NVC - The Four Riders of Nonviolent Communication

(…) I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. (…) And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. (…) I looked, and there was a black horse! (…) I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him… Revelation 6:1-8

Famine – pestilence – war – death are the four riders in the Book of Revelation, and each by its own right is both the cause and the consequence of itself and of each other. Famine causes pestilence, and pestilence famine, both also bring about war, which leads to death. The world is already familiar with these four riders and is always in danger of confronting them again, and in the process, runs the risk of self-destruction.

Marshall Rosenberg proposes a nonviolent or compassionate process as an alternative. An alternative to the matrix of violence upon which our way of living and thinking, and the relationships that we establish are all based on.

Famine, pestilence, war and death are the four riders of violence that lead to apocalypse. Observation, feelings, needs and requests are the four alternative riders that will make violence obsolete and steer the world into a future of harmony and peace among all human beings.

Observations
It is about describing reality as objectively as possible as my five senses capture it: what I see, what I hear, what I smell and taste, and what I touch without judging, criticizing, evaluating or interpreting. For example, instead of telling someone “You are rude”, which would place us on a collision course with that person and make any further meaningful communication difficult, we can say, “When you arrived I did not hear you say ‘good morning’”. Similarly, if we had said, “When you arrived you did not say ‘good morning’”, it would have also created problem as we are making a judgment because the person may have said it but we did not hear it.

Because someone killed a dog our tendency is to call him a dog killer for the rest of his life; we judge a person on a single act. Criticism, evaluation, judgment and interpretation block communication because they are almost always unjust and the person feels constrained, put aside, and imprisoned by the label we pin on him, we do not let him be himself, nor let him progress. We cease to relate with the person he truly is and instead relate with the image that we made of him; an image that more or less can serve our petty objective, but not that of a genuine and healthy communication. This is the way to make an enemy not a friend.

Generally it is very difficult for most of us to make an objective observation, plain with no frills, because for the most part we project into our observation our own interest, envy, hatred or on the contrary, our praise of the action that we observe. This is how the world has functioned, therefore to speak in another way is very truly a Copernican revolution.

Observation devoid of criticism, evaluation, judgment, and interpretation is dynamic because it remains open-ended. By mixing our observation with an evaluation or interpretation, the observed, that is, the person in action loses his/her dynamism and become closed, unmoving, and static like what is observed in a photograph. This is why NVC avoids the verb to Be and uses action verbs instead.

Feelings
After observing without analysing, and without declaring that so and so is right or wrong, good or bad, the next step is to connect with our feelings by fleeing from thoughts, because thoughts are almost always biased and addicted to evaluating and interpreting in order to criticize and judge at a later time. Feelings tell more about ourselves than our thoughts. If I cannot first connect with myself then I will hardly be able to connect with others.

Feelings represent our emotional experiences and physical sensations associated with our needs, whether met or unmet. As we will see later when speaking about needs, feelings are to needs what smoke is to fire. Any feeling or emotion felt speaks to us of a need that either has been fulfilled or remains unfulfilled.

Our objective in this step is to identify, name and connect with our feelings. Thoughts, therefore, must be self-reflective, diverted from the other and placed at the service of our feelings by helping us interpret and identify them.

After interpreting what is in our hearts, we can, and should, express our feelings by avoiding the trap and self-deception of making others responsible for them. The expression “I feel alone” is a genuine expression of an inner sense of loneliness. But if I say “I feel you don’t love me”, this on the other hand is an illegitimate attempt to describe and interpret someone else’s feelings, together with an implicit accusation.

We should express our feelings by taking full responsibility for our own experience; this helps others to hear what is important to us, without feeling criticized or accused, and in this way, increase the likelihood that their response will be empathic and thus satisfying everyone’s need.

Needs
The third element of the Nonviolent Communication is the necessity to be intrinsically connected to the previous element. When a feeling comes to our consciousness, we must know that it is only the messenger, sent by our human nature to alert us of a need that is or is not being met. For this reason, what must be done immediately is to find out what that need is and assume responsibility for it.

Once again when we become aware of our feelings, our tendency is not to assume responsibility for them, accusing others for making us feel this or that way. The actions of others may have triggered our feelings, but we make a serious error, deviating from Nonviolent Communication, if we think that others have caused those feelings. The only cause of our feelings is the fulfillment of our needs or lack of it.

When we succeed in connecting with our perfectly identified needs, we have taken an important step in the Nonviolent Communication process which is the avoidance of assigning blame to others or to ourselves. The genuine expression of our needs creates a very likely opportunity for the other person to feel empathy and contribute to meeting our needs.

Needs are universal; all human beings have the same needs because they come from something that is transversal to all human beings, in all times and places. This is why our human nature remains unchanged throughout the ages and across the different cultures of the peoples who live in this planet.

In the context of the Nonviolent Communication, as Rosenberg likes to say, our needs are a reflection of what is most alive in us, that is, what is the most central and important to us, our deepest desires.

Understanding, identifying and connecting with our needs help us to improve our relationship with ourselves and foster a greater perception of others, and in this way, increase exponentially the likelihood that necessary actions are taken so that the needs of all are met.

Nonviolent Communication always leads to a win-win situation, in other words, to a final result that is beneficial to all parties involved; everyone wins, and no one loses.

Requests
We human beings are not like islands; we have an individual dimension by which we are unique, unrepeatable and indivisible, free and independent, but we also have a social dimension by which we are always part of a family, a group, an institution, a country. Because this is our nature, the fulfillment of many, if not all, of our individual needs involve, in some way, others in the process.

After attention has been given to the awareness and consciousness of our needs, the next step is to think of a strategy, a plan of action that in our opinion will lead to the fulfillment of these needs, and as there are people who may be involved, we need to make sure that they are willing to participate in the strategy that we have outlined to meet our needs. Since all human beings live on an equal plane with one another, before getting to the formulation of a request we must also be certain of whether or not empathy exists in the other person. The affective is effective while the non-affective is ineffective.

What we make are petitions or requests and not demands, orders or requisitions. Between these two lies a very fine dividing line. A lot depends on the words we choose when formulating the petition and also the tone of voice used as appropriate words can be expressed in an inadequate tone of voice, which in the other person’s ears may sound like a demand or order. Many times, however, we only know if we gave an order or made a request by the other person’s response.

We should be prepared to hear a ‘no’ to our request. A ‘no’ to an order has punitive consequences; a ‘no’ to a request should not intimidate, unbalance or discourage us, but rather be the reason to have a deeper dialogue with the other person. We should be able to recognize that a ‘no’ is an expression of a need that hampers the other person from saying ‘yes’.

In order to increase the likelihood that our request is met favourably by the other, it must be clear, concrete and non-generic with regards to the time and action to be taken, that is, it needs to be realistic and achievable. For example, “I wish you were always on time” is not feasible and may sound like a demand; on the other hand, “Would you be willing to spend 15 minutes with me to talk about what might help you to get to our meetings by 9:00 o’clock?” is achievable.

