NVC - Worldview and Worldviews

NVC = Non Violent Communication

When we were babies and first began to talk, we could learn one or two languages without needing to learn the grammar, that is, the reason why we should speak this or that way. As we grew and became adults, to learn a language now, we need to learn the grammar, that is, the rules of the language, and to somehow obey them in order to speak properly.

Non-violent or compassionate communication is a new language, and to learn it in adulthood we need to learn its rules, its philosophy, its worldview or the thinking behind it. If we are going to learn a non-violent language, we need first to know in what way the language that we are using today is violent. Where did this violent language come from, and what was it based on?

Whatever it is, it has to do with the way we conceptualize the world and its history, the human nature, the reality that surrounds us and the very meaning of life. Worldview is the cornerstone or the foundation on which our thinking rests upon; it is composed of beliefs, myths and basic ideas that are mostly unconscious, and as such they are neither discussed nor questioned.

To turn our present violent language into the language of the Kingdom of God, we need to first change our thinking, and to do that we need to challenge and eventually change the worldview on which it is grounded.

The theologian Walter Wink, in his book The Powers that Be, says that worldviews are the skeletal structures of our thinking and describes the worldviews that are prevalent in the Western culture.

The Ancient Worldview
This worldview presents a heavenly world existing in parallel with its earthly counterpart; whatever happens in Heaven also happens on Earth, and vice-versa; this is indeed how it was in the Greek and Roman mythologies. Every material reality has a spiritual dimension and a divinity that represents it in heaven; hence, the god of war is Mars, the goddess of love is Venus, the god of the seas is Neptune and the chief or father of the gods is Jupiter, etc. In the ancient world, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Indians and the Chinese, in fact most people in the ancient world, shared this way of understanding reality.

The Spiritualist Worldview
This worldview appeared in the second century during the Christian era and is in direct conflict with the idea that creation is basically good. Greek dualism is imposed where Spirit is regarded as good while Matter is regarded as evil; the world is a prison of the Spirit, and the body is the prison of the Soul. It considers anything related to the body, like sex for instance, as evil; so, in order to conquer evil, the body needs to be mortified and denied so that the spiritual component can be imposed and affirmed. This world is a ‘vale of tears’, and death is seen as freeing the soul from the shackles of the body that makes it impure.

The Materialist Worldview
In opposition to spiritualism, the materialist worldview establishes that what is real is what can be known through the five senses, and everything else is pure superstition. In other words, there is no heaven, no God, not even a soul; human beings are nothing more than matter; the universe has no intrinsic meaning so it lacks essence and purpose. Ethics is non-existent, there are no good and no evil, what are considered right or wrong are arbitrary and conventional, and result from a social agreement for the survival and peaceful coexistence of citizens.

Walter Wink says that this is the dominant ethos of the post-modern world; it is the mental structure or motherboard that most universities, politics, the news media and the culture as a whole model and follow. This worldview has penetrated so deeply into the society and the modern way of thinking, that it even claims to be scientific or based on science, at a time when science, especially physics, has moved beyond mechanist materialism into a “reenchanted universe”.

People who live within this worldview see themselves accompanying science at every step, but in reality, they have been left behind by modern science. They still cling to the Newtonian physics where the world is like a clock that functions predictably with mathematical precision.

After Einstein, the mechanistic Newtonian physics gave way to quantum physics which is based on Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty and causality, replacing the predictability of the real world with the calculation of probabilities.

The Theological Worldview
This appeared from a spiritual reaction to the materialist worldview; it reaffirms the existence of a supernatural realm and thus seals itself off by declaring that its existence is purely a matter of faith; it cannot be accessed by the senses so its existence cannot be proven nor denied by science.

In this way of understanding reality, science and religion live with their backs to each other. This forces believers with a great sense of culture to live with a schizoid view; during the week they believe that man is the result of evolution of species, and on Sundays, they believe that man was created directly and explicitly by God; evolutionists during the week, creationists on the weekends.

The Integral Worldview
This worldview combines and overcomes at the same time the previous ones by placing the spirit at the heart of the matter. God is transcendent, that is, different, he is detached and beyond everyone and everything, but at the same time is at the heart of each and every person and thing. This mutual harmony between immanence and transcendence must not be confused with pantheism where it is affirmed that God is everything.

The integral worldview has to do with panentheism: everything is in God and God in everything. It is somehow the view that St. Francis of Assisi had of creatures as being manifestations of God because God is immanent in all of them.

