I've had the good fortune of taking a class in Peter Coleman's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4) @ Columbia University. After that course, I immediately read two of his excellent books The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflic... and Making Conflict Work: Navigating Disagreement Up and Down Your Orga.... They are not breezy reads, but they are excellent. That said, journalist Amanda Ripley does a brilliant distillation of this research at Columbia (and other places) in the long-form article below. It is BY FAR my "most important and useful long read" of 2018. IMHO it should be required reading for every high school student and teacher.

An important essay on what the media can do to mitigate the tide of political polarization in the world. READ IT.

“Complicating the Narratives” by @soljourno https://t.co/yVBbojs98D

— Peter T. Coleman (@PeterTColeman1) June 27, 2018

Read the full story by @amandaripley here: https://t.co/UKRqnlYQTd #ComplicatingTheNarratives #TheWholeStory pic.twitter.com/ZNPnG2kH5C

— Solutions Journalism Network (@soljourno) July 8, 2018

In a time of tribalism, @PeterTColeman1 advises us to complicate rather than simplify each side's narrative and pursue the magic ratio of 3:1, 3 moments of + feelings to 1 moment of - feelings. See “Complicating the Narratives” by @soljourno https://t.co/rgvQh4fonK

— Dan Christie (@PsychOfPeace) June 28, 2018