If someone accepts our request out of fear, guilt, shame, obligation, or a desire for reward, then the quality of the relationship and trust between them is compromised. Sooner or later both will pay for this violent acceptance, because it fundamentally creates a creditor and a debtor relationship. In the nonviolent language no one humbles himself and no one exalts himself; no one loses and no one wins; no one asks for favors and no one does any favors.

The process of the Nonviolent Communication
Speaking – Nonviolent Communication works at the level of the mouth, in what we say and how we say it. In this case we must honestly express our observations with accuracy, then our feelings and our needs, and based on these three, our request. The Nonviolent Communication helps me discover and interpret what is alive in me, what is happening with me, in order to better communicate with myself, in natural giving, compassion and empathy.

Hearing – Nonviolent Communication is not only done by what I express from my mouth or body language, but also by the way I listen to the observations expressed, I deduce their feelings and needs as well as their requests. Nonviolent Communication helps me to discover and interpret what is alive in the other, what is happening to him, in order to better communicate with him, in natural giving, compassion and empathy.

Therefore the four elements of Nonviolent Communication are used both in our own expressions as well as in how we listen with empathy the expressions of others. To express honestly the observations, feelings, needs and requests, and to hear empathetically the observations, feelings, needs and requests.

Observations – The concrete deeds or facts that we are observing and that may potentially affect or make reference to our well-being.
Feelings – How we are feeling about what we are observing; what feelings stir in us from what we are observing.
Needs – Discovering or becoming aware of the values, desires, needs, that are the true cause of our feelings, and not what we are observing nor who we are observing.
Requests – The concrete actions or deeds that we ask the other, or others, to meet our needs and enrich the lives of both.

Articulation of the four components
NVC is a building with two types of foundation and four pillars. The two types of base are compassion or empathy, and gratuity or giving from the heart, which can be well summed up in the commandment of love of neighbour as oneself. In this sense, we could say that NVC is a general theory of this commandment or a way to apply it in our day to day.

Another metaphor of how NVC works is the internal combustion engine. The explosive fuel that this type of engine uses to run is Gratuity, or giving from the heart. Observation – Feeling – Need – Request are the pistons, or the moving parts; for these to move smoothly and effortlessly, it is necessary that they are well lubricated, and the oil that makes it possible is Empathy or compassion.

We can furthermore use the analogy of the internal combustion engine to clarify how the four components of NVC work in stages. Whether the fuel is gasoline, diesel, or natural gas, the internal combustion engine is also called four-stroke cycle engine, and in this way, we can compare the four processes in each cycle to the four stages or components of NVC. In the engine, each cycle has four processes: Intake – Compression – Combustion – Exhaust. A cycle begins with the piston inside of the cylinder descending to let in a mixture of fuel and air, the piston then moves up and compresses the mixture making it more combustible.  The mixture ignites and explodes, driving the piston downwards and when the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, exhaust valves open letting out the exhaust gases and then the cycle begins again.

In this sense, the intake of the combustible mixture corresponds to observation in NVC where we collect and take in information from our surrounding that will provoke us to react; the compression of the mixture corresponds to the feelings that are roused by the observation, triggering us to search for the needs that are the true cause of these feelings; the explosion of the fuel mixture is comparable to the release of the compressed feelings as they find their corresponding needs.

The explosion is what generate the energy required to move the internal combustion engine; in the engine of the NVC, the needs or values are the fundamental motivation of both human and animal behaviour. When the feeling meets and ignites the need, it gives rise to the combustion or ignition that will keep the four components of NVC working in stages; the letting out of the exhaust gases in the engine corresponds in NVC to the letting out of a request.

The human body is composed of the head, the torso and the limbs; putting the limbs aside, that is, the arms and hands to act, and the legs and feet to move, we are left with the essence of the human being, the head and the torso. In the head, one places the functions of observing and inquiring or requesting; in the upper part of the torso the function of feeling, and the lower part the function of needs.

For Rosenberg what truly defines us are not our thoughts (beliefs, ideas, projects and opinions), but our feelings and needs as they constitute to what he calls “what is alive in us”, an expression he uses all the time.

Observation, the first component of NVC, only makes me aware at an intellectual level what is going on within myself or the other; it is only after I connect empathetically with myself and the other that I am in a condition to make a request. The head is to observe and make requests, not to analyze, judge or define, neither oneself nor others. For NVC, the Human Being is summed up to feelings and needs, the feelings are only the detector or thermometer of the needs, indicating whether those needs are met or unmet. This is the formula: “When I hear you say…” / “When I see you…” (Observation about an action or statement) “I feel…” (Shares a feeling) “Because I need…” (Reveals a need) “Would you consider…” (makes a request). Let’s see how the four components are articulated in the following dialogue:

After dinner a wife says to her husband:
-Darling, I have been feeling lonely and miserable all day; the only thing that cheered me up was the thought of those evenings we spent cuddling on the couch watching movies. I really would like to spend tonight like that. Would you do that for me?
-I would like that, I also remember those times with longing, but tonight is the final between Benfica and Porto, and I have already promised my friends that I would watch the game with them; would you mind if we leave the movie for tomorrow night instead?

If the wife acts out of line with NVC then she will say that her husband does not love her, that he gives more importance to a game than to her etc.… However, if she acts in line with NVC philosophy then she does not hear a ‘no’ to her needs but a ‘yes’ to the needs of her husband with whom she empathises, because she loves him the way she loves herself, and meeting his needs is as important as meeting her own needs which in this case are just being postponed for one day. Should the husband give in to his wife’s needs by repressing his own and conceding out of guilt or obligation then the two, not just one, would end up paying a high price.

Here again enters the philosophy of love of neighbour as oneself; within this philosophy, the needs of others are as much mine as mine own needs, because to love, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, is to want the good of the other. Similarly, one cannot be happy alone or at the expense of others, but only with others; in NVC there are no winners or losers, either all win or all lose.

Conclusion
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)

These are the four riders of the new international order, of a new heaven and a new earth; the real Promise Land, the Kingdom of Justice and Peace where violence as a means of establishing peace has become obsolete because the needs of all are met. In the book of Revelation, the ‘sea’ is the symbolism for evil and therefore in this future land of plenty, evil will be no more. And as the instruments of war are changed into instruments of peace (Isaiah 2:4) and the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, there will be no more evil or destruction (Isaiah 65:25).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC - Giving from the Heart, the Fuel of Nonviolent Communication

Happy Easter!

Compassion is the founding and inspiring concept of the Nonviolent Communication. When Rosenberg realized that he was not having much success treating his patients in his private clinical psychology practice, he went on to study world religions on the quest to find the meaning of life. Rosenberg noted that the commonality that exist in many religions is that we are all called to live compassionately. We are to be as compassionate and merciful as God our Creator.

