A researcher from Columbia University’s Advance Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity engages Columbia faculty and students just back from a protest against Israel. * Voices come from audience members. (Passages in quotation marks and italics derive from the consortium’s website **)
Researcher: First, everyone should know that “Research has shown that about one in every twenty conflicts – five percent – becomes stuck and seemingly unresolvable.”
Voices: Thanks for the math lesson. Who in college nowadays would know that one in twenty is five percent? We’ve been busy learning more important matters like how socialism is great, Republicans are racists, Jews imprison Palestinians and kill them, and America is an imperialistic Satan oppressing the poor around the world as it takes their economic resources. It’s all about oil. It’s all about oil. It’s all…
Researcher: Okay. I understand you’re angry. But…
Voices: Gas the Jews!
Researcher: Hold on, now. This is a university. Let’s settle our differences peacefully. We here at what we like to call our “Sustaining Peace Project” offer “a paradigm shift in the study of peace and conflict dynamics.” We believe we can resolve conflicts like the long-standing one between Arabs and Jews that go back as far as 2,500 years or so, like conflicts between Persians and Jews, Egyptians and Jews, Assyrians and Jews, the Sea People and Jews, Romans and Jews, Christians and Jews, Germans and Jews, and…
Voices: Don’t you see. They can’t get along with anyone. What’s the one common name in your list of conflicting parties? It’s Jews. Free the Palestinians. Free the Palestinians. Free the…
Researcher: Look, we’re not going to get anywhere just shouting. You students who aren’t on scholarships of some kind are paying more than $63,000 per year for tuition—or your parents are paying it. If you do the math, that’s going to add up to…
Voices: More math? That’s what you want to tell us? More math…Free the Palestinians.
Researcher: …more than a quarter million dollars—more if you take five or six years to graduate and even more for a graduate degree. Anyway, our diverse faculty members here at Columbia’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity want you to avail yourselves of our innovative ways to resolve conflict. Just shouting doesn’t resolve anything.
Voices: Gas the Jews. Free the Palestinians.
Researcher: “Our research takes a different approach and employs new models – based on complexity science, systems thinking, causal loop diagramming, and Dynamical Systems Theory (DST) – to engage and think anew about the complexity of peace, conflict and sustainability.”
Voices: Stop the genocide. Stop the genocide. Support Hamas. Support the Palestinians.
Researcher: Here at Columbia, we have a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. That means we have an obligation to get along peacefully, to set an example for the rest of the world. We know that “Few efforts have been devoted to studying peace directly as a positive state. In addition, research and practice relevant to peace are typically rooted in specific disciplines while interdisciplinary approaches are limited. As a result, the complexity, multidimensionality, dynamism, and sustainability of peace are not well understood, contributing to a lack of coherent, measurable, and implementable policy agendas that effectively sustain peace.”
Voices: Multidimensionality…? Is this a physics class? We heard about many dimensions in that physics class you made us take. Throw the Jews off campus. Don’t take donor money from Jews. Stop supporting Israel. Divest…
Researcher: Could we just listen for a moment. Look we have a diverse group here at the Advance Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity. Look at us members on stage: Naseem Aumeerally, Tatiana Benavides, Allegra Chen-Carrel, Peter Coleman, John Fisher, Doug Fry, Larry Liebovitch, and Genevieve Souillac. Are we not diverse? Do we not have differences in personal histories, cultural backgrounds, specializations, and political views? Of course we do, but we constantly “bridge the gap between the academic understanding and practical applications of sustainable peace by providing policy-relevant tools.” If we have found the way to peace among ourselves, we believe you can, also. “Our Sustainable Peace Project, grounded in dynamical systems theory and informed by historical and anthropological evidence indicating that humans are fundamentally cooperative beings seeks to” get people to converse about peace with “academic experts, policy makers, and local stakeholders.” We have classes and research projects. We do research. We have…
Voices: Free the Palestinians. Free the Palestinians. Stop the genocide. Support Hamas. Divest in anything the Israelis offer. Gas the Jews. Free the…
Researcher: If you would just give our Dynamical Systems Theory a chance…
*https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/columbia-nyc-campus-access-restricted-to-id-holders-ahead-of-thursday-protests/4764325/
**https://ac4.climate.columbia.edu/sp
Researcher: First, everyone should know that “Research has shown that about one in every twenty conflicts – five percent – becomes stuck and seemingly unresolvable.”
