From the Center

This viewpoint is from a writer rated Center.

Wynette Sills had done several workshops through the Braver Angels Sacramento Alliance when she realized two things. First: She wanted to go deeper. And second: it was time to tackle the biggest force she saw jamming understanding between liberals and conservatives.

The media.

Professor Steven Pinker is on a mission to spread the good news of human progress. He asserts that human life, for all its problems, has overwhelmingly improved in recent generations. But how is the progress of humanity threatened by our inability to appreciate it? And how is that progress threatened by our inability to communicate respectfully with one another?

America is more than half a year removed from the 2020 election. Most Trump voters still suspect voter fraud determined the outcome. The vast majority of Biden voters think such ideas are off the wall. Many Americans, meanwhile, believe that media bias and the practices of Big Tech are the real corruptors of American elections.

Can left, right and center reason together about the 2020 election? Can we come together to discover why we believe what we believe?

Editor's Note: An abridged version of this essay was originally published on Persuasion.com, and the full version appeared on Braver Angels.

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared as a Braver Angels newsletter.

In the last several days the United States of America has again witnessed a law enforcement shooting of a Black man that has again triggered, in turn, dramatic unrest in American cities.

We have seen political violence result in the shooting of two Black Lives Matter activists in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Braver Angels 2020 brings you a conversation like few others.

Bob Woodson and Hawk Newsome are among the most important voices in black America today, but their politics couldn't be any more different on the surface.

Hawk Newsome is the chairman and former president of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York.

American social fabric is tearing apart at catastrophic speed. How did we get here and where does hope come from for the future?

Braver Angels leaders John Wood, Jr. and April Lawson are joined by author, social psychologist and Braver Angels board member Jonathan Haidt to discuss the historical and psychological paths by which the United States has found itself looking over the cliff of chaotic social divisions – and wrestle with how we forge a positive path into the future.

Both audio and YouTube formats available below:

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on Braver Angels.

This past December, before the world changed but at a moment when most of the problems that led us here were in full view, I was invited to speak at an event organized by Bishop Omar Jawar of Dallas, Texas, in front of the black church community.