Society Builders

An exploration of Bahá’í-inspired approaches to depolarization building on what we've been learning over the past few episodes from the world's leading luminaries in this discourse.Part Two explores what we can do to help 're-humanize' the other and how we can better listen to and understand others so that they truly feel 'heard'.CONTENTS0:00 Introduction3:19 Re-Humanization18:

An exploration of Bahá’í-inspired approaches to depolarization building on what we've been learning over the past few episodes from the world's leading luminaries in this discourse.Part One explores what we can do to limit the influence of toxic polarization in our own lives and how we can best regulate our own behavior so we don't unintentionally contribute to the problem.Show

An exploration of the Ridvan Message of 2024 by the Universal House of Justice.The message explores the interaction between the forces of disintegration and integration at work in the world today - highlighting the inescapable need for a sustained, rapid rise in the number of those committing their time, energy and concentration to the success of our peace-building initiatives.CONT

In this episode we explore the recent message which the Universal House of Justice sent to the Baha'is in Iran on Naw Ruz (March 20th, 2024). The message is not only important for the love and admiration which the Universal House of Justice showers on the Persian Bahá’i community, suffering under intense and relentless persecution, but also because in many ways, it represents th

An interview with Nealin Parker, Executive Director of Common Ground USA, exploring the range of like-minded organizations contributing to depolarization (including over 6,700 such organizations in the US alone).Nealin explores the different approaches such organizations take and provides guidance on how to find collaborators, assess their quality and best engage with them.She also

An interview with Dr. Lisa Schirch, a global authority on social media's impact on polarization. Here, Dr. Schirch explains how the algorithms that drive social media platforms favor polarization, a force further amplified by malicious foreign actors exploiting the platforms.She also explores solutions at the individual level designed to improve our media diet and improve our etiqu

An interview with Andrea Bartoli, former dean of a number of prestigious conflict resolution schools; diplomat; and President of the Sant'Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue. Andrea shares insights from his participation in a number of successful peace initiatives, starting with efforts that brought an end to the civil war in Mozambique. He also shares lessons learned through

On November 28, 2023, the Universal House of Justice shared its message providing a history of our organic evolution as a community over the past hundred years. This episode explores parts of that message addressing the 'society building' focus across four key themes: the organic evolution of initiatives, our interaction with wider society, principles for society building and the i

An interview with Rabbi Roly Matalon sharing his efforts to promote depolarization including an amazing exchange which saw representatives of his very progressive-liberal congregation living with MAGA supporters for three days - followed by their living with his congregation for three days. The results of this exchange will move you and highlight the power of personal transformatio

An interview with global pioneer in mediation training, Gary Friedman, co-founder of the Center for Understanding in Conflict which has trained over 10,000 mediators. Gary has taught at both Harvard and Stanford and for the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva and the American Bar Association and is the author of three books. In this episode, Gary shares his 'understa