What is giving from the heart
What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart. —Marshall Rosenberg

You received without payment; give without payment. Matthew 10:8

It is compassion that impels and propels us to give from the heart. Compassion is giving out of joy to enrich life and giving freely without expecting or wanting anything in return; when we give compassionately the receiver does not feel indebted to us.

If empathy is the lubricant, the engine oil or the environment that facilitates the constant movement of the four pistons in the engine of the Nonviolent Communication, giving from the heart or natural giving is the fuel that makes combustion and explosion possible inside the cylinders to propel the pistons to move.

Rosenberg may have gotten his concept of “giving from the heart” from his own life experience. He tells the story that one day he was in a railway station waiting for a train when he spotted a black worker preparing to eat an orange after finishing his packed lunch. The worker stopped when he saw a little boy sitting on his mother’s lap staring at him. He got up, cleaned the orange, kissed it, and then went over to give it to the little boy. Thrilled by the gesture, Rosenberg had the opportunity to ask the worker why he kissed the orange before giving it to the little boy and he was told that one should never give anything that is not from the heart.

“Gratuitas” is the Latin word that in the romance languages evolved to “gratuitá” in Italian, “gratuidade” in Portuguese, “gratuidad” in Spanish and “gratuité” in French, which describes the type of giving devoid of all obligation, done freely and graciously from the heart borne out of our need to give. This type of giving is like wanting to love and to be loved unconditionally with no strings attached, without reservation or ulterior motives. Without the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing as the Gospel suggests. (Matthew 6:1-4)

The English translation of “gratuitas” is gratuity which in modern English has evolved to mean token or donation, or gratuitousness which now can mean futility or without justification. Probably hard pressed to find an English word with the same depth of meaning as the Latin word “gratuitas”, Rosenberg formulated the expression “giving from the heart” or natural giving.

To love and to be loved is the first and foremost of all human needs once the physical needs are met; without the fulfillment of this need, there is no meaningful human life, although we experience it differently at different stages of life. When we are children the urge falls on wanting to be loved whereas when we are adults the primary need is to love, to give freely and unconditionally from the heart without any sort of compulsion or obligation.

If an adult feels more need to be loved than to love, as we see in the soap operas, then he or she is not really an adult but still has the emotional immaturity of a child or a teenager.

Furthermore, this concept of giving from the heart does not apply only to giving but also to receiving. Frequently when we receive, we feel obliged to pay back in one way or another. The spirit of giving from the heart does not live in the one who gives with ulterior motives, or in order to receive something in exchange, or to gain popularity, that is, neither in the one who receives and feels indebted nor in the one who gives and expects something in return.

To give is to receive, to receive is to give
There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.” Acts 20:35

Declaring that there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving is a discovery or a conclusion one makes at the end of a psychological, affective and spiritual maturing process. This is what an adult would say at the end of this maturing process. Naturally, a child finds more happiness in receiving than it finds in giving.

So, we become psychologically, affectively and spiritually adults when we find more joy in giving than we find in receiving. But since indigence is always part of human condition, as long as we are humans, we also need to receive and should still find happiness in receiving or else we would be too proud and self sufficient which is something nobody under the Sun can claim. This being so, perfect maturity comes when we can exclaim that we find the same happiness in giving as we do in receiving, because giving and receiving has become for us, one and the same thing.

In the chapter “Giving from the Heart” of Rosenberg's book, he quotes the lyrics of a song that tells all there is to know about gratuity. According to the song, giving and receiving mean the same thing in as much as in giving we receive and in receiving we give.

I never feel more given to
than when you take from me —
when you understand the joy, I feel
giving to you.

And you know my giving isn’t done
to put you in my debt,
but because I want to live the love
I feel for you.
To receive with grace
may be the greatest giving.
There’s no way I can separate
the two.

When you give to me,
I give you my receiving.
When you take from me, I feel so
given to.

The same idea has been long said by Saint Francis of Assisi centuries before in his famous prayer of peace:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Gratuity in romance languages
In the neo-Latin languages we respond in gratitude with ‘grazie’ in Italian, ‘gracias’ in Spanish, and ‘obrigado’ in Portuguese, which probably came from the English ‘I am much obliged’ and which detracts from the spirit of giving from the heart. In Portugal, we all say ‘obrigado’ when we are grateful to someone; only the poor, who cannot return the favor, say ‘Que Deus te pague’ or ‘May God pay you’. They do not feel obliged because it is assumed that those who gave to them know that the poor cannot pay them back. It is for this reason the advice that Jesus gives us in the Gospel makes sense, of inviting to our banquets those who cannot repay us. (Luke 14:12-14)

Whoever loves another conditionally deceives himself when believing that he loves the other person, but in fact, deep down, he really loves only himself and not the other. He mirrors and projects himself on the other because he wants to see what he cannot see in himself. His love is only a manipulation of the other person. Giving from the heart is to love and be loved without conditions, letting the other be who he is without trying to change him. When the other realizes this unconditional love he puts aside anxiety, freeing himself of the necessity to perform well or be successful to please the other.

Unconditional love is uncommon even between parents and children. In fact, there are many parents who condition the love for their children to school or professional achievements. These kids grow up confusing love with success and end up paying a high price later in life for this error. The one who loves unconditionally is always successful in life whereas the one who seeks success at any cost often does it at the expense of love; he may become successful in his profession, but is defeated in life. Because living is loving…

When someone declares that he loves us, by words or deeds, we are taken aback and find it difficult to accept this love without fear of feeling entrapped or contracting a debt with high interest that is difficult to repay, it is like being at the mercy of a capricious bank manager who can at any time demand the full payment of the debt.

As ‘scalded cats fear even cold water’, the negative past experiences, especially those that occurred in childhood, put us so much on the defensive that many times we end up blocking even those who present us with their unconditional love. We feel so powerless from our past negative experiences that we now feel unworthy of true love, so we block all love that come our way. We erect a wall of resistance and reproach because we interpret this love as a seduction and exploitation. How many times a love free of conditions finds our heart defensively frozen.

Selfishness is not convenient even to the selfish person
A water mill will only work if there is water running through it. If the first of several water mills along a stream retained the water just for itself, this would do it no good as its own wheel wouldn’t be able to move either. There is no advantage in being the first in line upstream nor any disadvantage in being the last in line downstream, as both the first and the last only move if the water is continuously flowing. Either all mills work or none works at all.

The same is true in the context of Nonviolent Communication as no one can be truly happy at the expense of the unhappiness of others, either all win or all lose. If my so-called happiness makes other people miserable, then it can never be a true happiness for sooner or later the evil that I cause to others feedbacks onto me. Therefore NVC is a win-win situation in as much as all win when one wins and all lose when one loses. Selfishness never pays off, it is not even convenient to the one who is selfish.

