In recognition of Remembrance Day on November 11th, a day in which we remember and honor the lives of armed forces members who have died in the line of duty during World War 1 and recall the end of First World War hostilities, we wanted to bring awareness to the work being done on peacebuilding. In particular, we reached out to Timothy Fort, who has worked in the space of business and peacebuilding, and more recently in efforts to understand how people can overcome divides, and use music as a bridge to create common ground with others with whom they disagree on social and political issues.
As the Common Ground Approach (2023) reminds us: Conflict is a natural result of human diversity. When we deal with conflict adversarially, it sparks polarization and violence. When we collaborate (and seek common ground), conflict is transformed and catalyzes positive change.
In the spirit of our transformative topics newsletter and its 'behind the scenes' storytelling, Tim reflects on what lead to him to write in this space, his approach, its importance, and where this work is headed next. As Timothy notes, Turning "thems" into "us" can be done.
"Although primates, including humans, separate the world into those who are part of our “us” as opposed to those who are “them,” the brains of primates are remarkably flexible. As such, we can find new ways to identify with each other, creating a new member of our “us” from those who previously would have been a “them” and perhaps a feared or hated one at that. Neurobiologists/ primatologists, such as Robert Sapolsky, have demonstrated this insight; so too have experimental psychologists/business ethicists, such as David Messick.
I have kept those insights in mind, especially in the past eleven years. While my scholarship has focused on business and peace for a quarter century, when I came to Indiana University eleven years ago, I took advantage of my Kelley School of Business being right across campus from the world-renowned Jacobs School of Music. I first played with the notion that music has a psychophysiological impact on our brains and bodies alike and could nudge our cognitive states of mind. Depending on what we are listening to, we might be inclined to punch someone in the mouth (such as when I listen to “Rocky,”) but it can also nudge to think of friendship (think Theme from “Friends”) or joy (think “Happy”) or how there is a time and season for everything (think “Turn, Turn, Turn…Or King Solomon for that matter). A subset of those musical nudges can incline us toward embracing others just as can other cultural artifacts, such as sports, movies, our meals, and yes, even our pets.
With that in mind, I’ve spent most of the last decade assigning students with the task of finding their own musical nudges that essentially correspond to well-known models of moral development and also to then find their examples of how one of those provided a bridge to create common ground with others with whom they disagree on social and political issues. They don’t change the minds of that person, but if one has found a common denominator, one has something to hold onto with the other, to claim an us, which makes the conversation about what they disagree upon more constructive and more civil.
I am currently writing a book with my longtime friend, Kristin Hahn, who is a Hollywood producer and screenwriter that we’re calling Songs, Sports, Stories and Suppers: How Shared Cultural Experiences Can Save America. This seems to be a time and place for such tools and I have found that after spending some time with this process, my students and others are able to have a far more constructive conversation than they would have had otherwise."
For more information on Tim's work in this space, check out the book Music, Business & Peacebuilding (Constance Cook Glen & Timothy L Fort, eds, 2022 (Routledge)
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