Wink states that this is the worldview of quantum physics, liberation theology, feminist theology, and many religions of Native Americans, and also names psychologist Carl Jung and the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin as proponents of this worldview.

With the way these worldviews are presented, it implies that there has been a process of evolution and that now most people on this planet are guided by the integral worldview, but it can also not be so; in fact, all worldviews are current and probably only few people are guided in their lives by just one type. Wink says that we all possess pieces of one or the other view of the reality, depending on the issue at hand.

According to Wink, understanding the worldviews that inspire, guide and govern our thinking is important so that human beings and their institutions can be freed from the powers that dominate them.

“Homo homini lupus” or “Beau sauvage”?
Homo homini lupus – For the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1679), Man in the natural state assumes that he is entitled to everything, and uses his power in an arbitrary way to preserve his own life. Since his selfish interest prevails, he cannot have security and peace because the survival of the fittest is always at play. Not being sociable by nature, the social coexistence forces the individual to give up his will in favor of a leader or government, the king or the state, that represents him, thus losing his freedom and even relinquishing violence.

Beau sauvage – For the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712), Man is by nature good, sound and happy; the creation of private property leads to the distinction between rich and poor, slaves and free, thus promoting in this way the survival of the fittest. The man who tries to emerge out of inequality is corrupted by power and crushed by violence. He proposes a contract in which the general will is sovereign; since everyone loses equally therefore no one loses.

Which of these two theories best describes the true human nature? As humans come from an evolution of 5 million years of primates and mammals, it would be helpful to first arrive at a conclusion regarding the animals that preceded us in the history of the evolution of species: whether these animals are violent or non-violent by nature. We do not need to look too closely at the animal kingdom to conclude that as a general rule, animals are not violent gratuitously or by nature; they only behave violently when their needs are not met.

Since life only feeds on life, in the biological context of the food chain, every form of life is food for another form of life. For example, a gazelle feeds on grass, a lion comes along and eats the gazelle, the lion dies and is eaten by hyenas and vultures, and when they die they are eaten by worms and when the worms die they fertilize the soil and make the grass grow. A dead body is called a cadaver; curiously enough this same word in Portuguese is made up of the initial for ‘carne-dada-aos vermes’, translated as meat given to worms or Ca-da-ver.

If any of the aforementioned animals finds an alternative way of feeding itself, it will immediately stop being a predator, that is, it will no longer be ‘violent’. Let’s take our pets, cats and dogs, as examples, they were previously merciless predators, but today they live in perfect harmony in our homes.

Millions of years of evolution separate us from the primates, the animals closest to us. Created in the image and likeness of God the Father, Man is not a wolf to Man, but a brother; the world that God created has sufficient resources for the needs of everyone to be met without resorting to violence.

This leads us back to one of the fundamental assumptions of the non-violent communication: as with the rest of the living creatures, violence and conflicts among people occur when their needs are not met. NVC is, in this sense, a process that leads to the needs of everyone involved being met thus appeasing violence and resolving any conflict that might occur when needs are not met. The belief that man is by nature evil, selfish and violent is a myth and has served for centuries to justify violence of one person over another, and even of man on himself through the feelings of guilt and shame.

“Se vis pacem para bellum” – If you want peace, prepare for war. This has been the motto of the worldview of man as an individual and within a community. According to this motto, because it sees man as being violent by nature, peace cannot be achieved through peaceful means, but only through violent ones.

Society educates individuals to be violent with others and to repress their innate anger; for those who cannot do this, society exercises its coercive and punitive power over them. In this way, based on the false concept that humans are violent by nature, the structures of power and violence are perpetuated.

The worldview on which non-violent communication rests as the language of a New World, the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to bring into the world, is that God created all things good. The author of the book of Genesis shows us a God who rejoices in every created reality by saying, “And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1). If everything is good then how much more is man who is created in the image and likeness of God himself, the creator of everything (Genesis 1:26).

The Man of Tomorrow
In addition to Walter Wink and other theologians like Paul Tillich and Teilhard de Chardin, Rosenberg was also much influenced by his teacher Carl Rogers, the great master of non-directive, person-centred psychotherapy.

