Steve McIntosh 
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Institute for Cultural Evolution
Focusing on the Cultural Roots of America's Challenges
Blog Post
November 02, 2015
ICE Receives More National Media Attention for Its Work on Polarization
On Monday the Washington DC-based Nation Journal published an extensive article on the “polarization movement” entitled: The War On Partisanship, How fighting polarization became its own cause. The article describes the efforts of a wide variety of nonprofits who are working to overcome hyper-partisan polarization and gives special attention to the work of The Institute for Cultural Evolution. Here are the paragraphs in which ICE president Steve McIntosh is quoted:
“The Boulder-based Institute for Cultural Evolution is taking a more philosophical approach to polarization. The group is publishing papers, such as one called “Depolarizing the American Mind,” and holding conclaves with “influencers” to brainstorm solutions for what Steve McIntosh, the group’s president, describes as a cultural problem. “Our technique is to find existential problems that can’t be solved at the level of thinking that created them—Einstein’s famous quote,” he says. “Those existential problems are where openings for new ways of thinking exist. …
“Other anti-polarization activists are gauging success differently. At the Bipartisan Policy Center, Jason Grumet cited the group’s recommendations for health care reform that ended up in the bipartisan-supported doc-fix deal earlier this year. At the Institute for Cultural Evolution, the focus is more on “influencing the influencers,” according to president Steve McIntosh. The group recently put on a political polarization conclave at Esalen, the storied spiritual resort in Big Sur that offers renowned massages and nude hot springs, footing all the expenses for the two dozen participants—including Blades, Joyner, Blankenhorn, and Civil Politics executive director Ravi Iyer. For them, success means launching their philosophy of depolarization “into the national mind, into what’s being discussed by pundits, and what’s being tracked by the media,” McIntosh says. “We’d like David Brooks to be able to say, ‘Here’s this interesting idea about a future left and a future right that’s a fresh way of thinking about the problem of polarization.’ ” (The fact that I wrote a story about one of their conferences a few months ago in National Journal makes a difference, too, he says.)”
We invite you to read the entire article at this link: http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/91684/war-partisanship?mref=home
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