NVC - A World of Giraffes and Jackals

Marshall Rosenberg in a workshop

So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. Then they said to me, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’ Revelation 10:10-11

Marshall Rosenberg (1934-2015)
The founder of Nonviolent Communication upon realizing the potential of this new language to change the hearts and minds of people, with the goal of establishing new relations and ultimately build a harmonious and peaceful society, decided that this should be his contribution to humanity, his mission, his personal fight. Consequently, he abandoned his lucrative private practice as a psychotherapist to embark on the adventure and mission of spreading the good news of Nonviolent Communication. Within the United States he drove thousands of miles to conduct workshops in major cities, camping outside of towns and sleeping in his car in order to make the workshops affordable and available to anyone.

The success of these workshops quickly made Rosenberg trade his old car for the commercial airplanes as the mode of travel, taking this new language of peace to more than 50 countries, making his contribution in the resolution of long-standing conflicts in countries like Northern Ireland, Israel, Nigeria among others. He established the Giraffe schools, as he called them, so that the children of the future would be educated in this new language and philosophy of life. The prophetic component of his ideas, along with his gift with words and dynamic sense of humour, easily conquered many hearts and minds to his cause.

To paraphrase the scripture verse above taken from the book of Revelation, NVC tastes as sweet as honey in the mouth; that is, it easily delights and excites us, and gives us hope that with it we can transform inwardly, beginning with our own small world and eventually with the world at large. But when we ruminate or digest it, we realize that it is not easy to replace a language that has been around for thousands of years, within a short time, and in which we have been educated, formed and even programmed.

Analogically we can say that the digestion of this new nonviolent language is difficult because our stomachs have not yet developed the right acids to break it down and assimilate it. It takes time and eventually when we do begin to use it, it will not come out automatically like the reactive violent language supplied by our reptilian brain. Often in the beginning we need to stop the practice ‘game’ and ask for a time-out, like the coach in a basketball game, in order to reconnect to our neocortex, the part of the brain that is authentically human and product of evolution. In this sense, it is a language that may come out unnaturally at first as if we were speaking from a book following an unfamiliar script.

But this is how it is going to be until it becomes second nature. Learning NVC is like learning a new foreign language, we need to think carefully in order to speak intelligibly, and we need to learn the new grammar that is quite different from the old grammar of the violent language that we are so accustomed to. NVC is in fact quite easy to learn, but it is not easily integrated into our daily conversation, nor is it easy to embody and use it in our everyday life, it requires time and patience.

In order to make it simpler to learn this new language, and to show the differences between these two languages or these two styles of communication and life philosophy, Rosenberg used two animals as mascots. The violent communication is represented by the meat-eating Jackal, a symbol of aggression, domination and autocracy, and the Nonviolent Communication by the plant-eating Giraffe because of its peaceful nature and for having the biggest heart of all the land animals.

The Jackal
The cell of a pack of jackals is made up of a monogamous couple, who defends their territory from potential predators. This territory is vigorously defended by chasing away and expelling rival intruders by drenching their territory with urine and feces.

It represents the language the world has used since the Babylonian myth of creation. Since infancy our culture has been teaching us to speak “Jackal”, an autocratic, coercive, and aggressive language that provokes either submission or resistance and counterattack.

Being a static language, it goes well with Newton’s old mechanistic physics, for whom nature with its laws is static and functions with the precision of a Swiss clock; to the new quantum physics, however, the laws of nature have exceptions. Furthermore, Heisenberg’s Principle of uncertainty shows that there are as many exceptions as there are rules. Examining the human body, for instance, researchers are noting that the substantial differences in the basic biochemical processes between males and females warrant looking into developing gender-specific drugs.

For Jackals, people have a fixed identity that is not progressive and cannot be converted. But the truth is that we are all work in progress and therefore we are not classifiable, that is, cannot be labelled because we are not static beings.

In general, the jackal language is characterized by attempts to push reality into static boxes of what should or should not be, what is right or wrong, what people are or are not. Jackal people live in a world of ideas and analyses of past events or of how the future should be, they rarely live in the present moment.

The Giraffe
It is the symbol or mascot of those who use the new language of nonviolence, the language of the world of the future. From the point of view of Christianity, which at its inception was a nonviolent religion because its founder was the one who challenged the violence of the domination system, we believe that this new language is spoken in the Kingdom of God where justice, peace and the integrity of creation reign.

The giraffe is the land animal with the largest heart – It represents compassion which is the core and the way of NVC. Compassion is something that is natural to all human beings; that is why when we are compassionate to someone who is violent, we disarm him from his violence and help him to connect to his natural compassion, which resides deep within his heart and away from where he lives in discontent. The character Scrooge from Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens demonstrates this truth.

The giraffe’s long neck gives it a wider and clearer vision – The giraffe has in fact a large heart because it needs to pump blood up its long neck to its head. A head so high gives it the advantage of seeing everything from above and of having the widest angle of vision of any animal. Those who speak the language of nonviolence are objective in their observations which they can put into a larger context; what a Giraffe does not have is a tunnel vision, as this is more typical of a Jackal.

The giraffe can eat and digest thorns – The giraffe has a hard and strong tongue, with a texture that is similar to rubber or plastic. This means that giraffes can chew thorns without getting hurt. Translated in human terms, this means that when we are Giraffes we are able to ‘chew’ Jackals’ aggressive words, destructive criticisms and insults, and turn them into inoffensive ‘food’ without causing us any harm. Or more precisely, they are changed into unmet needs and frustrations that are behind the Jackal's dissatisfaction and outbursts.

Giraffe versus Jackal, and the winner is the Giraffe
As we can see in the figure above, Rosenberg used the two mascots, the Giraffe and the Jackal, in his conferences and workshops as hand puppets and thus demonstrating in a practical way the two styles of communication during confrontations.

