WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 I'm Cathy Cassidy, and I'm the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences here at WOU 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 And our office has been proud to sponsor a new speaker series this year 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Called Creating a Sustainable Future. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.000 And our idea was to bring in a variety of people, mostly 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Local because we've got a lot of wisdom here in Oregon, 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:24.000 Bring in people with a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Question of sustainability because that's a huge, as we all know, issue. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.000 We often go immediately to thinking about the environment when we think 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:35.000 About sustainability, but it doesn't have to 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.000 We don't have to dig in very far before we start to realize that is touches on 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.000 So many other disciplines and fields of study. And if you were fortunate to hear Rob Dietz 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.000 Here last month, you will realize quickly 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:51.000 That today's speaker, Aaron Wolf, brings a very different yet equally 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.000 Well grounded and provocative perspective on the question of sustainability. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:60.000 So I'm happy to you all here today. Thanks for joining us. I hope you'll continue to 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:05.000 Attend our series as it unfolds this fall. We don't have a lineup yet, but I hope we'll have that soon. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:10.000 At this point I'll introduce Doctor Mark Van Steeter from our department of Geography and 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Sustainability and he will introduce Aaron Wolf. Thanks. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 Doctor Aaron Wolf is a professor at OSU. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.000 If I were to just ad lib 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.000 A simple summary of him, I'd say he is 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:30.000 One of the smartest people regarding understanding 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000 The interdisciplinary nature of 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.000 Conflict versus peace. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.000 He's done work with Arab Israeli water 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Conflict. He's studied 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.000 Many faiths and religions, looking at 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.000 Trying to find common ground towards cooperation. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000 And I think that his work and understanding is really key 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:61.000 To the future of sustainability because if there is not cooperation, 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:06.000 Then any individual or country's act is 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.000 Not enough. So it is my great pleasure to introduce 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:15.000 Aaron Wolf. applause. Thanks Mark and Dean, and thanks for inviting me here. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:21.000 Just out of curiosity, how many people here are getting credit to be here right now? 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:26.000 Hands way up high, okay. So if you have other stuff to do, by all means, I won't take 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 It personally if you fall asleep. It won't bother me. I won't draw on you or 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:33.000 Put your hands in water or any of this stuff. I know that 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:39.000 There are incentives to get you in the room, and I won't feel. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:44.000 If we recognize that fact, it will be okay. Having said that, 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:48.000 What I'm going to talk about has a lot of relevance to what we do in Oregon. 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:52.000 And even though as in Mark's kind introduction, 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.000 Talks about my international experience, which I will talk more 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:60.000 About. So much of what happens intentionally also happens 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Also happens within Oregon. So to start of right off the bat, what do we use water for. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.000 Everything! Thank you. Ah, the professors always jump in. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.000 What do we use water for? To shower, a critical need. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.000 That's right, you guys are sitting pretty close. Absolutely, yeah. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.000 You raised your hand? No. Besides showering, anything? 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:26.000 Agriculture, which is the bulk of the use of water, right? Two thirds of the world's water and 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:29.000 Two thirds of Oregon's water goes to Ag. Drinking. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:33.000 Critical, critical need. How long can you go without water, without drinking water? 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.000 Three days, right. How long can you go without food? 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:45.000 Six weeks. Oh my God, food has nothing on water! Water is so, so critical, right. Somebody else had something else? 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:51.000 That's it? Cooking and 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:56.000 Are we out of uses? Drinking we said. Transportation, right, we move boats along it, right. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Sanitation. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:03:63.000 To nourish our souls, thank you. It's always the last thing that's 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:10.000 Mentioned and we'll talk about why it's always the last thing that's mentioned. Absolutely to nourish our souls. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:15.000 Laundry, yes. What about your poo, where does it go? 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 Down the drain and then down river, right? Sorry, Salem. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 Yeah, absolutely, right. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.000 So we're using water. I had a grad student come up with some pictures 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.000 for what we use water for. We mentioned the ecosystem 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:34.000 We mentioned transportation. That's not the Willamette, believe it or not. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:38.000 The hydropower, agriculture 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Nourishing our collective 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:48.000 Souls and of course drinking water. So which of these are potentially in conflict with each other? 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.000 All of them. That's exactly the problem with water. The problem with water 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:56.000 If there was enough water for all of our uses, there would be nothing called management. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:60.000 There would be nothing. We wouldn't have water divisions and water departments 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:05.000 And we certainly wouldn't have water conflicts. The whole point about water is we use it for everything. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:10.000 All of our societies, all of our cultures, all of our economies, all of our existence and our spirituality 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.000 All rests on water, and we don't have enough for all of it, right? 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.000 So what we do, there's this truism in 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 The water world that water management is conflict management. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:25.000 And the kind of two profoundly different ways that we look at the world 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.000 Are represented to me in these two maps. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:33.000 This is the way water people see the world. How many people are trained in water resources, water science, 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:37.000 Water engineering, water? Thank you, Sarah. Kind of. 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:40.000 Mark, yes. laughter 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.000 No students? Do guys not teach your students? Okay, a couple. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.000 So what unit is being delineated here? 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:53.000 It's a watershed, right? In a watershed, everything is connected to everything else. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:56.000 Right, and what's emphasized with this view of the world 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:61.000 Is all the connections that we have, right. So the Willamette is connected 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:05.000 To the Columbia which connects us to Canada, which connects us five states and fifteen 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:10.000 Tribes and so on and so forth. All of this is connected in what we call the Columbia River Basin. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.000 What the rest of the world sees also are the divisions 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:18.000 Between all of those things, the divisions between Oregon and Washington or the United States and 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:22.000 Canada or the fifteen tribes in the basin. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:27.000 So the two views, one is emphasized in things that bring us together, the other 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Emphasizing the things that separate us. Which one is right? 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Both of them. Exactly right, exactly right. We in the water world need to manage our water resources and 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.000 Strive if the theme is sustainability. The only way to sustainably 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:48.000 Manage water is working with the world as if it looked like this 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:53.000 While recognizing the very legitimate reasons that those lines are there to begin with. 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:57.000 Right, the things that separate us are often equally important, if not more so. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:65.000 So we need to balance both of these, which then creates problems when some of the folks who have to share water don't like each other very much. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:10.000 So here's a couple of basins that of riparian countries that share water. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:18.000 This is the Jordan Basin shared by Arabs and Israelis. How are relations between them? 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:23.000 Yeah, right? Not so good under normal situations. 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.000 There's five countries that share the Jordan. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:32.000 And to this day, Lebanon and Syria won't sit in the same room with the Israels. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 So to manage the water is extremely tough. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.000 How about India and Pakistan on the 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.000 Indus Basin. How are relations? 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:48.000 Right? This is tough! Tigris Euphrates, this is in the news now 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.000 As we speak. This is Turkey 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 And Iraq and Iran. How are relations between them? 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:61.000 So this is the problem. These are the people who have to share basins. There's eleven countries on the Nile Basin. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 In Aral Sea, all of these five countries all 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:10.000 Share a basin and the upstream countries want to build dams and the downstream countries don't like it. 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.000 So this where the term hydropolitics comes from. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:16.000 The fact that people who don't like each other oftentimes 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:19.000 Share a basin and have to figure out ways to work together 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:22.000 If they're going to manage their water sustainably. 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:28.000 Well, a long time ago in the early nineties when I first started getting involved in this issue, 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.000 A number of people looked at this and said Oh, my gosh! People who hate each other share water 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000 They're all running out. We use it for everything and therefore, 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:40.000 Reads slide 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:43.000 How many people agree? 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.000 It's intuitive, right? We need it for everything. We're running out. We hate each other. Of course, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:52.000 Of course we're going to go to war, but my original training was a scientist. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:56.000 I was trained in hydrogeology, and I looked at this as a scientist would 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:60.000 And I asked what do we know? What evidence is there? This is a massive 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.000 Proclamation. The wars of the future are going to be about something. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:08.000 What do we know about the wars of the past? What do we know, what evidence? People are talking about these 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.000 Six basins over and over and over again. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:15.000 What do we know about the rest of the world? And one of the things we didn't know 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:20.000 Was how many basins there were that were shared by two or more countries. So this is a map that we 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.000 Made at OSU. It took three years to make it, 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:27.000 Figuring out that there are 310 transboundary basins. 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:31.000 It's half the land's surface of the earth. It's 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.000 Forty percent of the world's population and eighty percent of the world's water 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:40.000 Originates in basins that are shared by two or more country. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:48.000 From this spot where we are sitting, how far would we have to go to go to an international basin? 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:55.000 Sorry? We're in it now. Which basin are we in? 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:60.000 The Columbia Basin, right? Remember, the Columbia is shared, we don't know because all of our US maps, the Columbia has a 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.000 Nice straight line at the top of the basin. That's not reality. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:08.000 I mean there's another country north of us and they kind of 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.000 Have a section of the basin as well, right? 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:16.000 So the other thing that people didn't know, people were focusing on the conflict potential but there's a 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:20.000 Whole spectrum of things that countries can do. They could conflict 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.000 What else can they do? They might cooperate, or they might 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:28.000 Do nothing and nobody had asked those questions around water 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.000 What are the, all of the world's basins, what's the 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.000 Global experience with transboundary water along an entire 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:40.000 Spectrum of potential interactions. And at the time, nobody was 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.000 Talking about shared ground water, which complicates things even further. There's 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:48.000 Another six hundred transboundary aquifers around the world complicating. 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:52.000 So we put all of this together and into a database, and again it's 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.000 Found at Oregon State. It's all online. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.000 There's some six hundred treaties. This has to be updated. There's all kinds of 00:10:59.000 --> 00:10:64.000 Data. Every time two countries did anything around water, we captured it 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.000 In this database. What was the issue? How intense 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:12.000 Was it along this spectrum? And if there's one 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.000 Figure that's been cited more than any other, it's this. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:20.000 When we put all this along this spectrum from very intense cooperation to war, 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:25.000 What we found was two thirds of the time we do anything over water it's cooperate. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:30.000 And that's the people who dislike each other. This is Arabs and Israelis, Indians 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.000 And Pakistanis and Azeris and Armenians. Somehow they find a way 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.000 To overcome their political differences at least to 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:42.000 To develop some kind of implicit or explicit way to 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.000 Collaboratively manage water. Two thirds of the time we do anything 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.000 It's cooperate. On the conflict side, 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Eighty percent of conflict events are verbal events. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.000 This is one of two things happening. Who plays up, in our society 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:60.000 Which sectors play up conflict? 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:05.000 Media, absolutely. So this is people writing about conflict. 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:10.000 And it happens all the time! People call me up and they 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000 Talk to me for hours about all this cooperation 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.000 And how it's this amazing elixir, brings people together and isn't it. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:21.000 And the headline's alway alway always water war is on the horizon. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:25.000 Right? It simply doesn't matter that there's no evidence for it. 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:31.000 So the media is playing it up, and who else plays up conflict? 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Absolutely, politicians, right? The politicians 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:38.000 Play up water. They say we are going do defend the life blood of the nation! 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:42.000 What do they mean? Vote for me in November. Right? 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.000 Have armies actually been mobilized? Were shots fired? 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:50.000 Well, here, thirty eight cases over sixty years 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.000 Thirty eight cases, shots were fired and never escalated into 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Full boar warfare. And twenty seven of these were between Israelis and Arabs. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:12:63.000 And the interesting note about that is the last shot fired on the Jordan 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:07.000 Between Israelis and Arabs was in 1968. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:12.000 So 1968, 1970, they ran out of water, ran out 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:17.000 Demand hit supply. Everything that's happened since then, all of the armed conflict that they've had 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:22.000 Two intifadas, two wars, immigrants from the 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.000 Former Soviet Union, from the Gulf, population's growing, economy's growing 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:29.000 All of this has happened in the absence of violence 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:32.000 Even in the worst of basis, even in the Jordan Basin. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.000 And here's the number of wars in our sixty year period. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.000 Zero. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:44.000 The only documented war around water, specifically around water between countries was 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:53.000 So that's all interesting and Kofi Annan, who 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000 Talked about the wars, when he started to understand the nuance, and there's 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.000 So much more if you're interested in this aspect 00:13:59.000 --> 00:13:63.000 By all means, we have data coming out of our ears 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Publications coming out of our ears. Our database is stock full of 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.000 All the studies that lead to these kinds of conclusions. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:15.000 But even Kofi Annan at some point reversed himself and recognized 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.000 Reads slide 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:25.000 Reads slide 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.000 This is one aspect of what's going on with water, and I don't want 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:33.000 suggest, I'm not an optimist over everything, but what I suggest is there's 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:38.000 A timeline over shared waters. Who's from the Klamath Basin? 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:44.000 So the Klamath is a perfect example. If you know anything about the Klamath, what do you know? 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:51.000 Tribes, Ranchers, Environmentalists. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:57.000 I mean it's the classic Oregon situation where all the stakeholders are in the room and in the year 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 Right? It blew up into a conflict and there was actual violence between 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.000 Ranchers were denied water, then they got 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:11.000 Back their water, then there was a big fish kill. All kinds of. There's a worse 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.000 The worst of 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:20.000 Results of water management in the state and in the Northwest. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.000 And then what happened was ten years of negotiations 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 Where all of these groups came together and started to 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 Talk and started to figure things out, and that seems to be a very common 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.000 Timeline. The press, the politicians get really interested on the conflict side 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:40.000 But all of that attention also brings the resources, brings the focus, brings 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.000 People into a room to start to manage things and then interestingly 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.000 As soon as people start to get along, everybody loses interest. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.000 Right, so that's something that we see over and over and over. None of this is what I want to 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000 Talk about. What I want to talk about is march challenge about sustainability. 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:60.000 All of these grand issues, when we talk about Israel and the Arabs, or we talk about 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:06.000 These grand bodies, at the end of the day, it's a bunch of people in a room trying to figure something out. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.000 So overtime, I got more and more interested in this 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:12.000 Aspect of it. It's like nice in theory about 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.000 You know, the separation of forces and marginal 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:21.000 Power distribution or whatever else is going on, yeah. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:25.000 But at the end of the day, most of the problems and all of the solutions are created by 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:31.000 Small groups of people in a room. So how does that happen? That was something that, again, I'm trained as a scientist 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:38.000 And I, when I was trained, 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:42.000 I thought that the point of 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:50.000 The point of my work was too. I'm sorry. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:52.000 Can I borrow your phone? 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:58.000 Thank you. So. laughter. When 00:16:58.000 --> 00:16:64.000 I thought as a scientist, my role to address water conflicts was to bring the answer to people, right? 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.000 And so I would! I'd sit there, a bunch of angry people would be in a room, and I'd 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:11.000 Come in and I'd say Hey, guys you don't have to be angry I've got the answer. 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.000 And what was their response, right? Thank you. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:21.000 So I took the phone two ways. Which way felt better? 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.000 Why the second way? Because I asked. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:27.000 Right, the whole point, scientifically the results are the exact same 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:31.000 X equals zero. She has the phone. X equals one. I have the phone. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:37.000 Right, so if you modeled it, they're both absolutely identical. The only difference is the process. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.000 Right, the process. In one, what's your name? 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:45.000 Maria. Maria had control, had ownership, had 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.000 vested interest in the exchange and had and the 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:53.000 The and had power over her own process, right? 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:57.000 So that's all it is is thinking about you know how to get somewhere. The question is 00:17:57.000 --> 00:17:61.000 How do you do it in a politically viable way? How do you do it so that it's in 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:05.000 Everybody's interest to get there. It's not necessarily where you go, 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.000 As people have mentioned a number of times, it's the journey. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:12.000 Right, so this is now my room. About half the time I spend 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:16.000 In rooms like this, really really angry people separated from each other 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:20.000 Trying to figure out how not to talk to each other and I'm kind of in 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.000 Between going No, you really should, it's really cool and you can get a lot done. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:28.000 And this was the book that originally got me, and so I went 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:32.000 Back and started to get training in this conflict resolution stuff. 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:35.000 How many people know this book Getting to 'Yes'? 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:40.000 Getting to 'Yes' was kind of the Bible initially of what we 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.000 Called alternative dispute resolution in the US. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:47.000 And for a scientist, it was awesome. Look at this, separate the people from the problem, right? 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:52.000 It's not about processing, just make it an objective process. Focus on interests 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:56.000 Invent options for mutual gain, right? This is something quantitative 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:61.000 Insist on objective criteria. You can model this. You can synthesize it. You can 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:05.000 For a scientist this was awesome and so rational. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:08.000 How many people deal with conflict regularly? 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:12.000 How many people are in a relationship, right? 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:15.000 It is a rational process? 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:20.000 You're going yeah, my side is. laughter. Right, yeah. When you're in it 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000 Of course it doesn't. I mean your side feels rational and they're absolutely being irrational but there are 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:28.000 So many points in a process that don't follow this nice 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:32.000 Linear, objective approach to problem solving. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:38.000 And that's not how conflict comes about because it turns out that the issue is never the issue. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:43.000 Right? When Israelis and Palestinians are talking about water, they're not talking about water, they're talking about history 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:47.000 And they're talking about power, and they're talking about occupation and they're talking about control and they're 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:52.000 Talking about all these other things that come into play. And it's the same, I hate to break it 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:57.000 To you, when you and your partner are having a discussion, it's also not about the issue. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:61.000 Right, so how do we learn, what I noticed in 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:05.000 Facilitation, in negotiation, that instead of a nice linear objective 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:10.000 Process, what I ended up with more often were moments of transformation. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.000 Right, when suddenly 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:18.000 Often times somebody would say something nice about somebody else and that was contagious. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.000 Or somebody listened to somebody else and that was contagious. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:25.000 Or somebody looked at a figure 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.000 A datapoint or something and suddenly understood it profoundly different 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:33.000 And that's contagious. How many people have been in a room where that's happened, where 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.000 Transformative moments have occurred? Okay, a couple of folks. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Interestingly I noticed the same people who raised their hand when I asked who's in conflict. That's good. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.000 So you're in conflict, good healthy conflicts. 