It's the Brian Laris show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now I'll talk to John Marks,

a former investigative journalist who transitioned 40 years ago to the field of

conflict resolution. This show once did a series in partnership with his group, Search for Common Ground.

In that series, we had guests from opposing points of view on some key issues. They would search

for the common ground they might share that could help the people they both cared about

even while they disagreed on policy. A classic example from search for common ground's work

domestically at that time was getting supporters and opponents of abortion rights to work

together to help prevent unwanted pregnancies. But most of search for common ground's work

was around the world, pursuing conflict resolution in war zones or potential war zones. John

describes his group as the world's largest peace-building nonprofit with offices in 35 countries.

Interestingly, and relevant to the United States right now,

a major lane of his work has been in creating common ground media in various countries

to combat how adversarial media was dividing people further into camps with violent implications.

So at this time of several intractable conflicts in the world today,

conflicts that are causing so much human suffering, let's see what we might still learn from

John Marks. His book is built around 11 principles. He has applied in his conflict resolution

work. And yes, I will ask them if any of these can be better applied

today than they're being applied in the Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, or Sudan situations.

And yes, I will ask about the increasingly tribal culture politics, tribal culture war politics,

I should say, of the United States. He has a new book called From

Vision to Action, Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship. John, it's been a minute. Welcome

back to WNYC. It's a real pleasure, Brian. Thank you for having me. Can we define the term in your

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