That is why in Nonviolent Communication the needs of others are taken as my needs also. In this sense, the NVC is just a practical application of the commandment of the love of neighbor as oneself; as well as the golden rule of all the world religions which says, "don’t do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you". Christianity is the only religion that states a positive version of this rule: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12) 

Compassion leads to giving from the heart
When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Luke 19:5-8

Accusing and labeling people only lead them to shut themselves defensively in their fortress, confirming, reinforcing and making them stronger in their attitudes. Violence cannot win against violence; the only peace that is attained by violence is the deadly peace of the cemetery. Violence is not the solution to any problem and creates many others; it is, therefore, completely counterproductive. Hatred can only be overcome with love; pretending to overcome hatred with hate is like putting out fire with gasoline.

“Be the change you want to see in the world”, says Gandhi. Just as violence breeds violence, compassion breeds compassion and bring about natural giving. In the context of retributive justice, Zacchaeus did not deserve Jesus’ compassion; in fact, he did not even merit the gift of his visit, but rather punishment for his past double-dealing. Just as ‘you cannot catch flies with vinegar’, punishments, labels, criticisms and insults would not make Zacchaeus change his life and perspective.

It was the undeserved and unconditional compassion shown by Jesus that moved Zacchaeus to become compassionate towards those he had mistreated in the past, and voluntarily, without being asked, to offer to make restitution to those he had cheated.

One day a mother came to plead with Napoleon for her son’s life. The young man had committed a serious offence. The law was clear. Justice demanded his death. The emperor was determined to ensure that justice would be carried out. But the mother insisted, ‘Your Excellency, I have come to ask for mercy not for justice.’
- But he does not deserve mercy,’ Napoleon answered.
- Your Excellency,’ said the mother, ‘it would not be mercy if he de¬served it.’
- So be it,’ said Napoleon. ‘I will have mercy on him.’ And he set her son free.

When we are compassionate with those who are undeserving, we trigger compassion in them, which is well hidden, forgotten, and full of dust and cobwebs in the depth of their hearts. We know that whoever has been abused, physically or sexually, can easily become an abuser himself, spending the rest of his life taking revenge on innocent victims for the abuses that he himself had received in the early years of his own innocent life. Only compassion given from the heart can save that person from the vicious circle that is destroying his life and the lives of those with whom he relates.

What blocks compassion
Here are some statements that we frequently hear and which in our view serve to justify and rationalize the use of violence and continue the game of who is right and who is wrong:

It is a sign of weakness, people would take advantage of me if I were compassionate – The power of love is greater than the love for power. Nobody can take away our dignity if we do not give it to them; no one can make us do anything. They can subdue our body but not our soul, our integrity, our person. Because compassion disarms the powerful, the benefits of compassion are as much for the compassionate person as for the one receiving compassion.

There are people who just don’t deserve compassion – We are not to enter into the game of who deserves and who doesn’t deserve compassion; if it were deserved, it would no longer be compassion but justice. God makes rain fall equally on the righteous and the unrighteous; all human beings, for the simple fact of being human, are deserving of compassion. And probably the more wicked the more deserving, because only through compassion can his wickedness be converted.

To be compassionate to those who have done evil is to let them go unpunished – To be compassionate does not mean we accept bad behaviour, betrayal, rape, unjust systems, cruelty, offenses, or crimes. It means, however, that we accept that these things happen; that we can defend ourselves from them assertively, but not aggressively, condemning the offense not the offender. Violence does not justify the use of violence, because it does not solve problems but only make them greater as violence tend to escalate.

The language that alienates us from others
To give from the heart is to contribute freely and unconditionally to life, happiness and self- accomplishment of others and to let others contribute to our life, happiness and self- accomplishment without feeling indebted to them.

Everything we do in life that is not done purely out of compassionate giving but out of guilt, fear of punishment, to receive a reward, to please someone or driven by a sense of duty and obligation, will develop into the type of interaction or transaction where the giver and the receiver end up paying a high price that will ultimately destroy their relationship. Those who stay in this sick relationship, such as that which exists between a masochist and a sadist, would do so for as long as they remain sick, but no one lives happily in sickness.

Diagnostics, judgements, labels, analysis, criticisms, comparisons as well as thinking in terms of “this person is good so he deserves a reward or that other is bad and deserves a punishment” are all part of a violent language. Everything we do out of obedience or a sense of duty as well as the type of thinking in terms of denial of responsibility and choice, “it's not my fault”, “I had no chance, there was no plan B” are also violent language that alienates and degrades us.

Judgments and labels – Judgments and labels categorize the other person, often unfairly because we judge the other by a single action that we generalize afterwards. We do not allow the other person be who he is as we fix an identity on him. If there is anything that the nonviolent language rejects is the verb to BE. We are all a work in progress; any static classifying label of the other person is always biased.

Rewards and punishments – Be it kindness or meanness it stays with the one who practices it, in other words, it has its benefits or harms in itself as if it were the attachment of an email. In order to avoid doing something out of the fear of being caught, for instance, is not enough motivation to avoid doing evil because the day will come when I feel certain that no one is looking, I will then overcome that fear, and commit the offense. I must not do evil by the very fact that I am convinced that it is evil. Similarly, if I am doing this or that to receive a prize then I am also not doing it from the heart; it is like working for a salary, the day will come when there is no more reward, and I will stop doing it.

The punishment could be a simple rebuke made in public that would embarrass me, and the reward could be a simple compliment, but they are the same thing.

“You are so good!”
“Good job!”
“You’re such a nice person!”
Praises for those who receive them can transform a person into an addict who does what he does not from an innate desire, but rather to receive the compliments. It can be an occasion of false humility in denying the importance of what he did by saying “it was nothing” or making him think that he is better than everyone else. From the point of the one who makes them, compliments are many times a way of manipulating the other for the gain of some obscure interests of his. For example, a boss who tells the worker that without him the company would go bankrupt, then he follows his praise by asking the employee to work overtime.

Reward in the Gospel – For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? Matthew 5:46

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew 6:1

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Luke 6:35

Jesus exhorts his disciples to practice compassionate giving; to do things for the sake of doing them without expecting an immediate reward; but as goodness stays with the one who practices it, like wickedness, a certain ‘reward’ follows the good act and this is what we will receive in Heaven. It reveals psychological maturity in him who can resist immediate pleasure or gratification and is able to postpone one and the other; Jesus asks us to delay until heaven the prize or reward of what we do on earth. This is what is meant to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matthew 6:20)

Comparisons – To the Spaniards, comparisons are repulsive. When we compare ourselves with others or what is conventionally regarded as intelligent, beautiful, or gifted, we cease to be ourselves, and become envious and try to imitate others. We forget that since we are all unique, in being ourselves no one can beat us. Comparisons come by virtue of competition and competition is violent per se; when we accept others and ourselves as we are, there is no reason to compete because we can only be what we are and in being who we are no one can be better than us.

