Chapter 2 - Communication That Blocks Compassion

Reading Review

Communication That Blocks Compassion

Chapter 2 from the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

(Part 1 for chapter 2, from the workbook)

1) The phrase "life-alienating communication" refers to specific forms of language and communication that Rosenberg believes contribute to people behaving violently toward each other and themselves.

2) Some forms of life-alienating communication are:
- moralistic judgments -- implies wrongness or badness on the part of people who don't act in harmony with our values.  For example: "She's lazy."
- making comparisons -- measuring or comparing oneself or others against the highest standards (the people who are the most beautiful, successful, etc.) in the world.
- denial of responsibility -- clouds our awareness that we each are responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. For example: "I cleaned my room because I had to."
- demands -- explicitly or implicitly threatening listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply.
- deserve language -- certain actions merit reward and while others merit punishment.  For example: "He deserves to be punished for what he did."

3) Our analyses and judgments of other human beings are tragic expressions of our own needs and values.

4) This is tragic because when we express our needs and our values in this form, we increase defensiveness and resistance to our needs and values among the very people whose behaviors are of concern to us.

5) When people do what we want them to do out of fear, guilt, or shame (rather than out of a desire to give from the heart) then it is likely that in the future we will experience the consequences of diminished goodwill (when they comply with our needs and values out of a sense of either external or internal coercion). And they pay emotionally too:  they are likely to feel resentment and decreased self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear, guilt, or shame.

6) Each time others associate us in their minds with feelings of fear, guilt, or shame, we decrease the likelihood of their responding compassionately to our needs and values in the future.

7) It is important not to confuse value judgments and moralistic judgments.  We all make value judgments as to the qualities we value in life, for example: we might value honesty, freedom, or peace.  Value judgments reflect our beliefs of how life can best be served.  Moralistic judgments are when people and behaviors fail to support our value judgments and we insinuate wrongness when our values have not been met.  For example: "Violence is bad." or "People who kill others are evil."

8) Some examples of words or phrases that obscure awareness of personal responsibility and choice:
-- "have to" as in "There are some things you have to do, whether you like it or not."
-- "makes one feel" as in "You make me feel guilty."
-- "had to" as in "I had to." "Company policy." "It was the law." ("office talk" or "bureaucratese")

9) A "demand", as defined by Rosenberg, is when our desires are communicated in a way that explicitly or implicitly threaten listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply.  It is a common form of communication in our culture, especially among those who hold authority. 

10) Marshall Rosenberg's children taught him that he couldn't make them do anything because when he tried to make them wish they had done something with the threat of punishment, then they too had ways to make him wish he hadn't tried to punish them.

 

(The following is from a hand-out given out at a weekend workshop)

 

Life-Alienating Communication

 

Criticism

One form of Life-Alienated Communication is criticism implying wrongness or badness, e.g. "The problem with you is that you are too selfish (lazy, insensitive, inappropriate, etc.).  Other words for this kind of communication include "insults", "blame", "put downs", diagnoses", and "judgments".


Denial of Responsibility

A second form of Life-Alienated Communication denies personal responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  An example would be words such as "have to" in the phrase, "There are some things that you have to do, whether you like to do them or not."

We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute the cause of our action to:

• The actions of others ("I hit my child because he ran into the street.")
• Vague, impersonal forces ("I cleaned up my room because it was necessary.")
• Our psychological history, condition, diagnosis, or personal history ("I drink because I am an alcoholic.")
• To the dictates of authority ("I lied to the client because the boss told me to."
• To group pressure ("I started smoking because everyone else in the group was smoking."
• To institutional policies, rules, and regulations ("I gave grades to my student because it was the school district's policy.")
• To sex roles, social roles, or age roles ("I hate going to work but I do it because I am a father and a husband.")
• To uncontrollable impulses ("I was overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar.")

Demands

Demands are a third form of Life-Alienating Communication.  A demand, as defined within Nonviolent Communication, is a request which implicitly or explicitly threatens some form of blame or punishment if the request is not acted upon.


Justification of Reward and Punishment

A fourth form of Life-Alienating Communication is language associated with the concept that certain actions merit reward and certain actions merit punishment.  An example would be, "He deserves to be punished for what he did."