As this has been so far a world of Jackals, we are all born Jackals, but we are all called to be Giraffes. All Giraffes were once Jackals, and similarly all Jackals can be Giraffes. Every Giraffe has a Jackal past, and every Jackal has or may have a Giraffe future.

In the face of an external attack in the form of an insult, negative evaluation or destructive criticism, the Jackal has only two alternatives, which are basically what the reptilian brain offers us: fight, rebel, revenge or flight, hide, submit oneself. The Jackal will either return the accusation by accusing the other or he will accept the accusation, and thus accusing himself and feeling guilty.

The Giraffe uses compassion and empathy both with himself and with the other; with himself by echoing and being conscious of the feelings and needs that the negative refusal of the other provoked, expressing them honestly to himself; with the other, he seeks to understand the feelings and needs behind the accusation, entering into dialogue with the other, making requests for clarification and establishing connection.

When we listen with giraffe ears we hear the feelings and needs of the speaker, independent of the words he uses. All the while we try not to forget that all needs are universal and satisfying them is the only objective that every human being is saying or doing.

Using giraffe ears externally makes life a whole lot easier. Where before we heard criticisms and personal attacks, we now hear someone expressing his needs. Using the same ears internally with ourselves, where we used to hear doubts, self-criticism, self-accusation and blame, we now hear feelings and needs.

	JACKAL – Alienates life	GIRAFFE – Serves life
Objectives	To be right Forces others to do what we want	To connect with others empathically To understand them
Evaluations	Moral judgments (good/bad, right/wrong) Dualistic thinking (or… or…)	Life-serving judgments (fulfilled or unfulfilled needs)
Motivations	Extrinsic (rewards and punishments)	Intrinsic (feelings, needs and values)
Source of feelings	Caused by external actions, people and events	Unmet needs – ours and/or others
Means to seek security	Hierarchical obedience	Empathic connection with others; affective is effective
Relations with others	Hierarchical, caste system, power over homo homini lupus, social classes, win-lose	Equality, solidarity, power with win-win, satisfying the needs of others
Source of authority	External, government, churches, employer, parents, teachers	Internal, of divine origin
Yield to	Feelings of guilt, shame or anger	Compassion or joy
Wanting others to feel my pain in order to…	Cause pain to others	Ask others to empathize
Image of others	Villain who deserves punishment or hero who deserves reward Others are seen as means to a goal	Authentically human What is alive in them, Others are ends in themselves
Focused on	Past actions and behaviours, and future events	The present moment

The Giraffe has two basic modes of acting:
Listens to himself and to others with empathy – “When you see/hear…” (observation) “Do you feel…?” (feelings), “Because you need…?”, “You like that…?”

Expresses with honesty – “When I see/hear...” (observation) “I feel…” (feelings), “because I need…”, “Would you be willing…?”

The Giraffe makes objective observations, expresses and makes himself responsible for his own feelings, recognizes and identifies his needs and on the basis of these, makes realistic requests that are doable. The Jackal, on the contrary, does not observe but evaluates, does not feel but think, confuses needs with strategies, and makes demands instead of requests.

Translating verbal aggression into needs
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:4

Operating in the giraffe mode there are always two ways to connect:  with ourselves and with others. Turning the ears inwardly towards himself, the giraffe takes into account his own feelings and needs; turning the ears outwardly towards others, he takes into account the needs and feelings of others.

In the face of a verbal attack, within the language of violence that mimics the reptilian brain, the response is simple, we either rebel or surrender. In NVC there is a third way, to be responsible for what we hear by disconnecting from our reptilian brain, taking a deep breath, putting on our x-ray vision so we can read between the lines of what was said and discover the unmet needs that are behind the outburst, and at the end we translate the message into those needs. Let’s look at the following example:

“You are the most selfish person I have ever met!”

1. The outer Jackal – Blames others and counter accuses by blaming the speaker and says, “You have no right to say that. I’ve always been considerate, you are the selfish one!”
2. The inner Jackal – Blames himself and gives in: takes it personally and accepts the judgment of the other person and blames himself (blame, shame, depression) and affirms, “Sorry, I should have been more sensitive.”
3. The inner Giraffe – Becomes conscious of his own feelings and needs, and reflects to himself, “When I hear you call me selfish, I feel hurt because I need some recognition of my efforts to be considerate of your preferences…”
4. The outer Giraffe – Detects the feelings and needs of the speaker – “Do you feel hurt because you need more consideration of your preferences?”

In few words, the Jackal is selfish, and uses and abuses personal pronouns: I, me, and myself, while the Giraffe is altruistic and uses the pronoun ‘we’. The priority of the Jackal is to be always right so that the other person must be wrong, since he always wants to win, the other has to accept defeat. The priority of the Giraffe is to connect with the other person in a way that both win.

The Giraffe accepts the problem as belonging to both and seeks to find a valid solution for both, the Jackal is more interested in winning than in genuinely resolving the problem. In the case of an attack, the Jackal feels distressed and intimidated while the Giraffe feels empathy for himself. The Jackal judges, accuses and commands while the Giraffe observes, expresses honestly feelings, needs and requests.

In other words, the Giraffe observes, the Jackal evaluates; the Giraffe feels, the Jackal thinks; the Giraffe is aware of his needs, the Jackal confuses needs with strategies; the Giraffe makes request, the Jackal makes demands.

In confrontations between the Giraffe and the Jackal, the Giraffe always comes out a winner if he remains a Giraffe because by acting compassionately and empathetically, sooner or later, he can appeal to the heart of the Jackal, to his own compassion and empathy, eventually turning him also into a Giraffe. In this way, the number of Giraffes will increase and the number of Jackals will decrease until they become extinct. 

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC