 years old as 70 years old. While we might be the most age diverse we've ever been, age segregation is also at an all time high. To unpack this, in Episode 6 of Season 22, correspondent Julia Joubert spoke with Eunice Lynn Nichols.
The co CEO of CoGenerate, a non profit that's staking their claim on what generations can do together, not just what they can do for one generation. There continues to be a thread of storytelling in the peace work that we've been covering this year at Peace Talks Radio, as you'll hear in this next segment from Julia's interview with Eunice Lynn Nichols.
How we can benefit from listening to each other's stories. How do I, as an individual, begin to bridge these divides, build connections, and maintain relationships in spite of these generational differences that I might see and experience? And also, you know, there's often this narrative of younger generations needing to be the ones to break cycles and rebuild.
I guess another question of mine was, is it our responsibility as the younger generation Take the initiative. Well, you're tapping into some of the fraughtness of the narratives. We, we tell ourselves in our heads, right? You're a young person. And why is it on me to approach the older person to, to spark a relationship or maybe even with that older person even want to take the time to do that for an older person.
I think there is probably some fear of not wanting to be presumptuous. Well, one type of older person might want worry that they would be presumptuous if they said, Julia, how would you like to be in a relationship with me where we could actually explore each other's life stories and interests? Maybe that feels really weird.
I don't think we have a society where just dropping that into conversation feels the most natural, right? And so how do we, can we think about how we might As with any good relationship start with just understanding who that person is connecting on a human level first before we drop in any kind of wisdom or experience.
I think it's a, I think it's. Young people saying, I want to be known so that in our relationship, the things that you've learned and the wisdom, which I know you have can actually be held in the container of me and the same is actually true on the other end. So I, I love starting with a sense of hearing one another's life stories, and then I would say, finding shared interests.
We talked about music. We talked about pop culture, movies. These are things that are less contentious, and we can come to it with great joy. And frankly, we're seeing intergenerational collaborations work out in ways that are non polarizing. It's, it's, you see it, and it just feels like love, creativity, and connection.
Let's start there instead of, um, digging right into a conversation about our different politics, for example. And then third, which I'm learning from a lot of the social innovators we work with, is how might we find something to work on together? Starting at that point of shared interest and shared problem solving, so starting to do something with somebody from an older generation or younger generation where the mutual benefit is felt, I think, can also be a key.
I would not want to leave our conversation with the thought that it is up to the individual alone to come up with this. Some of the things we've talked about are, in the meantime, if you see somebody, there are things we can do, but there is a systems problem, the siloing of older from younger that exacerbates the whole, and so I would say if anybody is hearing this, And that they, and they work for an institution, it could be, and this actually, uh, is all of us, if you work in a place where you have some amount of, of control over the way you do things, if you're part of a faith institution, if you are part of a mom's club, if you are, if you volunteer at a local shelter or food bank, if you go to school, once again, if you open your eyes, you'll see the systems that are there.
Keeping older and younger apart. And I think it is up to those of us who are designing and running, facilitating, or leading programs to ask the question, why is it this way? Might it be better if we actually connected with, fill in the blank, older people or younger people doing this, this thing that we're doing?
That means if you're a college professor, you could think about how to connect your students with older adults in the community. In a time when kind of town gown relationships can be contentious, how might you help students actually get to know some of the townies and the older adults that have lived there for decades in the service of learning?
If you have a youth group in your church, how might you collaborate with, with the, with the Older folks that are meeting probably at 7 a. m. for breakfast to connect and say, how might we find a mutual time for these guys to come together and do a service project together? What might they learn from each other?
Even in the workplace? We have thought a lot about. Different more distributed models of leadership. I stepped into a co leadership role with our founder, and that has been a wonderful experience for both of us to actually demonstrate what co generational leadership and power sharing might look like many of us may have the ability to think even about how we staff teams in intergenerational ways.
In our workplaces, so I think we'll, we'll all have some avenues of control and those who have more ability to shape systems can actually craft our, our settings to experiment with bringing older and younger together in ways that can benefit both.
Jessica: That was Eunice Lynn Nichols, the co CEO of Cogenerate, a nonprofit organization that works closely with social innovators to create new systems and reinvent old ones that have siloed us from one another.
To hear more of Julia Joubert's exploration of intergenerational connection, go to peacetalksradio. com, click on the episodes tab and look for 22. Through the generations, we've had different relationships with technology, but something we're grappling with no matter what generation we belong to today is artificial intelligence.
AI formerly a speculative futuristic sci fi notion is now increasingly a real part of our lives, whether we like it or not. In Episode 7 of Season 22, Correspondent Mary Steffenhagen spoke with two guests with very different perspectives on the uses of AI. One sees it as a weapon of oppression, and the other guest sees it as a tool for peace.
