It’s the rare book that you finish reading only to begin immediately re-reading it. But Peter T. Coleman’sis that kind of riveting – and timely – title, combining personal anecdotes with years of research into conflict resolution. The professor of peace and conflict studies at Columbia University has lived a unique life, raised in middle America in a working-class home by a single mother who had to go on welfare to make ends meet.
As such, he writes, “I feel a genuine connection with, and concern for, both Americas: rural and urban, poor and well-off, progressive and conservative.” Such a perspective is vital at this juncture in history, as politics become increasingly volatile, and our society more divided than ever. The Globe and Mail spoke with Coleman about his insightful new book, and how we might be able to come together despite the current disunity.
You write in the preface to the book that you feel deeply shaken. Give us a “state of the nation” – where is America at when it comes to polarization?This is something we see in long-term protracted conflicts around the world. There is this tendency, particularly when you become so insulated from the other side that you don’t really interact with them. Then there’s just a lot of in-group rumination. Your assumptions about them become very simplistic.
Watertown is one of the most politically tolerant cities in the country. This is based on research by a group called PredictWise. I focused on it because [of]. One of the things you see is that Republicans and Democrats, for various reasons, mix there. They tend to spend more time together. There are more mixed political marriages than in other parts in the nation. They have community spaces where people come together and talk about these issues every week over breakfast.
PeterTColeman1 I'll bet good money not one word of this book is based on science or human history. 'The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function' Emeritus Professor Of Physics -Albert Bartlett The American Dream is DEAD