Denial of choice – All expressions that begin with “I had to…” are a denial of choice and the freedom of being children of God. In this way we present ourselves as slaves of duty. In nonviolent language, obligation does not exist; we only do what we like in order to live fully and abundantly. What we do out of obligation will not be done well and sooner or later, we will stop doing it. On the other hand, as the proverb says, “whoever runs for sheer desire, does not tire”.

Rosenberg, in his books and lectures, gives the example of a woman who needed to leave his workshops early because she had to go home to cook for her family which she hated to do until one day, using what she had learned in the NVC workshops, she announced to her family that she would no longer continue to cook for them. Days later Rosenberg met the sons of that same woman when they came to thank him personally for their mother’s decision to stop cooking, because not only was her cooking not great but they were all tired of hearing her constantly complaining because she did it out of duty.

Denial of responsibility – “They made me do it”, and the abusive use of obedience to deny responsibility; Rosenberg quotes here the officers of the Nazi concentration camps who sent thousands of people into the gas chambers without any feelings of guilt because they denied any personal responsibility in the atrocities. In the nonviolent language we are all responsible for our actions, whereby no one can force us to do what our conscience tells us is wrong.

Our moral conscience, well-formed and informed, is what makes us truly free so we only do what it tells us to do. We do not raise ourselves above anyone, neither do we submit to anyone; as persons, free, independent and autonomous, our actions spring from our moral conscience and are guided by it. This being so, we, and no one else, are solely responsible for them; our moral conscience answers to no one but only to God himself; in this consists “the freedom of the children of God”. (Romans 8: 21)

Compassionate giving in action in the way we give or receive appreciation or gratitude
Living the philosophy of “giving from the heart” or in gratuity means that we do nothing that is motivated by coercion, duty, obligation, for fear to be reprimanded or punished, or the craving to receive praises and rewards. In other words, everything we do is out of pure love, joy and pleasure that we feel when we contribute to our and others’ well-being.

Both "good" and "evil" remain with those who practice them; that is, the punishment for the evil practiced is inherent in the practicing of the evil, it does not come from outside, certainly not from God. As someone has said, God always forgives and forgets while humans sometimes do and sometimes don’t. Nature, on the other hand, whether physical nature or human nature never forgives and never forgets. So “He who sows winds reaps storms.” Similarly, the reward for practicing goodness is inherent in the act itself, it follows like the attachment of an email.

Similarly, in NVC we do nothing to be praised or rewarded, neither do we reward or praise others for doing what they do. We are not hungry for praises and do not hope to receive them as a feedback for whatever we do, and we also do not use them as a bait to trap others, making them addictive to our praises in order to manipulate and control them.

We move away from these mind games; so instead of asking or demanding apologies for mistakes made, we mourn, and instead of praising and being praised, we celebrate both our successes and achievements, and those of others.

Both in giving as in receiving from the heart, we are to follow the paradigm of the four components of the nonviolent language. In this way, we express and feel compassionately. To give and receive appreciation:

1. What did I do concretely that contributed to enrich the life of the other...What did the other do that specifically enriched my life.
2. How do I feel when I think about what I did to the other… How do I feel when I think of what the other did to me.
3. What needs or values were met by what I did for the other… What needs or values were met by what the other did for me.    

Example: when you offered to help me this morning, I felt grateful because I place great value to any help among the members of our team.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC: Empathy, the Lubricant of the Nonviolent Communication

The four components of the nonviolent language, as I have previously mentioned, are: observations - feelings - needs - requests. The objective of this language of nonviolence is to establish relationships based on compassion and giving from the heart so that the needs of everyone involved are met. Empathy and giving from the heart are the fundamental philosophy in which these four components operate, the means by which they operate and their ultimate goal. In this sense, they are at the same time the beginning, the middle and the end of the language of nonviolence.

The alchemists of the Middle Ages sought the Philosopher’s Stone because they believed that such stone had the magical power to turn everything it touched into gold. In this same sense, the Philosopher’s Stone of the nonviolent language is empathy; it is the magic wand that makes it possible for the four components to work and for people to live together in compassionate giving, harmony and understanding.

Nonviolent Communication works like a four-cylinder car engine; the four pistons inside each cylinder are the four components of NVC: Observations – Feelings – Needs – Requests.  The continuous movement up and down of the pistons activated by the explosion of the fuel is what keeps the engine going and the car moving. The fuel for the combustion and explosion is gratuity or giving from the heart; for the engine to keep going indefinitely the pistons need to be enveloped or soaked in lubricant that facilitates their smooth movement and operation. This lubricant in NVC is called empathy; it is what makes NVC possible and what facilitates the whole process.

What is empathy?
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36

In the nonviolent language, empathy or unconditional positive regard, terms used by Rosenberg and Carl Rogers, respectively, means fundamentally the same. It involves going out of oneself, seeing reality as others see it, feeling with and making the suffering of others our own. It is to accept and support a person independently of what he has said or done. To be empathic is to be sensitive to one’s own suffering and to the suffering of others.

Expressing our own observations, feelings, needs and requests to others is one part of NVC. The second part is empathy: the process of connecting with others to find out their feelings and needs. Empathic connection can sometimes happen silently, but in times of conflict by communicating to the other person that we understand his feelings and that his needs matter to us can be a powerful turning point in problem situations. Demonstrating that we have such understanding is not the same as complying to requests that might conflict with our own needs.

Connecting empathically with another person is a way to meet our own needs – for understanding, connection, contribution, or others. At the same time, we hope that the empathy would meet the other person’s needs as well, and would aid both of us in finding strategies that would meet each of our needs.

The language of nonviolence often helps us relate with others, but the heart of empathy is in our ability to compassionately connect with our and others’ humanity. Offering our empathic presence, in this sense, is one strategy (or request) through which we can meet our own needs. It is a gift to another person and to ourselves of our full presence.

When we use NVC to connect empathically, we use the same four components in the form of a question, since we can never know for sure what is going on inside of other people. They will always be the ultimate authority on what is going on in them. Our empathy may meet other people’s needs for understanding, or it may spark their own self-discovery. We may ask something like:
When you see, hear … Are you feeling … Because you need …. Would you like …?

Empathy and self-empathy
Charity begins at home – It is difficult to have empathy or benevolence towards others if I don’t have it for myself. If I don’t love myself unconditionally, I will never be able to love others unconditionally either. Both the expression of our own feelings and needs, and the empathic guesses of the other person’s feelings and needs are grounded in a particular consciousness which is at the heart of NVC. This consciousness is nurtured by the practice of self-empathy.

In self-empathy we give the same compassionate attention to ourselves that we give to others when listening to them using NVC. This means listening past any assessments and judgments we are making to find out what we are feeling and needing. This inner awareness and clarity support us in choosing our next step: expressing ourselves to others, or receiving them with empathy. This next step is our request to ourselves on where we want to focus our attention. The practice of NVC entails an intention to connect compassionately with ourselves and with others, and an ability to keep our attention in the present moment – which includes being aware that sometimes in this present moment we are recalling the past, or imagining a future possibility.

Oftentimes self-empathy comes easy, as we access our sensations, emotions and needs to attune to how we are. However, in moments of conflict or reactivity to others, we may find ourselves reluctant to access an intention to connect compassionately, and we may falter in our capacity to attend to the present moment. Self-empathy at times like this has the power to transform our disconnected state of being and return us to our compassionate intention and present-oriented attention. With practice, many people find that self-empathy alone sometimes resolves inner conflicts and conflicts with others as it transforms our experience of life.

Self-esteem – It is to be able to dismantle self-criticism, judgment and feelings of guilt, and to identify and connect myself with my needs, values and what is important to me. As Rosenberg says, self-criticism, judgment and guilt are dramatic expressions of unmet needs. If I am able to discover and identify these needs or values, then I can reformulate my negative feelings and start to feel good about myself by virtue of having succeeded in connecting with the real and true ‘I’.

Empathy for others – In order to better feel and express empathy for others, it is advisable to follow the sign posted at any railroad crossing: Stop – Listen – Look. Others may turn to us in a manner of judgment or criticism, looking to accuse us for something that is happening to them. But if we have our ears tuned to hear only the nonviolent language then other than criticism, what we hear mostly is the dramatic expression of an unmet need. So all we need to do is to look beyond the form of the violent expression - the criticism – and turn it into the content of that expression, that is, the unmet need.

The violent language of the speaker must be translated into the nonviolent one, that is, we must not take the accusations personally and accept them as if directed to us. On the contrary, we are to look past the way they are expressed, and regard them psychoanalytically and realise that they are simply frustrations and dramatic expressions of unfulfilled needs.

To identify these very needs takes time, it requires that we stop to think, take a deep breath, and have the time to translate and identify these needs that are between the lines of an outburst, an accusation, or an insult.

In order not to keep the other person waiting for the final results of our mental process, we can think out loud and try to guess, tentatively asking the other person what are his feelings, needs, and what is most important to him. Certainly the person we are speaking to will either agree with the interpretation and understanding we make out of his speech, or he will help us to clarify them. This tentative attempt from both of us to understand what is happening to him will calm the person down and help him connect with his own needs, and slowly to let go of his negative feelings and violent words.

At the heart of empathy is our ability to connect to our own humanity and the humanity of others, with what is most real and alive in us and in others without criticism, judgment, feelings of guilt, pretensions or deceptions.

Nonviolent language helps us to connect with one another and with ourselves in a way that brings out our natural empathy. It is this empathy that inspires, forms, informs and guides our observation, feeling, needs and request that we make of ourselves and of others. Empathy is the general theory of the nonviolent language and is also, at the same time, the means to achieve harmony and understanding between people. It is like the oil in a car, which wraps the engine’s moving parts to prevent overheating, friction, and premature wear.

Through empathy we observe without evaluating, blaming, or labelling; we feel and make ourselves responsible for our own feelings without accusing, and we urge others to also take responsibility for theirs. We express our needs or values, what is most important to us without deception and we create the conditions or the environment for others to do the same. Then we make requests without pretensions, demands, obligations, or blackmail and similarly help others to do the same.

The triune brain
Charles Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species tells us that life on this planet evolved from a common trunk, so that all life forms are intertwined along the many millions of years since life first appeared in the sea. The earlier states of evolution have not been lost, and are still evident in us. Applying this principle to the formation of our brain, neuroscience tells us that we have three brains: the reptilian, the mammalian and the cerebral or neocortex. These are organized in the same way as a Russian matryoshka doll -- the cerebral contains the mammalian which in turn contains the reptilian.

The reptilian brain – Located at the end of the medulla, it is the most primitive and occupies the innermost and central part of our brain. It has remained unchanged by evolution, so that we share it with all animals with backbone or the vertebrates. It is responsible for functions related to survival, from heartbeat, digestion, basic movement to sexual behaviour. It functions according to stimulus principle – automatic response such as fight -- flight -- immobilization.

Synonyms of these basic reactions in our day to day are: desire – aversion – ignorance; love – hatred – indifference; hope – fear – disinterest. Being highly territorial, it acquires and defends its territory by fighting. The motor of this brain is the “Might is right”, meaning power is right and justified.

The mammalian brain – It corresponds to the telencephalon, the part of the forebrain where hippocampus and amygdala are found, and provides mammals with greater awareness of themselves and their environment, their friends and their enemies. As mammals take more time to care for their young, from instincts emotions are formed not only in relation to the offspring, but also to members of the same species, thus giving rise to life in groups.

The cerebral, rational brain or neocortex – The last step in evolution of the brain occurred about a hundred million years ago, with the emergence of the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex or the rational brain is not present only in humans. Intelligent animals like dolphins, whales and monkeys also underwent this last stage of brain evolution.

However, man has the most developed rational brain from which emotions like bodily sensations, common with other mammals, when mediated by a greater and more rational understanding, turn into feelings such as love, compassion and empathy.

How we lose our temper
When we are calm we work with the neocortex, we think critically, solve problems, and are creative and empathic with others. On the other hand, when we are stressed or perceive a less positive behaviour on the part of someone, we lose connection with the neocortex and no longer feel empathy as we automatically attach ourselves to the most primitive reptilian brain and are left with only three options: fight, flight or hide.

Stress activates the age-old reaction conceived by nature to help us cope with danger, which is the function of the reptilian brain. We cannot feel empathy for a lion running towards us, that is, to see things from its perspective; on the contrary, we either fight, run away, or hide. However, a 5-year old child may be disguised as a lion, who angrily stamps his feet and shouts that he does not want to brush his teeth. We immediately fail to see the child and see the lion instead, and react towards him as if he were indeed a lion. Just like Dom Quixote who threw his spear at the windmills, thinking that they were his enemies.

If at times like this we can remember that all behaviour is an attempt to satisfy needs, we can disconnect from the reptilian brain and stay connected to the cortex. Coming from our reptilian brain much of our behaviour is reactive, we speak or act first, only later do we take the time to think; it is as if our behaviours were on the autopilot mode.

How we best function
Against negative emotions such as criticizing and judging others, stress, fear, worry, self-centredness, resentment, frustration, or unhealed emotional pain, we must increase our self-observation and self-awareness, and take better care of ourselves, our physical, emotional and spiritual health; fight stress by improving our life and allocating time for sports, meeting friends, meditation and praying.

Psychologist Paul Gilbert distinguishes three groups of emotions: those that have to do with threat and self-preservation, those that have to do with our activity, achievements and successes, which he calls our comparative mind, and finally those that have to do with contentment, feeling safe, calm, relaxed, joyful and happy.