Voices: Thanks for the math lesson. Who in college nowadays would know that one in twenty is five percent? We’ve been busy learning more important matters like how socialism is great, Republicans are racists, Jews imprison Palestinians and kill them, and America is an imperialistic Satan oppressing the poor around the world as it takes their economic resources. It’s all about oil. It’s all about oil. It’s all…
Researcher: Okay. I understand you’re angry. But…
Voices: Gas the Jews!
Researcher: Hold on, now. This is a university. Let’s settle our differences peacefully. We here at what we like to call our “Sustaining Peace Project” offer “a paradigm shift in the study of peace and conflict dynamics.” We believe we can resolve conflicts like the long-standing one between Arabs and Jews that go back as far as 2,500 years or so, like conflicts between Persians and Jews, Egyptians and Jews, Assyrians and Jews, the Sea People and Jews, Romans and Jews, Christians and Jews, Germans and Jews, and…
Voices: Don’t you see. They can’t get along with anyone. What’s the one common name in your list of conflicting parties? It’s Jews. Free the Palestinians. Free the Palestinians. Free the…
Researcher: Look, we’re not going to get anywhere just shouting. You students who aren’t on scholarships of some kind are paying more than $63,000 per year for tuition—or your parents are paying it. If you do the math, that’s going to add up to…
Voices: More math? That’s what you want to tell us? More math…Free the Palestinians.
Researcher: …more than a quarter million dollars—more if you take five or six years to graduate and even more for a graduate degree. Anyway, our diverse faculty members here at Columbia’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity want you to avail yourselves of our innovative ways to resolve conflict. Just shouting doesn’t resolve anything.
Voices: Gas the Jews. Free the Palestinians.
Researcher: “Our research takes a different approach and employs new models – based on complexity science, systems thinking, causal loop diagramming, and Dynamical Systems Theory (DST) – to engage and think anew about the complexity of peace, conflict and sustainability.”
Voices: Stop the genocide. Stop the genocide. Support Hamas. Support the Palestinians.
Researcher: Here at Columbia, we have a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. That means we have an obligation to get along peacefully, to set an example for the rest of the world. We know that “Few efforts have been devoted to studying peace directly as a positive state. In addition, research and practice relevant to peace are typically rooted in specific disciplines while interdisciplinary approaches are limited. As a result, the complexity, multidimensionality, dynamism, and sustainability of peace are not well understood, contributing to a lack of coherent, measurable, and implementable policy agendas that effectively sustain peace.”
Voices: Multidimensionality…? Is this a physics class? We heard about many dimensions in that physics class you made us take. Throw the Jews off campus. Don’t take donor money from Jews. Stop supporting Israel. Divest…
Researcher: Could we just listen for a moment. Look we have a diverse group here at the Advance Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity. Look at us members on stage: Naseem Aumeerally, Tatiana Benavides, Allegra Chen-Carrel, Peter Coleman, John Fisher, Doug Fry, Larry Liebovitch, and Genevieve Souillac. Are we not diverse? Do we not have differences in personal histories, cultural backgrounds, specializations, and political views? Of course we do, but we constantly “bridge the gap between the academic understanding and practical applications of sustainable peace by providing policy-relevant tools.” If we have found the way to peace among ourselves, we believe you can, also. “Our Sustainable Peace Project, grounded in dynamical systems theory and informed by historical and anthropological evidence indicating that humans are fundamentally cooperative beings seeks to” get people to converse about peace with “academic experts, policy makers, and local stakeholders.” We have classes and research projects. We do research. We have…
Voices: Free the Palestinians. Free the Palestinians. Stop the genocide. Support Hamas. Divest in anything the Israelis offer. Gas the Jews. Free the…
Researcher: If you would just give our Dynamical Systems Theory a chance…
*https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/columbia-nyc-campus-access-restricted-to-id-holders-ahead-of-thursday-protests/4764325/
**https://ac4.climate.columbia.edu/sp
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