Archive - Defusing American Anger: A depolarization endeavor

On Sam Harris's refusal to debate Israel-critics — and how that relates to toxic conflict

Conflict leads us to be overly pessimistic about our opponents—which in turn can amplify toxicity

Jun 7 • Zachary Elwood

April 2026

"When I first saw your work, I rolled my eyes." On skepticism about reducing us-vs-them thinking.

Serious conflict inevitably leads to a widespread instinct to scoff at conflict-reduction efforts. To escape the toxic conflict spiral, we must see that…

Apr 3 • Zachary Elwood

February 2026

Working on a new book about reading people

Do you have interesting stories from your life or job of reading people and making useful deductions?

Feb 5 • Zachary Elwood

January 2026

I work on reducing political contempt — and yet I have contempt for Trump. Is that a contradiction?

Polarization means there will be much contempt and anger. The question is what we do with those feelings.

Jan 29 • Zachary Elwood

Learn how news platform Aemula hopes to reduce polarization

A visual demo of Aemula from its visionary creator Don Templeman

Jan 21 • Zachary Elwood

Groups in conflict inevitably have differences. Recognizing this can lower our contempt.

This is not a chess game; groups have different ways of moving.

Jan 21 • Zachary Elwood

December 2025

A Short Course for Navigating and Defusing Toxic Conflict

Resources for those who wish to disagree and advocate in healthier, less polarizing ways or mediate others' toxic conflicts

Dec 20, 2025 • Zachary Elwood

October 2025

Like my polarization work? Vote for me in this essay contest

Contest ends at midnight tonight; appreciate your help

Oct 31, 2025 • Zachary Elwood

September 2025

A polarized nation is volatile, at risk of being destabilized by non-representative acts of violence

How we build our narratives that "The other side are the violent ones!"

Sep 21, 2025 • Zachary Elwood

July 2025

When in conflict, we craft elaborate, false, and conflict-amplifying stories about our adversaries and our allies

Humans are storytellers, but our emotions when in conflict lead us to weave simplistic and conflict-amplifying stories

Jul 13, 2025 • Zachary Elwood

May 2025

Polarization makes us more paranoid — and paranoia makes us more polarized

On the self-reinforcing relationship between conspiracy-minded thinking and us-vs-them mindsets

May 28, 2025 • Zachary Elwood

Polarized views on Covid, guns, and George Floyd: We can assign very different meanings to tragic, violent events

Polarization leads us to assign different meanings to tragic events... and that can make us seem increasingly alien to each other

May 22, 2025 • Zachary Elwood