According to Gilbert, the first and second group of emotions are more motivating so they are more likely to get our attention. But this only happens if we allow it to happen. Our competitive mind makes us not to care if we lose a person as long as we win the argument. Similarly, negative news are usually the more blatant and are always on the front page of newspapers in large prints; the positive ones, on the other hand, are frequently lost in the middle of a newspaper because few are interested in them. Giving the priority to our reptilian brain only magnifies our misery, it does not make us happier.

It is true that empathy does not dwell in the center of our brain; the center, as we know, is occupied by the reptilian brain. However, as Gilbert notes, it is more than proven that our immune, hormonal, cardiovascular and other vital systems function best when we think, feel and act from our cortex or rational brain; loving and feeling loved, not hating or feeling hated, and supporting and helping others, not belittling or ignoring them make us happier. The thrill that our reptilian brain may give us is short-lived and can get us into more trouble.

If human beings were truly violent by nature, as Hobbes in his "Homo homini lupus" theory believes, and most people being, consciously or unconsciously, followers of the Babylonian creation myth, Man would be happier in a violent milieu where his bodily functions and organs would work better. The truth, however, as stated by Gilbert, is precisely the opposite. In addition to warning and helping us in case of danger, the reptilian brain does aggravate communal interactions. In fact, reptiles do not establish relations with anything or anyone, because everything and everyone is hostile to them; this being the case, our reptilian brain cannot be of much help and can become a great obstacle because human beings are in essence relational beings.

According to a legend of the North American Indians, there are two wolves fighting in our hearts and minds disputing between themselves for our interest and attention; one is angry, vindictive, envious, resentful and deceitful and the other is loving, compassionate, generous and peaceful. Which of these two will get our interest and attention? The one that is better fed. Practice empathy, even without feeling them, and you feel empathy towards yourself and others.

What empathy is NOT
In his book, Rosenberg quotes his friend Holley Humphrey when he points out some common behaviours or temptations that many of us often fall into in trying to help others, but in truth far from helping, these behaviours only make things worse and certainly prove our inaptitude at being candidly present with the other.

•    Advising: “I think you should…”, “How come you didn’t…?”
•    Analyzing: “How did it start?”, “When was the last time you felt this way?”
•    Outdoing: “That’s nothing; wait till you hear what happened to me.”
•    Educating: “This could turn into a very positive experience for you if you just…”
•    Consoling: “It wasn’t your fault; you did the best you could.”
•    Story-telling: “That reminds me of the time…”
•    Dropping the subject: “Cheer up. Don’t feel so bad.”
•    Sympathizing: “Oh, you poor thing…”
•    Questioning: “When did this begin?”
•    Explaining: “I would have called but…”
•    Correcting: “That’s not how it happened.”

How does empathy work
Empathy is getting in touch with what is alive in the other person, that is, what is going on in him, it is to be in his shoes. It is to see reality from the point of view of the other person or to see it as the other sees it. Very often when the other person realizes that we are not managing to connect empathically with him, he will say in exasperation, “Put yourself in my place.” Thinking that I was doing a good job advising and consoling my father during the final days of his life, one day he suddenly interrupted me and said, “How easy it looks to the healthy, the condition of the sick.”

Hearing these words, I realized with pain that I was unable to be empathic with my father. He was not in need of a quick fix as he knew there wasn’t any, he was only in need of empathy and I was unable to provide it. We believe that quick fixes, advice, consolations would make others feel better but the reality is that far from making them feel better, they only add to the pain of those suffering.

If it is already difficult to be empathic with our loved ones, imagine how difficult it must be with those we feel nothing for or may even have negative feelings towards. True empathy in NVC, however, is for all; no matter what the person is, says or does we need to see the beauty in his personhood. True empathy is composed of three components:

Presence – The philosopher Martin Buber says that presence is the most powerful gift one person can give to another. It is a major component in healing; in fact, some psychotherapists go as far as to say that active presence accounts for 90% of the healing process. But it is not easy to stay actively present for another person as it requires that we bring nothing from the past into the present.

If we start to think about what the other person is saying, or begin to analyze and think of some advice to give, or that we need to fix something or feel the urge to help or to correct, we lose the quality of the presence because intellectual understanding is not empathy. The moment we go up to our head trying to understand and conceptualize what we are hearing, we have stopped listening and being with the other person to be with ourselves instead.

People might be fixating their emotions on something that is false; what we have to do is to connect with those emotions first and to correct after. For example, “How stupid the Americans were in invading Iraq thinking that Gadhafi had weapons of mass destruction!” We might want to step in and say that the president of Iraq at the time was Saddam Hussein not Gadhafi, but this urge to correct would ruin our empathy. Empathic connection is more important than correction.

Sympathy, however, is not empathy. If I show sympathy by saying, “I am sad because of what happened to you”, this would be okay if I have shown empathy beforehand. If not, then I would be taking attention away from the other person’s feelings to focus on my own feeling of sadness. It would also not be empathy if I were to say, “I understand how you feel”, as this would be too presumptuous on my part. In NVC we don’t say that we understand, we simply demonstrate the understanding.

Focus on the now – If people tell me things that have happened to them in the past that are still causing them great pain now, I place my focus on what is alive in them now. If I follow them into the past also, I might be tempted to analyse or understand intellectually and lose the presence in the here and now. So to remain in the present, all I need to do is to stay in touch with the feelings and needs of the person now.

Therefore, the question is how you feel now as the result of what has happened to you in the past. For example, if someone were to tell me how his father used to hit him and how scared he was at the time, my attention is to focus on how he feels now. The feeling now might be of anger or rage, therefore my empathic connection will relate with this present feeling and not with the one in the past. Enquiring about the feelings in the here and now is what we also do when a person is using lots of words and jumping from one story to another; we simply interrupt and say, “Excuse me are you feeling…. because…”

Check it out by means of paraphrasing – We are not to assume that we have correctly connected with the feelings and needs of the other person, so we check it out by saying: “Are you feeling… as you do because of your need for…”  Reflecting back our understanding is important for two reasons: first, if we have guessed wrong, the person can correct us; second, the person might need some confirmation that we are really with him and are following and understanding him correctly.

It is difficult to empathically connect with a person that says he is going to commit suicide and that the world is better off without him… We tend to analyse, ask questions, give advice… Or with a criticism as when somebody tells us, “The problem with you is…” We need to disregard the criticism as if it has not been made or directed at us and look for feelings and needs behind it. Checking it out with the person so as to give him the opportunity to correct us if we are wrong.

Empathy – Sympathy - Compassion
Empathy - is viscerally feeling what someone else feels. Researchers have called it the “mirror neurons” as empathy may arise automatically when we witness someone in pain. For example, if we see someone missing the nail while hammering and hit his finger instead, we would immediately have a sense of his pain. It is not always this easy, so when it does not come automatically, we need to rely on our imagination. Of course empathy is not just for unpleasant feelings, it is also for pleasant ones as oftentimes the smile of a person makes us smile back.