In an article written at the end of his life, Rogers described the mood of the man of tomorrow. His predictions have been proven to be correct and his ideas continue to be current and inspiring, and should help to determine which worldview ought to guide our thinking. Therefore, the men of tomorrow,

• will be open to the inner and outer world, new ways of being, of seeing new ideas and concepts.
• will be suspicious of science and technology aimed at controlling the world of nature and people.
• will be of new forms of communication, closeness and intimacy.
• have consideration for others and have a positive and benevolent regard; when they help out, they do it in a gentle and courteous way, non-moralistic and non-judgmental.
• with regard to ecology, will ally with the forces of nature, not at war for their conquest.
• will be hostile to the highly structured inflexible and bureaucratic institutions; with the understanding that institutions exist to serve the people and not the other way around.
• will be suspicious of external authorities that are morally autonomous, that is, trust in one’s own experiences and moral conscience to make value judgments that may go against laws that are considered unjust.
• will be spiritual people, that is, ones who seek to find meaning, design and reason for life that are bigger than the individual and even life itself.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC - The Language of Peace

One of the NVC logos

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

“New Year, new life” – To do justice to this proverb, this year I am going to write about a way of living that I want to progressively adopt as I research and write about it. Frankly speaking, this is probably the main reason why I chose this theme for the 2018 blog.

I am researching and writing about this topic to convince myself that up until now, I have been living in a wrong way, so this year will be for me the novitiate in this alternative way of living. If by these writings others also come to the same conclusion, then so much the better. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world”.

The initials NVC stand for Non-Violent Communication. I first learned about this type of communication in a Bible course that I took in Jerusalem, and quickly realized the potential this theory has to transform the lives of individuals, and eventually the society and the world as a whole.

According to its founder, Marshall Rosenberg, NVC is not just a form of communication, nor does it refer only to non-violence. More than just a simple theory or technique, NVC is a whole new philosophy of life and a new way of communication that is based on a new worldview, that is, a whole new way of thinking, feeling and looking at life, and everything about it.

Marshall Rosenberg (1934-2015) was an American Jew who graduated from Clinical Psychology, but at the start of his career as a psychotherapist, he quickly realized that the analysis, psychoanalysis and diagnosis of anger and other psychological problems that people presented to him did not lead to the changes that he and his patients wanted and needed most. Rosenberg realized that the problem was more systemic than specific to this or that person, and for this reason the solution to the problems also needed to be systemic.

Non-violent communication strives to be an alternative way of communication, a brand new language to tackle individual and social violence, and create a new culture, a new world, the Kingdom of God on earth in Christian terms. Meanwhile, we are aware that the language we have been using since the beginning of civilization is violent, because we are violent, not by nature but by education. We are violent, because we grow up and are educated in a society whose social structures and institutions are based on a violent worldview and culture.

The success of using the NVC process in psychotherapy prompted Rosenberg to run NVC workshops thus reaching many more people. From then on, the founder of NVC traveled around the world to teach and get people to speak this new language, especially in areas of conflict. The success has been enormous. All who came in contact with NVC sooner or later realized that they had lived in error, and smiled hopefully at the possibility of living a fuller, more genuine and happier life.

How we are called to live
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12-13)

Rosenberg realizing that he was dealing with a global issue, a question arose in his mind: how are we really meant to live? Given that this question could not be answered in the field of psychology, he turned to religion. In all the religions he studied, he found the word compassion in them; so, he came to the conclusion that we are meant to live compassionately with ourselves and with others.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God’s compassion for his people is unconditional (Isaiah 54:10). For Jesus, it was natural to feel compassion for the people who crossed his path; it is why Jesus felt compassion for the multitudes who walked like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:35-38) and the two blind men sitting on the fringe of the road of life, unable because of blindness to fully participate in it (Matthew 20:29-34).

The concepts and tools of the non-violent communication are designed to help us think, hear and speak in ways that arouse compassion and generosity inside of us and towards others. NVC helps us to interact in ways that lead us to feel more alive, genuine and in solidarity.

The way of thinking and the techniques necessary to live compassionately are very different from the ways that we have been taught over the centuries.

How we have lived
Without even noticing, far from communicating compassionately with ourselves and with others, we have been using a language that is offensive and violent: it injures, and causes and feeds conflicts. The language that most human beings use is a static language, based on the misuse and abuse of static verbs, like the verb to BE, used to judge, interpret, diagnose, classify and label people we meet. We have the bad habit of pointing out the faults of others, telling them what is wrong with them and giving them advice on how they should be.

Since ancient times, we humans have used a language that promotes internal and external conflict, the cold or open warfare, passive or explosive aggression and so we live in a world of exploiters and exploited, masters and slaves, dominant and dominated – neither one nor the other is happy; neither the promoters nor the sufferers of war live in peace; as the saying has it, “Those who go to war, give out and take in (violence)”.

We have been educated in structures of power in which some judge themselves superior to others, snatching for themselves the prerogative to label what is good or evil, right or wrong, just or unjust, adequate or inadequate. Those who submit and obey the rules imposed on them are called good, those unwilling to submit or rebel against the rules are called bad or evil. Justice in this world is retributive; the good, those who obey, are rewarded and the bad, those who disobey, are punished. NVC confronts and exposes this fallacy in the language and behaviour that underlies this worldview.

A language that evaluates and labels
The times when we can observe without giving an opinion, evaluation or judgment do not happen very often. Our culture abuses too much the usage of the verb to be, because we are addicted to labeling and framing everything we observe. Because one has killed a dog, now everyone calls him a dog-killer, and so on, we put labels on everything and everyone we see: so and so is selfish, lazy, vain, mean, a liar…

The use and abuse of the verb to be tie people to a static identity, and prevent them from growing, discovering and changing into their true self. As time goes on, our eyes cloud over with prejudices that blind us like cataracts to reality, until we end up only seeing what we want to see, and hearing what we want to hear.

A language that denies responsibility and the ability to choose
The use and abuse, with ourselves and with others, of expressions such as “I have to do this or that whether I like it or not” and “It is my duty to do such a thing…” remove our freedom, and make us slaves to duty and subject to something that is not of our choice.

The denial or abdication of our choice and decision-making capacity, has the immediate result of denying responsibility for acts we commit. As it is not really our choice, we do not answer or feel responsible for what we do.

In this frame of mind, millions of Jews were murdered in gas chambers during the Second World War as those who killed them defended themselves in court by saying that they were only following orders, thus desensitizing themselves to the atrocities that they had carried out. Today we use the same method when we say: they are orders from the boss, it is the rule or the constitution or company policy…

A coercive language that threatens with punishment
People who are forced to do things out of fear of being punished or out of shame or guilt, feel debased, as they realize that someone can punish them and make them suffer if they do not comply.

Those who are forced or coerced into performing certain tasks, even when they are well performed, as well as those who demanded them with threats of punishment, pay a very high price because violence can only generate violence; on the road of violence, compassionate giving and receiving can never be achieved.

A language that seduces with rewards
The same can be said when a task to be accomplished is motivated by a reward that we yearn and expect to receive. Also in this case, the motive is not compassion, nor the joy to contribute to the good of others. Doing something to receive reward does not come from the energy that aims to enrich our lives and that of others.

Whoever does something in order to get paid will stop doing it once the pay stops; whereas “whoever runs for the joy of running, does not tire”. Both the tasks motivated by rewards as well as the tasks motivated by punishment are violent; as neither are voluntary, that is, by free choice, they do not enrich the life of the one who orders them nor do they enrich the lives of those who execute them. On the contrary, they impoverish the lives of both because they establish human relations of inequality that are born out of violence thus generating more violence.

To live compassionately
Language is the interaction between words and concepts; intelligence is the interaction between neurons. Throughout the millions of years of human evolution, language and intelligence have evolved in parallel. It is unthinkable for intelligence to exist without language and language without intelligence; even so, it is not a chicken or egg question. A baby learns to talk and with this learning he is, at the same time, educated; education would not be possible without the use of language.

We could consider changing our lives first and only then learn a new language suited to this new way of living. However, since the baby is educated at the same time he learns how to talk, let us embrace conversion, that is, let us integrate this new worldview and new way to live, as we adopt and use, with ourselves and with others, this new language that is implicit in it.

Let us learn and use the language of non-violence and the rest will follow. This is what made Rosenberg drop out of private practice in psychotherapy and instead, take to the road running workshops from town to town teaching this new language, and everyone who learned it saw their problems resolved and experienced a “metanoia” – a change of mind – followed by a change of life, without the need of any psychotherapy based on analysis or psychoanalysis.

Underlying all human actions, there are needs that seek to be fulfilled; the understanding and recognition of these needs can lead to establishing a shared basis for connection, cooperation, and, ultimately and more globally, peace.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC