Why the World Needs More Builders — and Less “Us vs. Them”: Daniel Lubetzky (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of KIND Snacks’ founder Daniel Lubetzky’s talk titled “Why the World Needs More Builders — and Less ‘Us vs. Them'” at TED 2024 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The World Today

Everywhere we look today, we see the same picture. A world divided into us versus them. Left versus right. Black versus white. Jew versus Muslim. Victim versus oppressor.

We’re being programmed to think that every issue is binary, and our communities are increasingly infected by hate and dehumanization. It’s easy to nod, but the problem is far more entrenched than any of us realize. Everyone here clearly sees the problem on the other side. But none of us see it happening to us.

By blaming the other for all of society’s ills, we abdicate our responsibility for fixing the problem and the opportunity to work together on actual solutions. I don’t want to undermine the importance of standing up for what you believe in. I’m a confused Mexican Jew with a lot of Latin Yiddish passion.

Reframing the Problem

But we’re going to be more effective in advancing our causes once we frame things differently. Instead of us versus them, what if we understood it as all of us versus extremism? The overwhelming majority on all sides of almost any issue, who are not hateful, who do not deal in absolutes, who recognize the dignity of all, versus those who fall prey to extremist thinking that hijacks the agenda and our lives along with it. Note that the enemy here is a mindset, not a person.

Once we’re able to unlock this insight, we can expand our horizons and replace eternal conflict with practical problem solving. But the challenge today is that those with extremist views every day wake up in the morning, they think, “How can I advance my cause?” While moderates wake up in the morning and they think, what can I have for breakfast?

We don’t vote in the primaries. We don’t post passionate manifestos advocating nuanced thinking. We don’t run for office. And that’s how extremism hijacks the agenda.

Builders vs. Destroyers

A person with extremist views that takes action to divide, demolish and diminish is a destroyer. A human being who takes action to unite, to create and to bring light to the world is a builder. Common-sense problem solvers need to get up in the morning, have their breakfast — it’s the most important meal of the day — and then start building.

And this is what I’ve been working on, creating a community and a network of builders. Some of you may know me from founding and building KIND, the healthy snack company. Fewer people know that KIND grew out of an idea that I had to use free market forces to foster cooperation among neighbors trying to coexist in conflict regions.

PeaceWorks brought together Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians and Turks to trade with one another, to craft a line of Mediterranean spreads, shattering stereotypes, cementing economic relationships and helping them discover each other’s humanity. You may have heard of the iconically succinct brand we launched: Moshe Pupik and Ali Mishmunken’s World Famous Gourmet Foods. I know you’re like, man, this guy’s a marketing genius with such an easy-to-remember brand.

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But the trauma from that experience is what made me just stick to Kind next time around. PeaceWorks was my first attempt to transform “us versus them” into a constructive framework to help neighbors, former enemies, advance common goals.

A couple decades ago, I recognized the need to build a human infrastructure to overcome extremism in the Middle East, and I started partnering with Israelis and Palestinians to build such an infrastructure. And more recently, I started noticing similar patterns and needs in the United States.

A Global Epidemic Requiring a Global Response

But we all now know that this is a global epidemic, which requires a global response. So we’ve launched a platform to elevate builders as an aspirational identity across the world, and to equip citizens with the mindset and toolkit to seize back the agenda. We have thus far assembled over 250 extraordinary leaders across a broad spectrum of politics that are committed to help us build this network. And over three million citizens have joined us by either pledging to become builders in their own communities and start chapters in their neighborhoods, or by joining us on social media.

We have several initiatives to counteract the leading forces contributing to toxic polarization. Let me share a couple of examples. The way we absorb social media and cable news, we tend to be fed all that we want to hear, rather than what we may need to hear, and we only see the worst from the other side, leading us to assume evil intent on the part of the other. To counteract that, Builders Media produces content thus far in English, Arabic and Hebrew, not so much to tell you what to think but to strengthen how you think. To equip you with tools to navigate differences and absorb information in a way that will actually help you solve problems.

Citizen Solutions

Another initiative we’ve launched is called Citizen Solutions to replace political stagnation with constructive, commonsense proposals from engaged citizens. Our secret is that there’s enormous hidden consensus on most of these seemingly intractable issues, but we wouldn’t know it because forces of division, that profit from that division, try to distort those issues.

Take gun rights and gun safety in Tennessee, for example. Citizen Solutions brought together a group of local citizens with diverse viewpoints, from a firearms instructor to an inner-city school teacher. And it gave them tools and methodologies to learn the art of negotiation.

After six months, the Tennessee 11, as they began to call themselves, had forged eight proposals, which were then presented to 30,000 Tennesseans to vote on. And five of those proposals received majority consensus. They’re now in the process of propelling their elected representatives to follow the will of the people.

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Real Challenges

The challenges are real.

Hyper-partisan politicians spend more time sowing division to raise money than trying to address their constituents’ needs. Cronyism, special interests, political parties that care more about amassing power and scoring points against the other than actually solving problems. The challenges are real.

That means we’re only going to be successful if we all recognize the responsibility to transcend hyper-partisan affiliations and start supporting builders and the reforms necessary to help strengthen those voices, regardless of partisan affiliations. Most of us are uniters, not dividers. And because politics tends to be a dirty game of division, we just stay away from it.

A Builder’s Mindset

One of the hardest things for builders is to stay in the game, to develop a thick skin while retaining our values. When others are dividing, for us to unite. When others are self-righteous, for us to be self-reflective. When others demonize, for us to remain compassionate and stay focused on the goal at hand, which is to solve problems for our communities.

To do so, we need to bring a builder’s mindset to all conversations by relying on curiosity, compassion, creativity and courage. The four Cs of a builder’s mindset. And we understand that there’s no chance we’re going to change things in a community, let alone across the world, with a centralized model. We need a distributed model where everyone, everyone here is empowered to bring change to their own communities.

A Builder’s Toolkit

And so we’re in the process of creating a builder’s toolkit to help people take that into their communities, into their high schools, into their universities, into their workplaces, into their houses of faith, to try to help them replace rigid ideologies with critical thinking and critical listening, to provide best practices for how to replace cancel culture with respectful, hearty debate.

Not just because we want to get along, not just because we want the best ideas to emanate, but because we need to mold builders of social enterprises, of bridges, of jobs, of actual societal change to become protagonists in our own lives rather than products of recrimination and mutual resentment.

By now, I’ve told you a lot. But I haven’t told you why I do what I do. My father was a Holocaust survivor, and ever since I was a kid, I promised myself to try to prevent what happened to him from happening again to other human beings.

A Haunting Story

One of the most difficult stories he shared with me involved his superintendent. When he was 11 years old, in Lithuania and the war had started, the super approached him and said, “Are you hungry?” My dad said, “Yes.” “Come, I’ll show you where you can get some food.”

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He walked him down to the ground floor. He pointed to a dead body and said, “There, that’s a Jew. You can take a bite of him.”

A few months later, the German paramilitary forces rounded up all of the Jewish families. The super pointed them out one by one. They eliminated 16 Jewish families. My family was the last one standing. And they brought them to the ground floor. And then the super whispered something into the ear of the head of the paramilitary forces, and they left.

And the super turned to my grandfather and said, “Mr. Lubetzky, I told them to leave. And I spared you because you were always kind to me. You always looked at my eyes. You shook my hand, you treated me with respect. But leave now before I change my mind.” That night they packed a couple bags and they went to the Kovno Ghetto. And eventually they were all sent to a concentration camp. But they survived.

A Glimmer of Light in the Darkness

Because at the greatest moment of darkness, a man who had so much darkness in him … saw a little bit of light. And the thought that I stand here today, that I exist because of an act of humanity from a person that was not a very good human being, haunts me. But it also arms me with hope and conviction that every human being can turn away from hate.

Some of you may disagree. And that does not worry me. What worries me is that many of you will agree but will do nothing about it.

If builders do not step up, destroyers will step in. And some of the worst chapters that we’ve witnessed in history will repeat themselves. But if all of us recognize the power that every one of us has every single day, with every human interaction, to look at each other in the eyes — now you’re making me cry — to look at each other in the eyes, to give each other the blessing of kindness and the assumption of positive intent, not only are we going to break the shackles that hate has placed on humanity, we’re going to prevail in writing one of the most beautiful chapters that have ever been built in human history.

We are going to get there because when society is falling apart, the only way out is for all of us, all of us, to build together. Thank you.