Culture War Decoders

Run a circle

Start with one evening. If it goes well, do six.

A circle is a book club with a practice built in. All you need is a few people who disagree, a table, the book, and the free Circle Guide.

Or download the PDF now. 15 pages · Free to print and share for non-commercial circles and book groups.

Register your circle
A mixed-age group sitting in a living-room circle at dusk, talking over mugs of tea.

A companion to The Culture War Code

The Circle Guide

Six conversations for book clubs, faith groups, workplaces and integral circles that want to disagree better, across politics and across generations.

by Jamie Murray

How a circle works

You’re not the teacher or the referee. You’re the host.

Who should be in the room

6 to 12 people, plus a host. It works best when the room is mixed: different politics, different faiths, different generations.

The invitation rule. Each person who joins invites one person who sees the world differently, by politics or by age. If everyone already agrees, you have a support group, not a circle.

What you need

  • A copy of the book for each person
  • The Circle Guide for the host
  • A timer, name cards and pens
  • The cut-out pocket cards, one set per person
  • Something to eat. It’s a kitchen-table book.

The host’s job

  • Keep time, so every voice gets room
  • Read the agreements aloud at the start
  • Model the master question when things heat up
  • Stop the exercise if someone is flooded or unsafe
  • Stay curious about every side

Lean strongly one way? Co-host with someone who leans the other.

The six sessions

The arc of the circle.

The sessions follow the book’s four parts. The Topic of the Day starts gentle and gets harder as the circle builds trust.

1Decode · Gentle

Same Hardware, Different Software

Read first: Introduction, Chapter 1

The five needs and the spiral of values.

Topic of the Day: “What’s the right age for a first phone?”

2Decode · Cross-generational

When You Arrived

Read first: Chapters 2 and 3

Generations, history and the windows of growing up.

Topic of the Day: “What did ‘normal’ look like when you were 20?”

3Decode · Local

Turning the Map Around

Read first: Chapter 4

Your own coordinates, and your own triggers.

Topic of the Day: a real issue in your town, school or congregation

4Translate · Medium

The Tools

Read first: Chapter 5

The Translation Formula and the 5-Minute Peace Treaty.

Topic of the Day: a family or workplace fight that keeps coming back

5Translate · Hot

One Fight, Start to Finish

Read first: Chapter 6

Following one real disagreement all the way through.

Topic of the Day: immigration, or a topic the circle chooses together

6Decide and Widen

Out the Door

Read first: Chapters 7 to 9, Conclusion

Getting unstuck, honest limits, and taking it to town.

Topic of the Day: the circle’s choice, plus what comes next

Read aloud at every session

Circle agreements

  1. 1We ask before we start. Anyone can pass, anytime, without explaining.
  2. 2We speak from our own lives. “I” and “my family,” not “they.”
  3. 3We listen to understand, not to answer.
  4. 4No contempt, in either direction.
  5. 5Colors are for understanding, never for labeling. Name your own, never anyone else’s.
  6. 6What’s shared here stays here. The lessons can travel.
  7. 7Anyone can say “pie.” The topic is done for the night, no questions asked.
  8. 8Phones away. Ten seconds and a check before you share anything from your feed.

Register your circle

Put your table on the map.

Open circles appear on Find a Circle so people nearby can ask to join. Private circles can register too, just to be counted.

We show your circle’s name, town and format. Your name and email stay private; people ask to join through the site.

Where do you meet?
Open to new members?

An independent interpretation

How a circle can practice five well-known integral moves

Ken Wilber describes five practices: Waking Up, Growing Up, Opening Up, Cleaning Up and Showing Up. Below is our reading of how a Culture War Decoders circle puts those ideas to work. It is an independent interpretation — not a teaching of Wilber’s, and not reviewed or endorsed by Ken Wilber or Integral Life.

Waking Up

In a circle: The Pause

Waking Up is about noticing this moment as it is. Before anyone answers, the host asks people to feel their own body, so they meet the person in front of them instead of the argument in their head.

Growing Up

In a circle: looking at your beliefs, not through them

Growing Up is seeing the value-system underneath a view — including your own. A circle practices this when people name what they are protecting, instead of treating their view as simply “the truth.”

Opening Up

In a circle: noticing the kinds of intelligence in the room

Opening Up is making room for more than one way of knowing. Facts, feelings, systems and meaning all count. A mixed circle is built so those different intelligences can sit at the same table.

Cleaning Up

In a circle: working your translation edge

Cleaning Up is owning the shadow of your own side instead of projecting it. The tools ask you to check what you got wrong (“The Check”) before you try to be understood.

Showing Up

In a circle: taking in every perspective on the Topic of the Day

Showing Up is acting from the whole picture, not just your corner of it. After the Topic of the Day, each person names one thing they will try — a small move in the world they actually live in.

One request: invite people who have never heard of any of this. A circle’s real test is whether it works for them. Integral moves don’t have to wait for integral people.