Why Your Brain Wants Violence (And How to Pause)

Can Peace Be Practiced? (Not the Way You Think)

Last week we asked why disagreement is so hard. This week we ask what to do about it. In Part 2 of this conversation, I sit with John Paul Lederach's The Moral Imagination, John Brewer's writing on Northern Ireland after thirty-plus years of the Troubles, and a small moment in my own life when I almost built a barrier with a stranger I had never spoken to. If you came up in last week's episode about Jonathan Haidt and you have been wondering what we are supposed to do with the diagnosis, this is the practice. Not a checklist but a way of paying attention, especially in the small moments where the gut moves before the mind has caught up. By the end of this episode, you will have three observations you can carry into your next disagreement. A clearer sense of why most peacebuilding work happens in private, long before any conversation begins. Maybe, if it lands, a small new muscle for catching the barriers you might otherwise build without noticing.

The Argument Before the Argument

We think we reason our way to moral conclusions. Jonathan Haidt says we don't. The gut decides first. The brain catches up after, building a case for a verdict that's already been reached. In this episode, I walk through The Righteous Mind, the book quietly reshaping how I think about peace work, public discourse, and how international law actually holds up under pressure. This is Part 1: the diagnosis. Part 2, out next week, where we sit with what to do about it.

The World Saw It Happen: The Bystander Effect in International Law

Why do people who know something is wrong still not move? This episode traces that question across three decades and three continents, from a UN peacekeeping compound to the Security Council floor to a 2026 legislative vote that may reshape how an entire country defines childhood. The psychology behind inaction doesn't just explain history. It explains you. **Please take care of yourself while listening. This episode discusses violence, genocide, and the sentencing of children. Ep. 3 Reading List: -"Bystander Non-Intervention and the Somalia Incident" by Lt. Commander George Shorey, Canadian Military Journal -"The Responsibility to Protect" by Ivan Šimonović, UN Chronicle -"UN Urges El Salvador to Review Life Sentences for Minors," Tico Times, April 1, 2026 -Joint Statement on Life Imprisonment for Children and Adolescents in El Salvador, UNICEF & Committee on the Rights of the Child, March 27, 2026 -General Comment No. 24, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child -The Moral Imagination by John Paul Lederach

The Liability of Empathy

What does a word cost and who pays when the wrong one is chosen? In this Sort, host and legal researcher Camila maps the gap between what the law says and what the body carries. From the staggering liability a single word can trigger in international law, to a prosecutor describing the abduction of thousands of children as "sustenance," to indigenous Peruvian women who, when asked what healing looks like, asked to understand the men who hurt them. Drawing on John Paul Lederach's framework of moral imagination and somatic research on embodied oppression, Camila asks whether the failure of imagination belongs only to the accused, or also to the system built to hold them accountable. Ep. 2 Reading List: -The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace by John Paul Lederach -Oppression Embodied by Dr. Rae Johnson  -Superando la teta asustada by Damarys Espinoza  -The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power  -International Criminal Court proceedings: The Prosecutor v. Joseph Kony

Why Your Brain Wants Violence (And How to Pause)

Why are we biologically wired to click on the violence? In the inaugural episode of Puzzle Peaceing, host and legal researcher Camila breaks down the "biological glitch" that makes our brains mistake shock for high-value information. From a dark neurological study at the University of Amsterdam to the archival violence of the 18th century Caribbean, we explore how the human craving for friction is weaponized by modern algorithms, media headlines, and geopolitical lawmakers. Drawing on her master's research regarding the constitutional codification of migrant children in South America, Camila reveals how the state uses the language of crisis (words like "surge" and "liability") to trigger our reward systems and strip away human context at the border. Reaction is easy, it's just biology but peace is rigorous. Ep. 1 Reading List: -The Brain's Reward System & Words: Writing for Impact by Bill Birchard (Referencing the University of Amsterdam study on neurological responses to negative/violent descriptions). -Archival Violence: Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive by Professor Marisa J. Fuentes.Independent Research:  -Camila’s master's research on the constitutional codification and legal framing of child migrants across the Americas. (Released on March 8, in honor of International Women's Day).