Do No Harm users talk about the mindsets that influence and shape our behaviors in ways that, in turn, influence and shape our impacts on any context. These are the “dividing mindset” and the “connecting mindset”. Every person who intervenes in any context may choose which mindset to embody. The choice is the basis for effective, positive impacts or ineffective and negative impacts. It is an essential choice.

The Dividing Mindset

The dividing mindset looks for and emphasizes difference and dominance. In one of Mary Anderson’s memorable phrases, it “reinforces the modes and moods of warfare”. It is based on a sense that the world requires winners and losers, so that hostile competition and aggression are essential for bringing about the changes they want. Fighters and people who incite conflict carry these attitudes and express these behaviors.

This mindset often becomes the “default” mindset for people who intervene in conflict contexts. Because they observe hostility around them, many interveners come to expect meanness and aggression without consciously recognizing that they have slipped into this mindset. When we as interveners internalize a dividing mindset, we convey it in our behaviors to those around us.

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