Personal Growth and Social Change (Part 2)
by: Miki Kashtan on August 15th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Part 1 of this mini-series was posted here.
NVC in Support of Social Change
Most often I almost forget that NVC is an acronym that contains the word “communication.” Instead I tend to think of NVC [Nonviolent Communication] as a set of principles and practices to integrate the consciousness of nonviolence into all levels of living:
- Personally, practicing NVC offers one way of accepting Gandhi’s invitation to bring nonviolence to one’s thought, word, and action.
- Interpersonally, NVC conflict resolution and dialogue tools can contribute to the conversations, negotiations, coalition building, and other organizing efforts which are indispensable for any attempt of working with other people towards structural or systemic goals.
- On the group level, using NVC for facilitation and decision making can contribute to effective functioning for groups and organizations working for social change.
- On an organizational level, NVC provides a framework and offers concrete steps for transforming use of power in ways that attend to everyone’s needs.
- Finally, on the systemic level, an NVC perspective allows for envisioning and creating structures, policies, procedures, and hopefully some day even laws that make for a world that works for all.
The Inner Work of Nonviolence
Embodying nonviolence in a world that for several millennia has been structured around separation, scarcity, and mistrust requires considerable commitment, courage, and love. As it applies to being part of groups and organizations of human beings attempting to create change, accepting the call to principled nonviolence entails at least the following aspects of consciousness transformation:
- Working towards vision rather than against “what’s wrong.” Even when the actions themselves are obstructive in nature, such as acts of civil disobedience, Gandhi’s and Milk’s examples suggest a focus on civil disobedience that models the world being created rather than being entirely an act of protest.
- Seeing the humanity of everyone, including people engaging in behaviors that appear harmful. Jesus was talking about loving one’s enemies, and Gandhi was talking about finding love for those who hate us. In either case, the fundamental principle is of sufficiency inclusivity that even working to stop people from inflicting harm is done with love and respect for the person.
- Engaging in the ongoing and demanding work of opening fully to despair, dread, and other emotional responses that arise in response to what is happening in the world. In the absence of doing this work, many people, including those working for social change, tend to numb out or suppress the depth of their feelings and find it hard to operate based on passion rather than anger and urgency.
Interpersonal Practices for Change Agents
Every attempt to create structural change entails being in relationship and dialogue with other people. Working with others to create change means learning to collaborate across different understandings of how to create change; across differences of working styles and personalities; and across differences such as class and race. Beyond the immediate group of people working together, becoming visible and effective when working for change also involves building alliances with other groups and organizations, as well as connecting with people who may be skeptical about or not already in alignment with the goals or strategies of the group. Lastly, creating change ultimately necessitates supporting people, especially those with power, in shifting their views and making different choices than the ones they are used to. Once again, NVC practice supports connection in these various different situations. Here are some of the principles and practices that can support conflict resolution and even prevention:
- Willingness to listen to people deeply and with empathic presence even when in significant disagreement. This focus can immediately contribute to connection, trust, and mutual respect. The experience of being heard often results in emotional settling, inner peace, and curiosity about the other person.
- Speaking authentically based on what is wanted rather than based on what is “right” or “fair” or “just.” Speaking from the heart of personal experience and need tends to de-polarize difficult situations and opens up a process of shared exploration of strategies rather than argument about what should be done.
- Expressing care for everyone’s needs, perspectives, and opinions regardless of disagreement. Actively focusing on transcending separation, scarcity, and mistrust and seeking solutions, strategies, policies, and processes that work for both parties to a dialogue.
In my next post I plan to address the remaining three levels (or it may take more than one more post). For now, I want to extend an invitation to anyone who is particularly attracted to work systematically towards embodying nonviolence more and more fully. A few months ago I launched the Consciousness Transformation Community which is dedicated to learning about, living, and sharing the consciousness of nonviolence in daily life and in social change work. Once a quarter we hold an open teleconference call for anyone who is interested in exploring the community, and the next one is this coming Sunday, August 15th, 5 – 6:30pm Pacific time. Click here for more information about the community and about the call.
Links to the complete mini series: Parts One, Two, Three, Response to a Comment on Part 3 Four, Five, Six and Seven.
What Miki said plus, recognize limits where they exist. Then keep probing for the soft places where those limits might ultimately give way.
A great elaboration I enjoy is when she says, “In either case, the fundamental principle is of sufficiency inclusivity that even working to stop people from inflicting harm is done with love and respect for the person.” I remember many a time in AIkido training when I was confusing love and respect for my uke (attacker) with not standing firm/strongly and turning the attack aside (properly so they were not physically harmed). “going easy” on the attacker is the best way to get hurt while allowing the violence to prevail.
So often when I’ve been in conversations where non-violence has been the topic, passivity or acceptance of brutality is the common mis-definition of love and respect when working to stop others from inflicting harm. As Furuya Sensei was fond of telling us, sure, to kick or punch an attacker in the face might be decisive, even quicker than turning the attack aside but what does the former accomplish? Most attacks come in groups so there’s always someone else ready to step up once you punch or kick the first guy. Turn them aside until they exhaust themselves. Then you can talk.
I have a very hard time listening to others when they are talking passionately about what I feel is idiocy or whatever. From my standpoint if it’s not good for the many, why waste time on it. Consequently a lot of things seem really stupid or idiotic and I’ve lost patience many times over that. For twenty some years I listened to fundies talk their foolishness while suffering the harm directly from that ideology and finally I just had enough, picked up and left. The Bush admin brought it all back up into my face and I really resented that. To be open to the closed is really tough for me, particularly when the closed are erecting barriers and obstacles to my efforts to work towards a vision faster than I can adapt and overcome them.
I ground my teeth recently before a community org meeting to some yahoo going on and on about taxes this and individualism that and when I finally managed to get a word in edgewise asking, so if that’s the system you want, how will you have roads, police, fire dept, etc. There’s gotta be a way to be all individualist and John Wayne (his term) and have a community too, right? He just blinked like it was the dumbest question in the world and then snorted something like “commie” at me and continued. And that’s pretty much how it is to work with this guy… there’s always a profound disconnect and I’m always cleaning up the mess he makes in our org that results from his disconnects. How in the world can I respect that? I can’t. I don’t have the patience for it. I dunno, that’s a challenge for me.
Maybe part 3 will shed some light on that?
Response to Jack: Nothing I’m saying has been mastered by me, but I believe:
It starts with “yahoo,”: The “uke” is already a demeaned, despicable creature — but we don’t even know if he or she is an enemy. A rule of thumb might be that where there is little or no power, there is little or no enemy. Or the Christian “hate the sin, not the sinner”.
Foddermore: Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, particularly for educated and word-oriented folks (me for sure, probably Jack too) WE ARE NOT WHAT WE SAY. Sure we need to be true to our words. But a) many people speak without reflection, maybe hardly ever reflect and b) few people, perhaps none, are “convinced” by logic and evidence alone. You may think Keith Olberman is good, and Glen Beck bad, but what’s certain is that to a degree they depend on each other, and reinforce their audiences’ predispositions. Possible Metric: Do they do their bit to make you –or the world–a better place?
Maybe trans-stuff like Miki’s helps us look for “that of God” (that’s Quaker-talk. Could have said “image of the Divine, or just “the human being”) in everyone, as the first step to a really powerful kind of social aikido where we can help “re-direct” the energy of at least some folks. While this does not address Big Power (governments, global finance, certain other corporations) it would at least5 help us with the fear and rage that I believe underlies our “annoyance” each day at everything from Fox News to certain interlocutors in our own orgs.
Like, uh, compassion ain’t no crystal stair –surely not for me — but it ain’t no ridiculous cliche either…
Miki Kashtan: Do you really expect that most people would even try to love and respect a person who had harmed them without provocation? That is so utopian. The usual and totally acceptable response is to get MAD at the other person.
Marco
Certainly it is rare, and yet it was not so long ago that we saw the response of the Amish community in Pennsylvania to the deranged murderer of a classroom of schoolchildren. True, as he took his own life, no direct response to him was involved. Yet the parents of the very children who were murdered conveyed their love and concern to the family of the murderer. No interpretation of that is adequate. Actions always speak louder than words.
I’m so excited to find this blog (thank you, Miki|!!) as I was looking for a way to connect with others around these same issues.
I was cochair for 2 years of a Unitarian Universalist Study-Action Program on Peacemaking, and have been puzzling about these things ever since. Following are my thoughts stimulated by this discussion:
How do we move toward a more just and empathetic culture that supports more just and empathetic global institutions? I think we stay in the mode of reaching for, and connecting with, each other’s heart. We stay away from competitive good/bad, right/wrong judgments, which makes enemies of those who differ. We stay in a place, as you model so well, Miki, of humble inquiry, and inviting of sharing dialogue and experience.
Gandhi sought to open the opponent’s hearts by voluntary suffering, allowing himself and others to be beaten or imprisoned while still being respectful and caring of the oppressing group, to communicate the extent of both their love and their suffering. Perhaps we can do a similar thing in the modern US context, despite having no clear oppressing group (we all collude with the harmful effects of our economy). We can simply engage those who support what we believe are harmful policies with an open-hearted questioning and seeking to find solutions. We can find creative ways to raise the suffering of groups, and our own suffering, so that others hearts are opened. (For example, Uncle Tom’s Cabin did much to enable Americans to empathize with the suffering of slaves and helped build the abolition movement.)
One example: in health care reform, the reform supporters could have become trained in compassionate communication techniques and at public events, instead of yelling at the Tea Party demonstrators, sat down and talked to them with great respect and sincerity, about what they were wanting to see. It would also require being well-informed, as some of the conflict was really misinformation. If we had enough people doing this, and requesting that there be joint gatherings of pro and anti-reform people to really hear and discuss the details of reform, things might have gone differently. I did try this with several Tea Party people and with two of them at least got to the point of their agreeing it would be good to continue respectful dialogue. I got their phone numbers but unfortunately didn’t follow up. With another two people, they seemed intent on being adversarial and weren’t interested in discussion, but if enough other Tea Party people were willing to engage they might have been brought along. Possibly if I had talked about my own feelings, and concern for friends who had no health insurance, those people might have also been more willing to see me as a person.
This is a different way of understanding activism…Rather than ‘fighting’ for change, by pressuring and proselyzing in opposition to another view, assuming that we are right, it would mean becoming a facilitators of dialogue around questions of meeting human needs and ending suffering.
I have begun to question some of my assumptions as a progressive, and while it’s discomforting, it has opened me up to other possibilities.