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:48.000 You're like, eh, not so much. laughter 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000 Right, so the problem is there's no way, in my training at least, there was nowhere to 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.000 Study this transformative moment. Right, think about your lives. When do you have those moments in your life? 00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:62.000 Suddenly everything is profoundly different than you thought. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.000 Where in your life, when did that happen? 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:14.000 So many times. Where's our. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:19.000 Right? Where's our parents in the room? 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.000 Change your perspective a little bit? 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:25.000 Right, it's like one minute it's like I'm this guy! 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.000 And then the next it's like Yeah, I don't care, feed me, right? 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Totally profoundly changing. God forbid somebody get's sick or somebody close 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.000 To you is sick or passes away. Suddenly right I'm going home, I'm 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:40.000 Changing of my 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.000 Priorities are going to change. I'm going to take care of myself, right? 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:47.000 So the problem is my experience is I'm watching these moments in the room, and I 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:51.000 Don't know how to learn from, learn about them, and I don't know to 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.000 Create a setting that's conducive to these transformative moments, right. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:60.000 So I'm playing with these images, and I did this a lot in training 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 And one of the moments that I noticed in negotiations was the first time you 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 See your own basin without the borders on the map, that's one of those moments. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.000 Right, so if I had a figure of the Columbia 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.000 And all of a sudden I took the borders off the map, it's like Woah! 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.000 What's that norther lobe? Where is that? I've never seen that on any of my maps. 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.000 What do you mean we're connected to Washington? That's hard, right. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:28.000 All of a sudden, you're disoriented, literally disoriented, and 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:33.000 You realize you're connected. So this is one of those moments in negotiations 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:36.000 Where I take the borders off peoples' maps 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.000 And it's a moment where it's one of those transformative moments. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000 Initially they're disoriented and then they realize they're connected. 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 And I was working with the guy at the World Bank, we were working on some training material 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000 And I asked him about these figures. I said What 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 Is it about this pair of figures that 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:60.000 Suddenly seems to elicit transformation? Where do you 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.000 Learn about this? And it turns out he made it the time 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:08.000 The suggestion that really changed the course, certainly of my intellectual life, but 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:13.000 Also my life in general. He said to me You know, it also looks like a 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:17.000 And analog for spiritual transformation. 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:20.000 He asked Isn't this what most faith traditions 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:25.000 Try and get you to do? You're there with your boundaries, with your needs, with your desires 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.000 And what they all try and help you to see 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 Those boundaries are ephemeral. We're actually connected to each other in 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 Deep ways and in his language, 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000 Turns out he was deeply practicing Bahai and connected to the divine. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.000 Why don't you, he said, why don't you go out and study 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:47.000 How conflicts dealt with in faith traditions or faith settings 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:52.000 And see if there aren't lessons about transformation that you can bring back 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.000 To our world of resource negotiation? Okay. 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:60.000 He also on this kind introduction where I work, 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Right, what do we know about OSU? 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.000 It's not that far from here. Land grant, sea grant, space grant, sun grant. 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:12.000 I'm in the college of Earth Ocean Atmospheric sciences. It's a public university, right? 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:16.000 So when somebody says Oh yeah, go study faith. I'm like Woah, 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.000 No, you don't understand. That's anathema to everything that I've 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:23.000 Ever been taught about how to approach science and how to. 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:27.000 I can't even bring that up, right? 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:33.000 So all my red flags are going, but then it stuck with me. It's like as a scientist I'm thinking Yeah, but it makes so much sense. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:36.000 Right? And a good scientist goes where the science leads 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Regardless of the apparent boundaries, right? So now I'm stuck with this quandary. On the one hand, 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:45.000 It could be intellectual suicide 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:50.000 They'll shake their head, say Oh Wolf, he was such a good scientist once upon a time. 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:53.000 On the other hand, it's and awesome question! Oh my gosh, he's 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:58.000 Right. The faith communities that have been dealing with 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:60.000 Anger and conflict and 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.000 Discord within their communities and between their communities 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:10.000 For thousands of years. Certainly there are lessons to be learned that could be brought back into. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.000 So two things happened. One, I got tenure, so I couldn't be fired for asking that 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:18.000 Question, and two, I got a sabbatical 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.000 To really start asking the question in a deep and profound way. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:26.000 And so that's what I've been doing really for the last eight years 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000 Is when I can, being in communities 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000 Of different backgrounds, different approaches and kind of asking 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Those sets of questions. So we started out Vatican City. 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:42.000 How many people have been to Vatican City? A couple of people but you were in the front of Vatican City, right, 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:45.000 With all the people, right, and who's stopping you from going to the 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:51.000 Back of Vatican City? Who are these guys, what country are they from? 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000 Yeah, the swiss guards right? The Swiss guards, you try and go back to like 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:58.000 where the Vatican actually happens, and these guys will stop you. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:25:61.000 They have these seven foot, what are they called Halperts? 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Halberds? Right its always the guy who knows right. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.000 I got this. Yeah, they will stop you with the Halbert 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:13.000 but if you are at a meeting, and this was Oregon State University 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:16.000 and the Pacific Institute, a good friend Peter Glick, 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:21.000 and the Vatican Science Council collaborated on a meeting 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.000 where we brought together people who had 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:28.000 negotiated water conflicts at a very 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:32.000 high level, and leaders from faith traditions from a number of 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.000 different traditions, and we brought them here to Vatican City. And if ou have your key, 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:40.000 from St Martha's Hostel, the Swiss guards 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.000 try and stop you, and you flash your key, and they pull their Halperts 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:48.000 back and they salute you. I just went back and forth all day long 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:52.000 it was so cool, but it was back here 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:56.000 if anybody is going to have a conversation this is the place to have it. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:60.000 Who knew the Vatican had a science council? Right, I did not. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.000 Ok, a guy. I thought it was frankly a contradiction in terms 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:08.000 they have had some issues with science in the past it seems, 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:12.000 but that is the point. Since they have had issues with science in the past 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:16.000 they established this council and the churches teachings now are, if 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:20.000 scientific understandings and church teachings conflict its 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.000 the church teachings that have to change. And this is the council 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:28.000 that keeps and eye on this stuff. So we show up, all of us, three days, how productive is it? 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:32.000 Not, absolutely not. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.000 Think about how different the languages we speak are. So this one guy is the 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.000 water minister from Nepal, and he is talking about bio-fluvial-gio-hydro 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.000 dissolved something, and he is sitting next to this 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:48.000 goofy mystic, who does not say a word, but he just glows. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.000 I mean literally you just want to sit next to him because his energy was just 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:56.000 so positive, it was like, I want some of that. People just kept drifting closer 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:60.000 and closer to him. It is hard to have that 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000 conversation, the worlds are so profoundly different. And this is one of the lessons 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.000 that I learned in all of this, is just how different the language 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:12.000 we speak is, and I just want a quick diversion here, 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:16.000 What I understood, and this is also 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:20.000 doing a lot of international negotiations, is that we in the West 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.000 went through what we call the enlightenment. That happened 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:28.000 in a very specific place at a very specific time. And what we did 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.000 for a lot of very legitimate, political reasons, we said our public 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:36.000 discourse only about things we can measure. It is going to be left brain, it is going to be rational 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:40.000 stuff. You can talk about anything at all as long as you can 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.000 measure it. And we decided we can measure a lot of stuff. You can measure intelligence, 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.000 you can measure love, and you can measure all these other things. You can have this whole other life, 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:52.000 spiritual life, but it is personal. You do it in 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.000 your home, you do it in your Friday, Saturday, Sunday community, and you do not 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:60.000 bring it into public discourse. The things that we 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.000 show as legitimate evidence only belong to this one world and not 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:08.000 to the other. What I had not really fully understood is that 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:12.000 understanding is really specific to Northern Europe and now 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.000 And now North America, what we call the West. 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.000 And in a lot of the rest of the world, they never made that separation. 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:24.000 So when you talk to a lot of people from around the world, this idea of talking about rationality and 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:28.000 Spirituality in the same sentence has not contradiction whatsoever. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000 And when you're talking about things like conflict and 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:35.000 Poverty alleviation and all the things that go with sustainability, 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:40.000 We're the ones that need to remember, we're the ones 300 years ago 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.000 That decided to close one eye and walk around with this eye 00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.000 Closed and now we're telling everybody else Hey guys, 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:52.000 You should do this too. This is a really cool way to see the world. 00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:56.000 Right? You'd close your eye too and tell us about the benefits 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:60.000 But rational benefits, measurable benefits to cooperation. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.000 Don't talk to me about relationships or honor or 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:07.000 Spirituality or all these things that we can't measure, right? 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.000 So having said that, this is what I recognized in this meeting. This was this classic 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:18.000 Clash of these two worlds and I hadn't understood. So as a meeting, to resolve issues, it wasn't very good 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:22.000 But as a meeting to develop questions, it was ideal. And these were the questions. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:25.000 How do different traditions understand conflict, anger, 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:28.000 Forgiveness, reconciliation? What processes are used? 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:33.000 How dies a spiritual understanding of water help us in our dialog? And so on. 00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:38.000 So how many people dislike 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.000 Difficult conversations? 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:46.000 laughter. How many people have had a difficult conversation in the last month? 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:50.000 Awesome. It seems like that number seems to be growing month by month. 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.000 So what I'll ask you to do is think back on a difficult conversation you've 00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:58.000 Had, not something that elicits a trauma or crisis in your life, 00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:63.000 But a difficult conversation you've had, and think very very carefully 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:09.000 Where are our sports fans? I love the name of your sports team by the way, I have to say. Go wolves. 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:14.000 You know the micro slow motion? That's what we're going to do. 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:18.000 Alright? So think the very first moments that somebody with a view 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:23.000 Diametrically opposed to your own starts to talk. Okay. 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:28.000 In those very very first moments, where do you feel that in your body? 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:31.000 Your gut. Where else? 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:36.000 Your heart. What's happening to your heart? A little bit emotional. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:42.000 Sorry? Beats faster. What else? 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:46.000 Muscles are tensing up. I heard somebody else. 00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:50.000 A little lump in the throat, right. 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:57.000 How do you know it's adrenaline rushing, what do you actually feel? Yeah. 00:31:57.000 --> 00:31:61.000 Yep. So all of this has a very common term. What's this term? 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:05.000 How many people just even thinking about it start to have this reaction? 00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.000 I mean just even here in this room. A lot of you, right? 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:13.000 So here's what's interesting, what's going on physically? It's called an amygdala capture. 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.000 Right? So your amygdala's back here and it's kind of scanning the world with 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:19.000 You, checking to ask all the time, Am I in danger? 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:23.000 Right, and if I'm in danger, what do I need to do? 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:28.000 Fight or flee, right. Those are my choices. So and it takes over 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:32.000 Everything else, right? It takes over you entire body system. It takes over the nervous system, 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:37.000 Muscle system, absolutely everything. And it says Whoah, pay attention. Right? 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:41.000 And notice how powerful this is. Look around you. 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:44.000 What a peaceful room. We even have coffee! 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:48.000 Right, this is about as peaceful as it gets. There's no danger anywhere around. 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:54.000 You're thinking of something that doesn't actually exist here 00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:60.000 You're imagining the situation and your amygdala thinks somebody is trying to kill you. 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.000 That's how powerful this is. So when you have this physical reaction, 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.000 And somebody says Oh, just calm down, it's like No! My amygdala's taking 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:12.000 Care of me, making sure the species survives. You calm down! laughter 00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:16.000 Right. So then what starts to happen? 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:20.000 You have that initial reaction, a physical response, somebody used the word emotional. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:23.000 What are the emotions that you start to feel? 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:28.000 Defensive and, sorry? Anxious and 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:32.000 Angry and offensive and say again, Mark? 00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:37.000 Aggressive, right? So all these are your emotions, your emotional world. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:40.000 Starting to defend, your amygdala saying Okay, I'm going to 00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.000 Create a shield here to protect my sense of 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.000 Insecurity, right. And then what starts to happen? How many people have been in a 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:52.000 Difficult situation and heard something new for the first time 00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:56.000 And were kind of surprised like Whoah? Isn't it annoying 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:60.000 When they have a point? I hate that! Right. 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.000 But notice how comfortable that feels that connection when all of a sudden 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:09.000 You're listening and you go Huh, maybe they're not all together out to lunch. 00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:15.000 Maybe they're not off the deep end. Maybe they're just coming from a different perspective, right? 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:18.000 So you've got your physical response, your emotional response 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:21.000 Then you have an intellectual or intuitive response 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:25.000 And how many people have ever looked at somebody that they were really in disagreement with 00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:31.000 And said to themselves It doesn't matter, I'm totally connected to this other person at a 00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:34.000 Fundamental and transformative way? 00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:38.000 Right? That's the spiritual rung, right. That's the spiritual connection. 00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:42.000 Right, so notice what we did. A physical, emotional 00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:44.000 Intellectual or intuitive and then spiritual 00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.000 What are those four? Does anybody recognize them? 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:53.000 Does anybody recognize those four levels? Where's our psychologists? 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:57.000 Hierarchy of needs, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? 00:34:57.000 --> 00:34:62.000 Yeah, right. How many people have heard of that, Maslow's Hierarchy? Oh, yeah now you come up with it. Fine. 00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:08.000 Right, absolutely. Maslow said this, these are our basic needs and in order, right, he talks about the order. 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:11.000 And this has been updated by the way for the 00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:15.000 Twenty first century, just so we are all on the same page. 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.000 New needs. But Maslow, the roots are 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:23.000 Actually a lot deeper. The way I know this is in my own tradition, 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:27.000 These are the four levels Moses went as he went Mount Sinai. 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:32.000 Right, the four levels. The physical is down at the base of the Mount with everybody then just him. 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:35.000 Seventy of the elders continue up the mountain. 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.000 And because it's a Jewish event, what do they do? 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000 Feast, right? You eat. Side of the mountain, big party on the side of Mount Sinai. 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:47.000 Then only Moses goes on and intuits 00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:50.000 Basically the law or the Torah 00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.000 Basically understanding of the universe and the fourth level is the cloud itself. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:58.000 Right, the cloud. And when the temple is built in Jerusalem, it's 00:35:58.000 --> 00:35:62.000 Build as a guided meditation in from these four levels. 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:06.000 From the outer to the inner. And then when the temple is destroyed, 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:12.000 What the Rabbis did is they put a guided mediation through those four levels right into the Jewish prayer service. 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.000 So religious Jews who prayed three times a day 00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.000 They pray in order of, to try and elicit those 00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:22.000 Those levels in order. 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:28.000 There are roots that go back, and certainly not just in Judaism, in Hinduism 00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.000 Theses are Vishnu's 4 totems. So it carries the mace: the physical strength 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.000 The lotus flower: glory of existence 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:40.000 The Discus: mind chakra and the conch makes this wonder sound. 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000 That itself is bringing you up from levels. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.000 Each of these traditions give us a different understanding. 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:52.000 In Hinduism what we get is that the energy is at a different place. 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:56.000 So you see these coming up through 00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:62.000 low to up. They say the work happens in the silence after the OM 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:06.000 Buddhism the Buddha has solved four sights. 00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:12.000 An aged person, a sick person, a dead person and an ascetic representing the four levels. 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:16.000 Who has been to Cambodia? 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:20.000 The structure is the same. From outer upward through the four levels 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:25.000 and a Buddha... one tradition holds that he did a meditation on the night of his enlightenment. 00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:28.000 Where he breathed right through 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:32.000 those 4 levels and ended up reaching into another understanding of the domain. 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000 In Christianity if you go through the churches in 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:40.000 Europe, of course the 4 elements from earth 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.000 and you see here... here is the mind of Adam and Eve getting the 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.000 the fruit of wisdom. 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.000 Each of the elements and directions is guarded by an arc angel and because it's 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.000 midevil Europe what are all the arc angels? 00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:60.000 White dudes. Absolutely... thanks to Disney we have an update there. 00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:08.000 In our native traditions, all though the Americas, you have the same construct. This is a Madison Wheel. 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.000 Here what is nice is that it is a wheel. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:16.000 This is often used to explain how an individual or 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:20.000 a group is out of alignment. If you have to much or to little of any of these aspects 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:25.000 then that leads to discourse either within yourself or your community. 00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:26.000 This makes sense. 00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:32.000 So for me, the other thing we learn from Islam, is that as you get deeper and deeper in this 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:36.000 when you were reaching up and making that final connection with whoever you disagree with. 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:41.000 As you go through these levels you find more and more connection. 00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:45.000 Initially in your... when you are talking about 00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:50.000 your physical needs, you focus on what you need 00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.000 and Sharia is what helps here "what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours." 00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:62.000 At the max level Tarikah reminds us "what's yours is mine, what's mine is yours." 00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:06.000 Ownership is not something that comes from above. 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:12.000 At Hakika, this level of truth, there is no "mine" and there is no "yours" 00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:17.000 And at Marifah there is no "me" and there is no "you". 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:24.000 So you think about this... this is now what I use as a guide for design and negotiations. 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:28.000 Recognizing that anger is shielding vulnerability. 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:32.000 If I hear anger I try to listen for 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:36.000 the vulnerability, in order to address the issue at that level. 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:38.000 So right now all the grand issues of the day. 00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:44.000 Guns, abortion or anything... Guns is a good one. What's the one thing 00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:46.000 that both things have in common? 00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:53.000 Vulnerability, fear. Absolutely. I am so scared I'd need more guns around me 00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:56.000 I'm so scared I want less guns around me. 00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:60.000 If you have a conversation starting with the things you have in common 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.000 is a much better way to ease back into the things 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:08.000 that divide us. What's interesting, if you sit down with somebody with whom 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:12.000 you disagree and your intention is to find things you have in common 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:16.000 Guess who stays out of your way? 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:21.000 If your intention is to find things you have in common 00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:28.000 you won't get agitated. Your amygdala will say, "there is no threat here. Knock yourself out." 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:32.000 Right. Try that. 00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:38.000 Go home, find someone with whom you disagree, I mean, diplomatically, civilly 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.000 I can see tomorrows headline, Professor causes riot when people go on a rampage. 00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.000 So I learned to start a little 00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:52.000 higher and what I want to do is give one example of how 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:57.000 this work in transboundary negotiations, is starting at the higher level than we do. 00:40:57.000 --> 00:40:60.000 Normally we start with positions in the physical needs 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.000 and that's the thing that always wraps us up in discord. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:06.000 The things I have learned to do is 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:16.000 These needs exist within us, within small groups, between us and within nations. 00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:18.000 Addressing these needs within a sequence... right? 00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:24.000 So every meeting the group has physical needs, where are you going to eat, what are you going to eat, is there air, is there light? 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:29.000 They have emotional needs, are people going to have a chance to speak, to be heard, to be listen to. 00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:32.000 Mental needs... do we need to learn something? 00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:34.000 How are we going to share in away that is fair and equitable. 00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:40.000 And finally there's spiritual needs, weather we name it that or not, most groups have them 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.000 and their ways to address them. If you're going to look at conflict this is always a good place 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000 to look in the Middle East. There is a little 00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:52.000 There is a little area 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:55.000 between Israel and Jordan, I'm going to say this diplomatically, 00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:63.000 the border migrated over the years into Jordan territory. I'm just going to say it like that. 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:09.000 It just happened. Maybe the wind blew it. The border migrated. 00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:12.000 So that a the end when Jordan and Israel sat down to talk 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:14.000 about their borders and to negotiate, 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:21.000 This is a little strip that has be Jordan territory that Israel had been holding onto and farming 00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:24.000 for about 30 years when they got to negotiating. 00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:28.000 So you are sitting here, you have one strip of land, two countries that both claim it 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:32.000 What do they want? What do they both want? 00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:42.000 Water is important, because it's right beside the stream, but that's not the issue here. A water negotiation is separate. All about the land. 00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:48.000 What do they both want? Who wants the farmable land? 00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:56.000 Well, Jordan has not been farming it for 30 years. What does Jordan want? 00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:08.000 They want sovereignty. Right. So if you dig a litter deeper what do you actually need here? 00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:11.000 It's not the land, they want sovereignty over the land. 00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:13.000 What does Israel want? They want to farm. 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:18.000 So now the questions isn't two bodies negotiating over the same track of land. 00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:26.000 it's how do you resolve... where one side wants sovereignty and another side wants to farm. Anyone figure this out? 00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:29.000 If you couch it like that it's not so hard. 00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:36.000 What did they do? Israel turned sovereignty back to Jordan, that is the Jordan flag flying over the area. 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:41.000 Jordan leased it back to Israel for 50 years. 00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:49.000 That exactly how negotiations happen. You problem a little bit, really nuance, what are you acting looking for here? 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:52.000 What values do we share? Where do we have things in common? 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:56.000 Then back into , bringing faith into 00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:60.000 the traditions is an explicit way to elevate the conversation 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.000 and happens in a lot of places. 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:08.000 I think I'm really anxious to have as much conversation as we possibly can. 00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:13.000 Fortunately I don't have to finish this as a lecture, because I wrote a book and you can all go out and get the book. 00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:18.000 The book is called Spirit of Dialog, and I will even put this up, not for self promotion 00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:20.000 maybe, a little bit of self promotion 00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.000 becaue there is a code for 20% off if you want. 00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:27.000 Having said that, I wrote this as a non academic book. This is a how to book 00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:32.000 All the things I learned from sitting in different faith traditions. How do people sit together? 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:36.000 How do they listen in a way that's not listening from the ears but listening from the heart? 00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:42.000 What are the exercises that we can develop to give up ownership of an idea in negotiating? 00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:46.000 These are all the things I have learned, so it's a very practical how to 00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:52.000 that should compliment whatever else you are reading in Conflict Resolution and Transformation. 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:59.000 So I'll leave that up there and I stop there and I will be happy to take the last 10 minutes for whatever discussion you would like to have. 00:44:59.000 --> 00:44:60.000 Thank you guys very much. 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:03.000 The question as I understand it is 00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:10.000 When you have a process like this, what do you do when one side is so invested in an existing situation 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:16.000 or structure? Do these tools work to over come it? I think the answer is yes. 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000 The is a number of different way that I approach... 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:26.000 What you have in common. I won't take climate change because that's massive. 00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:27.000 And we did crack it in Paris 00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:33.000 There was an accord, there is an accord. We just happened to be the only ones who don't know about it. 00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:39.000 But the process worked despite all the, as you say, the vested interest and so on. 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:45.000 So my experience is, even vested interest, have an interest in doing something. 00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:51.000 I'll just give you the example of Dam Construction becaue I think it's similar. 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:54.000 So there was a group in South West Asia, they were talking about a dam 00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:60.000 One group viscerally didn't want the dam and the other group just as viscerally did want the dam. 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000 So the positions are one is in favor and the other is against right? 00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:08.000 So you dig a little deeper, why is one in favor? 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:13.000 Well for the jobs, for the economy, for the energy, for the navigation, for the benefits. 00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:14.000 Why is one against? 00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:21.000 The danger to indigenous people, to fisheries, to the natural flow of the river and so on. 00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:24.000 Why... now you go one level deeper. 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:26.000 You have gone from positions to interest and values. 00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:32.000 Why do you care so much? I love my country. I love my country. 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:37.000 So if you start there at we both love our country 00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:42.000 and then the question become, How can we develop in a way that also protects? 00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:46.000 How can we grow the economy in a way that also protects the environment? 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:55.000 Right? It's not couched. So many of our conversations are couched, not by us, but by people with vested interest as 'either' 'or'. 00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:60.000 We talked about this all the time. Is it the economy or the environment? That is a nonsense question. 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.000 The question is how do you grow both? 00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:04.000 How do you grow one, while protecting the other? 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:12.000 When people do have these amazing epiphany and breakthroughs, it's answering the questions that I think happen. 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:15.000 As to the actual tools, how do you sit and how do you listen? 00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:20.000 There are a whole host of them. And I think there are ways to really listen, deeply for what somebody is after. 00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.000 Shell Oil was a great example. They were against against against 00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:28.000 until suddenly they are based in the Netherlands and the rising sea 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.000 was going to wipe their offices out and then they were like " yeah we will get on bored" 00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:36.000 laughing 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:38.000 I have a slight follow up to the last question. 00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:42.000 It definitely sounds a lot like what your say, and just from your speech earlier 00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:48.000 from my perspective of addressing the big solutions and the big interests 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:52.000 That might be opposed to changes in the future 00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:61.000 to me, maybe as a millennial, I try to... I get this framework in my mind where it's like I know we are inheriting a lot of 00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:05.000 economic debt and environmental damage you know from the past generations 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:12.000 Going forward, moving to a place where we can understand that, accept that, and then also communicate that 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:16.000 in a way where other people can accept that is an important aspect 00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:18.000 of the conversation to have. 00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:24.000 Another aspect is a lot of people who will benefit from the way things are 00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:29.000 as a self preservation tactic to not admit to these things they would not want to actually cause the damages for 00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:37.000 They will have that interest of 'I got to keep the way it is or else it's real what they are saying,' 00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000 I love that your asking me to solve the biggest 00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.000 Issues of the day. I can't. But I do have some insight. 00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:50.000 I noticed both of you couched the question as 'how do I get other people to understand what I understand?" 00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:58.000 That is not the intention to go into a conversation. If you go into a conversation how can I learn what their situation is 00:48:58.000 --> 00:48:62.000 now how can I... So to move us through that physical discomfort 00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:08.000 When you first feel the physical discomfort, and you see that as a red flag. 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:10.000 I'm going to do three things. 00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:16.000 I'm going to stop, I'm going to go into listening mode and I'm going to pay attention to my breathing. 00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:21.000 Right? I'm not going to start working on all the reason why they are wrong, all the reasons why I'm right. 00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:24.000 I'm just going to stop and I'm going to breath and I'm going to listen. 00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:30.000 Then you're up here in the emotional level and if you want to go to the next level you say what can I learn 00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:33.000 in this situation? What can I learn in this situation? 00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:38.000 If you're really brave and you can get to the next level, what do I share with this person? 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.000 In our college of Earth, Oceans and Atmospheric Sciences the big frustration 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:48.000 is what my colleagues call climate deniers . 00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:55.000 If only we could get our science right. If only we can get one more data set. If only we can get our model working just ra little bit more accurately. 00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:60.000 Suddenly everyone will agree. Well of course they won't. And that's not the point. 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000 They won't because it is a profoundly different world world view, with profoundly different rules 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:07.000 of what is legitimate evidence or what's not. 00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:12.000 The question then doesn't become, how do I convince you with my science that my science is right, 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:16.000 because that is circular. It's what can we do together? 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:21.000 Most quote deniers agree that the climate is changing, just not that people are at fault. 00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:25.000 So what? Lets deal with that adaptation. That's 80% right there. Fine lets go 00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.000 deal with the coast. Lets go deal with Huston. Lets go think about 00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:33.000 how do we deal with the fluctuating and varying climate? 00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.000 You don't have to deal with why, 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:40.000 there is reason to deal with why but lets get the 80% 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:43.000 to agree with first before we back into the other. 00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:48.000 You want to get particulates out of the air and you don't believe that it's causing heating? 00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:52.000 Fine get him out for health reasons. Think about the growth in the economy. 00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:56.000 With all these healthy people who can now breath healthy air. That's what I'm saying. You find 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:60.000 the places that you share and you work backwards from there. What you find 00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.000 more often than not, again there is an exercise 00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:11.000 I want you to do. Go home, whenever you... my beloved wife, I realized the cameras were rolling 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:16.000 Whom I love and I have been married for 30 something years 00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:20.000 She and I, every now and again, will trigger each other. 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:27.000 I am right usually but... I go into this listening. Here is what you do 00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:37.000 You sit next to somebody, you sit at an angle, when you start to feel triggered instead of going back "I'm right because of this this this " instead go into listing mode. Just sit next to them 00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:41.000 What you can do, if you breath at the same pace as them 00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:44.000 you can actually slow both of your breathing down. 00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:48.000 This is a Buddhist meditation technique. You can actually calm each other down 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:52.000 simply by breathing with them and slowing it down. As you do this just listen 00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:54.000 What's going on? And listen. 00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:60.000 Now you have to do if from the heart, you can't fake this stuff, because if you do... my lovely wife 00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:06.000 whom I adore, will look at me and say "don't mediate me. Don't mediations me." 00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:12.000 You have to do this stuff from the heart. And if you do 00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:16.000 So that is one exercise. When you are triggered, sit next to somebody and breath and listen 00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.000 The other exercise is find somebody you disagree with and go 00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.000 into a conversation with the intention to find three things you have in common. 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.000 Three things that you share about the issue. 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:32.000 I'm willing to bet you can do it within 30 seconds, no matter how much you disagree 00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:36.000 with somebody. I bet you can find three things that you agree on 00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.000 on the issue within 30 seconds and the amygdala will let you do it to. 00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.000 About the spiritual traditions, I think you mentioned 00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:48.000 that the person who inspired these wonderful thoughts was ?? 00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:52.000 That tradition is very amenable to the sort of 00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:56.000 idea of recognizing the other and listening. 00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:60.000 The sad history of other religious traditions is ideology purity 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.000 Often outright violence and warfare. So guess my question is 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.000 I really think the kind of recognition of the other that I endorse 00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:18.000 can be established between diverse religious communities and spiritual traditions. 00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:25.000 Yeah, I do. I will distinguish between two things. One between spirituality and religion. 00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:31.000 We are in Oregon, what is this? The World of Naan? 00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:39.000 Unchurch, right? We're in Oregon and we have the highest percentage, when say what faith are you? We have the highest percentage that say none. 00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:42.000 And yeah, it is a deeply spiritual place. 00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:48.000 People are getting their spirituality fly fishing, hiking or biking or whatever else they are doing. 00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:52.000 And I will distinguish between those two. My experience is that spiritual people of 00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:58.000 deeply spiritual people find more in common with other people regardless of their faith tradition. 00:53:59.000 --> 00:53:64.000 Like anything else, like economics or nationalism or any of the things we believe. 00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:11.000 It's used for vile, power grabbing, xenophobic, 00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:16.000 misogynistic purposes. There is no question that is has both sides. 00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:23.000 And I'm not saying let's use theses because it's religion, I'm saying lets use these because they are awesome tools. 00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:28.000 They're awesome tools. There is no question 00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:32.000 People interpret aspects of Islam in ways I find problematic and 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:36.000 what they have to teach about these 4 worlds is profound 00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.000 There is no me there is no you. Wow. That is an awesome place to start 00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.000 a conversation. That's all I'm saying, I'm not saying... And yeah I have been in a lot 00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:48.000 of rooms. Those of us in faith and interfaith communities often... 00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:53.000 Like anything else, you can find more things that unite you than divide you. If you look. 00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:58.000 Always going to be nice or problematic just like any other set of issues. 00:54:58.000 --> 00:54:60.000 clapping 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:02.000 clapping 00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:07.000 music