Here's a segment of Mary Steffenhagen's interview with Branka Panich, a political scientist and international peace building advocate.
I currently live in Mexico City, but I'm originally from Balkans. Um, from, I was born in Serbia, so I grew up in, in an area that went through several wars and conflicts and violence.
Um, and, uh, I think that lived experience pretty much impacted my wish to work, uh, in peace building. When I think about these These beginnings, I remember, uh, the impacts of Arab Spring, for example, uh, and how news that were coming, um, around Arab Spring and about the utilization of social media as a technology, uh, of different platforms were utilized to spread voices, right?
To, to work towards democratization or to organize. activists, um, and that was probably the first moment when I started thinking about this positive application of, of technology in my field. My work when I, when I started working for humanitarian aid, for refugee aid, uh, in Balkans, a movement that was created to assist refugees who were coming from, you know, Middle East and North Africa on their way to, to their new countries in, in Europe.
Uh, and just looking how essential the, even the phone, uh, was for these communities, phone was a lifesaving, uh, tool for them, uh, on this path, uh, was quite transformational. For example, communities that were running away from wars in Syria. Syria or Afghanistan, uh, or, uh, North Africa as well, often did not have documents, the, the IDs or even health documentation.
And if they get sick throughout this path, uh, they needed the medical intervention or medical help. However, the protection of their data, uh, was also crucial in those moments because some of these people were actually running away were. prosecuted in the countries they were coming from, right? So the refugee movement, uh, stepped in to see how can they develop a certain digital, uh, ID or digital medical ID so that any doctor on this path from Syria to Germany, for example, Sample was able to see the medical history of this person without necessarily breaching the privacy or exposing this person, um, uh, to any risks, uh, by revealing any information that can be, um, uh, dangerous for that specific person.
Uh, so this is one of the examples that I, uh, remember, but there were many, many others and that was something that led me, uh, uh, towards thinking about this intersection. And when you talk about peace building as a field, like, what does that actually entail? Because it's not simply ending wars, right? No, in fact, it's quite broader than that.
Uh, so the, the peace building, um, let's call it a strategic activity. to sustain peace. Uh, so it's often not only about ending the war, it's about preventing the war to happen. So it's a strategic activity to strengthen peace, to avoid violent conflict, um, and to provide different tools, uh, for building, uh, something that is actually, uh, much more than sense of, of war.
So often when we say peace, we, we want to strengthen the capacities of, of conflict management, conflict resolution, uh, peace building, peacemaking, and to lay different foundations for sustainable peace, to strengthen societies, to be able to cope with the conflicts because conflicts are not necessarily bad.
Right? They're bad if they escalate into violence, if they escalate into wars. But peacebuilding is giving this opportunity, uh, to approach conflict in a much more, um, strategic way and transformative way. That was Branka Panic, a co author of the recent book, AI for Peace, which explores ways that AI can be used to foster a more peace filled world.
She also talked about how data science can potentially help us to understand trends to map the incidence of violence in certain countries using both historical data and current data into predictive models. This has the potential to help better prepare humanitarian relief and, more importantly, to do more peace building to prevent violence from escalating.
To hear Mary's other guests, Yeshi Milner from Data for Black Lives, and how she sees the potential harm of AI in policing and predictive technology, go to peacetalksradio. com and look for Season 22, Episode 7. Another trending topic in 2024 was the use of psychedelics to treat people who have experienced trauma.
While we're not a current events program, our correspondents explore timely issues in a deep and thoughtful way with a lens towards peace and peacemaking in our everyday lives. In 2024, the FDA declined to approve the use of MDMA as a treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, yet experts are continuing with the research to give the FDA more data to consider.
Here's a segment from Danielle Preiss's interview with Sean, who tried psilocybin to help her heal from trauma.
And can you now kind of walk me through the experience so you can start from the beginning as much as possible and just kind of explain what it was like? So the location was in Amsterdam. So, like, kind of mid morning, we started, there was two people, like, guiding me, uh, so there was my therapist, who of course I knew, and there was this other guy, her colleague, who is like a kind of mushroom expert, so he was in charge of, like, dosing, and, so What happens is they like explain to you about like what's going to happen and like the kind of key difference from like most people's experience with mushrooms or probably with any drug recreationally is that you're going to be alone for the experience.
I drank the mushroom. Tea, and then, I don't know, maybe like a few minutes after that, I like went and laid down. So you're wearing like a kind of airplane face mask. They're playing some like music for you, so it starts off, I think it's like Alan Watts. It was like something, it was like something that I knew that to start with.
And they say, look, like if you want something, if you want to take a break, like it's cool, of course they maybe need the toilet, because it's gonna last for like eight hours. You're like laying down. And, you know, you have like the typical experience of, you know, starting to feel kind of like slight like body temperature changes.
It's a really strange experience because you're looking initially it's black and then it's like for me it was like a kaleidoscope and the kaleidoscope was like for me was like extremely like multicolored. You've got no, like, sense of time, like, you're advised, like, not to, like, have your watch or, like, your phones, but somebody said, oh, you've just got to, like, follow the river.
Yeah, you've got to follow the river. It's a little bit like watching a film that you're, like, a little bit in control of. I mean, if you've ever had, like, a dream, like, a lucid, is it a lucid dream, where you can, where you can kind of, like, control? It's a little bit like that, except that things are coming, it feels, like, from, like, very, very deep inside of you.
So like in my case, I was seeing things like my dad, seeing him like transform into like these other people that I didn't know. But it seemed to me like they were like relatives, like going, going like back into time. Then were you, when you were seeing these figures of these people that seemed to be relatives or ancestors, like, were they doing anything?
Was anything happening? Was there like, were there specific people traumatic things that you could, like, see expressed? Yeah, I mean, that, I mean, that's how it start, that's how it started. Like that was at the beginning, it was kind of like a play. They would sort of show me things about myself. They didn't speak to me directly, but it was like, they were kind of, uh, showing me things.
I mean, this probably isn't like a, like an uncommon experience, but I think like I carry like a bit of uncertainty and worry that maybe I'm, the decisions that I've made are maybe not right, that maybe I'm not like making other people kind of proud. And it felt like They were trying to communicate something to me, but it was, it was a very like metaphorical message.
So it's something that I think you have to like, uh, you have to kind of interpret. And when the whole thing finished, I spent a long time like kind of furiously writing. And to be honest, like some of it, I still don't feel like I fully understand. Because you said that you had wanted to address kind of intergenerational trauma.
So that it sounds like maybe that's what was happening when you were seeing this vision of your father and and relatives going back But had you like set an intention to see that? I had set an intention like I'd written down like what I wanted to explore the guy who was Accompanying me. He said to me, you know, the mushroom is the medicine like it knows what you need to look at and consider And that did kind of feel like that's what happened.
Paul: That was Sean, a humanitarian aid worker from the UK, who tried psilocybin as a therapeutic. To address issues around trauma, she was speaking with our correspondent, Danielle. We used just her first name to protect her privacy at her. To hear the full episode and Danielle's conversation with researcher Jennifer Mitchell, and to learn more about the science behind these powerful substances, go to Peacetalksradio.com. That's Peacetalksradio. com. Hit the episodes tab on the homepage, scroll down to our Episode 8 in Season 22.
Jessica: In 2024, the war in the Middle East became something that we heard about in the news every day, creating a lot of conflict all over the world and spilling out on many college campuses as well.
We produced a show in season 22 about the peacemaking work of Joseph Browdy, the founder and director of the Center for Peace Communications, which focuses on cultural diplomacy in the Middle East. The show did not provide answers or take sides on this war, rather it elevated voices that have been marginalized.
Here's Emily Cohen speaking with Joseph Braude:
Let's talk about Whispered in Gaza. That's how I first learned about the Center for Peace Communications and became familiar with your work. Can you give an overview of that for listeners who may not be familiar with this initiative? Well, in Gaza, as in Iraq and Lebanon and Syria and Yemen, there's a whole lot of people who for years have been unhappy about Hamas as a governing actor, about the local militia that dominates their lives. That doesn't make them pro Israel, right? It's possible to be anti Hamas and anti Israel at the same time, but they're a little These are a generation of, of Palestinians in Gaza who have never really been in direct contact with Israelis, um, and their experience of Hamas is an organization that starts wars it can't win, hides underground and leaves civilians to suffer, and steals international aid that's meant for the people, uh, with many of their leaders living abroad in, in luxury.
It occurred to us that if we interviewed them, gave them a chance to tell their stories, but then brought together a team of animators and illustrators. It could, in a way, be especially compelling because you might not be able to see the Gazans faces, but you could inhabit their lives if it was told empathically enough.
So Whispered in Gaza is a series of 25, uh, two and a half minute clips. Uh, it's got a range of views. There's some people who, you know, plainly say that they were in favor of the first intifada and the second intifada. Uh, but opposed Hamas's wars because they're so self destructive. And then there were others who expressed a vision of, of peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians and we knew that it was very important for those voices to be heard because both on the left and the right, or at least the far left and the far right, both sides in a way are denying that there's a whole lot of Palestinians in Gaza who don't want to be ruled by Hamas. Each for their own reasons has been conflating Gazan majorities with Hamas.
Here is a story from one of the interviews recorded for Whispered in Gaza. This one is called, It's Forbidden to Say We Don't Want War.
The solution will come from the people and no one else because outside Gaza, they want to keep Hamas in place.
Judging from what you see in the media, they see Hamas as resistance, bombing targets, impacting the scene, leading the Palestinian cause.
A lot of the media outlets are working for Hamas. Al Jazeera, Al Mayadeen, their flagship channel, Al Aqsa, and many others depict Hamas as heroes. For that matter, Israeli media itself aggrandizes Hamas, which also helps them.
When they say Hamas is bombarding Tel Aviv, when they say we are afraid of Hamas, see what I mean? And Hamas keeps going on about war after dragging the people into four wars they had nothing to do with.
Hamas enters into war as if Gaza were a nuclear state. They tell the media they are capable of all this destruction. When in reality, they can't even feed their population.
If you are a Gazan citizen who opposes war and says, I don't want war, you're branded as a traitor. It is forbidden to say you don't want war. So people stay quiet. Not out of fear, per se, but because they don't want people to say they're spies.
Paul: That was a segment in a story from the project Whispered in Gaza which Joseph Braude and his team produced months before October 7th, 2023 to hear the rest of Emily Cohen's interview with Joseph Braude and two other profiles of peace activists, late Johann Galtung and Phil Berrigan. Go to Peace talks radio.com and look for season 22, episode nine. Just click on the episodes page on our homepage.
Jessica: You can see how technology has been used to harness the power of marginalized voices in the whispered in Gaza segment. And also back in our episode on AI as a tool for peace, when guest Branka Panic gave examples of how a digital ID helped refugees fleeing war torn countries keep important medical records.
In our 11th show this season, Julia Joubert explored how our overuse of technology can lead to more conflict rather than less, especially in families in which young people, and maybe some of the adults, are spending more and more time fixated on their phones and other screens. Here's part of correspondent Julia Joubert's conversation with Asia Vickers, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist:
I'd like to first offer a disclaimer. Every parent and child relationship is unique and different, and I think parents should think about how to tailor recommendations according to their relationship and the maturity of their child. And I would simply start as a first step, for parents to focus on the relationship, Instead of focusing solely on behavior modification, it's about getting intentional about prioritizing your relationship with your child.
I don't think rigid rules work. I think this has to be a tailored approach. But generally speaking, I think it's important to put certain structures in place that protect family time, put structures, rituals, routines to protect and facilitate that relationship, protecting time for family games, activities.
holiday celebrations, and really creating spaces where you're not necessarily looking to correct your child, but creating spaces where children can be seen and heard, known, understood. And really at the essence, where children are free to exist in your presence, which is critical. And I think it's important because if children are able to rest in your presence, That is the sort of space where children will be able to feel safe enough to share and to engage in heart to heart connection.
I guess I'm also just reflecting on like my own situation or like myself as a teen. I think I come from a very different household where there wasn't really much room to not do what my parents told me to do. I didn't really have that liberty, whereas my younger brothers definitely do. But what I was, was a teenager who did not want to hang out with her parents sometimes.
And I think that if I had a phone, in the way that my brothers now have phones, I see myself gravitating towards that phone as rest. And I know that Lola, for example, who we spoke to, also said that in moments of conflict arising or stress or a long day at school and at work, she would head home. And being on her phone was the best thing.
rest for her. And I'm, I'm curious about your thoughts on that. And are you saying that if we are creating space for our kids to rest, do we then also accept that the kid is most likely going to be on their phone and we need to allow for that? I believe if children get what they need, they will feel less attached to the devices.
And we'll learn healthy ways to self regulate and to cope.
Jessica: That was Asia Vickers being interviewed by Julia Joubert for episode 11 in season 22, when digital addiction threatens family peace. We couldn't feature segments from all our programs from our 22nd season, so to hear more episodes from 2024, like our 10th episode called Resist or Retreat in Search of Peace, it's an interview with Alana and her wife, Jeannie, a couple who lived in Tennessee for many years, but as the political climate shifted, it became untenable for Alana to exist as a trans woman there.
In 2023, the couple made the difficult decision to uproot from their community and relocate to Southern Vermont. To hear this very moving episode from correspondent Anna Van Dine, and all our episodes dating back to 2002, go to peacetalksradio. com, where you can see photos of our guests, listen to our podcast, and share transcripts.
You can also hear our podcasts on Apple and on Spotify.
Paul: We invite you to learn more about our decades long work and efforts to maintain some of the media landscape. To talk about peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution. There's a donate button there too, all at peacetalksradio. com. Thanks to the many of you for your donations to our non profit and to your local radio station that has sustained us for so many years.
We appreciate you and continue to depend on you for your support. Find out how you can help at peacetalksradio. com. For our co-founder Suzanne Kryder and our whole Peace Talks Radio team, I'm Paul Ingles, thanking you for listening to and for supporting Peace Talks Radio.
