Why Conflict Should Look Like Streaming TV

To End Polarizing Community Battles, Embrace Complexity

The La Brea Tar Pits may only run a few inches deep, but if you get trapped in the natural asphalt, you can’t get out. In fact, the more you struggle, the worse it gets.

What, then, could be a more fitting setting—and metaphor—for our Zócalo/ California Wellness Foundation event co-presented with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, “How Can Our Communities Escape Polarizing Conflict?”

Fortunately, unlike the prehistoric beasts felled by the intractable tar pits, our panel of experts doesn’t believe that hope is lost for humans who wander …

Conflict and Reconciliation Expert Emma Sky

My Earliest Memory Was Wanting to Help End Wars

Emma Sky, OBE, is a British expert on conflict, reconciliation, and stability, who has worked mainly in the Middle East. The founding director of the International Leadership Center at the …

In a Raucous Country, Our Sense of Unity Has Often Emerged Through Conflict | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In a Raucous Country, Our Sense of Unity Has Often Emerged Through Conflict

A Diverse Nation, Built on Waves of Immigration, Has Found That Getting Along Is Not Always Easy

Americans of wildly disparate backgrounds have managed to find common ground over the course of the country’s history. But the process of cohering has been haphazard, raucous, messy and cruel, …

As Machines Wage War, Human Nature Endures

Fear, Honor, and Self-Interest Are Still the Wellsprings of Conflict

Over the past quarter century, the information technology revolution has transformed relations between people and between states, including in the conduct of warfare.

For the U.S. military, the manifestations of this …

A ‘Musical Intifada’ in the West Bank

Criss-Crossing a Traumatized Land With Young, Palestinian Musicians

Over the last five years, as I criss-crossed the West Bank to document one young musician’s dream to build music schools amidst Israel’s military occupation, I’d often come upon a …