Sympathy - Most people confuse and mistake sympathy for empathy. Empathy is solidarity and being with the other while sympathy is fundamentally being with ourselves. Furthermore, empathy is more of an attitude, a way of being, and sympathy is more a feeling that comes to us from the understanding of the other person’s situation. If sympathy comes after empathy then it is good; however, if it comes before or instead of empathy then it is not good and does not help the other person or the situation.

Compassion - Compassion takes empathy and sympathy one step further. When we are compassionate, we feel the pain of another (i.e., empathy) or we recognize that the person is in pain (i.e., sympathy), and then we do our best to alleviate the person’s suffering.

Compassion is the end of the process that starts with being with the other person, just feeling his feelings as we need to be present for him first without attempting to understand or grasp the whole situation; second, with the understanding of the situation, we feel sympathy for his cause and in the end we do something with it.

We could look at the mystery of the incarnation of God in this light. God did not attempt to save us from above; instead, he took our human form and dressed in our human nature, from within it he felt sympathy to our condition, and out of compassion saved us.

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2: 6-8

Summing up what has been said, empathy means that we feel what another person is feeling; sympathy is the feeling that we get out of the understanding we got from his feeling; compassion is what we do about his feeling, the willingness to relieve the suffering of another.

The power of empathy
Rosenberg mentions an experiment his teacher Carl Rogers did to prove that empathy alone may accomplish most of the emotional healing. In this experiment Rogers had two groups of patients, one group was treated by psychotherapists of different schools and the other by lay people with no formal psychotherapy training just using empathy. The outcome showed that the ones who used empathy well, regardless of being psychotherapists or lay people, were the ones who obtained better results.

From this experiment and from his own experience, Rosenberg concludes that empathy by itself is the best way to attain emotional healing as well as resolving conflicts and bringing reconciliation between individuals and between groups of people.

For this to happen, the only requirement is that each of the antagonistic individuals or groups of people must first through self-empathy discover what is alive in themselves at the level of feelings and needs and realize that unmet needs are at the heart of what divide them. Then second through empathy connect with what is alive in the others - their humanness, at the level of their feelings and needs. When this two-way empathic connection is established, conflicts dissolve, healing and reconciliation occur magically, simply because feelings and needs are universal.

Commonality between individuals and groups of people at the level of thoughts and ideas may occur from time to time. However, commonality at the level of feelings and needs can be taken for granted as it occurs always. It is precisely because of this that empathy is the most powerful tool for emotional healing, resolving conflicts and bringing about reconciliation between individuals and groups.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC: Jesus of Nazareth and Redemption through Nonviolence

Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword’. Matthew 26:51-52

“Live by the sword, die by the sword” – It is a well-known expression that probably takes its root from the verse above. Violence not only does not resolve conflicts or problems, but tends to escalate them. One speaks of violence spiraling out of control because it spreads easily each time involving more and more people. By the way of violence, the only peace that can be attained is the peace in the cemetery, of death and destruction.

Jesus of Nazareth challenged the domination system and its core value of redemptive violence. And he did not live long because of it. The Church in charge of proclaiming his teachings did not carry them out in full measure, maybe because she did not really understand them, or maybe to survive she had to adapt to the culture and ally herself to the dominant power.

The Christ of history that the community passed down in time was a Christ who was watered down, diluted, less radical, less revolutionary. Providentially, however, this Jesus of Nazareth, who did not sail into the Christian community, nor made history, is contained in the Gospels, and it is through them that we perceive the revolutionary dimension of his teachings.

Jesus rejected the autocratic power (Matthew 20:25-28), appealed for economic equality (Mark 12:30-31), rejected violence (Matthew 5:38-41), broke the customs that treated women as inferior (Luke 10:38-42), broke the rituals of cleanliness that separated people from one another (Mark 1:40-45), challenged the patriarchal view of the family (Luke 11:27), and rejected the belief that God demanded sacrifices of blood (Matthew 9:9-13).

Power as service, not as dominion
But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’. Matthew 20:25-28

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Matthew 23:8-12.

Jesus is an anarchist not in the sense that a society should not be orderly and governed, but in the sense that no one should have the right to exert power over someone else; power is either a service or is malicious.

For Jesus, all autocratic government is naturally violent and oppressive. He saw power as service to the people and not dominion over them. He substituted love for power, for the power of love and service to others. This is the way to the greatness and popularity that is so coveted by the powerful.

Those who exercise power tyrannically are feared, not loved; the leaders that are loved by the people are those who exercise power by means of service; these are the great ones in the history of humanity. The great ones in our own personal history are also those who have served us like our parents, teachers, catechists, doctors etc., and not those who have dominated us.

Economic equality and equity
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31.

Within a single commandment, Jesus unites the two values that human life is based on. To love God above all things means to acknowledge no authority above God’s authority and to submit to no one and to nothing. This is the guarantor of freedom as a value on which the dignity of the human person rests.

On the other hand, since a human being is not an island, the social dimension is based on equality; under God, no one is more than someone else. The combination of these two dimensions, vertical in the love of God and freedom, and horizontal in the love of our neighbour as ourselves, form the symbol of Christianity, the cross.

Jesus warns us of the danger of wealth that makes men antagonistic and bars them from salvation (Mark 10:25). For this reason, he invites the rich young man to detachment and to give all his money to the poor thus redirecting his sight on a greater treasure in heaven (Matthew 19:21). He praises Zacchaeus for his act of giving back and sharing his money thus earning him his salvation (Luke 19:1-10). The sharing of material goods is part of the criterion of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 25:31-46).

Love for enemies
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous...’ Matthew 5:43-45.

You have heard that it was said ... But I say to you … -- Several times in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus uses this grammatical construction to expose each statement of the ancient ideology or domination system and to reciprocate one for one with his doctrine.

Jesus came to prove that the domination system is not the only way to live in society; the Kingdom of God that Jesus brought by his coming into the world, is an alternative to the dominion system, the only alternative in fact. The Kingdom of God initiated by Jesus is a win-win situation, because everyone wins, no one loses; there are no oppressors nor oppressed, no winners nor losers.

For the system of domination to work, man has to be a predator and this is why he must convince himself and his fellow men that the enemies are treacherous and that the only way to live in peace is to destroy them. For Jesus there are no enemies; but even if there are, they will not be won over with hatred which only makes them stronger; it is like trying to put out fire with gasoline; only love can truly disarm them.

For redemptive violence to operate, it is necessary that some people be declared as enemies, so that their elimination by means of violence is viewed as a redemptive act. Jesus' command to love our enemies leaves redemptive violence without its moral justification. In connection with this Rosenberg says, “When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others behavior, we have no enemies”. 

Jesus came to make this world the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of justice and peace, a “civilization of love” as Pope John Paul II liked to repeat. The Sermon on the Mount is the Magna Carta or the Constitution of this Kingdom.

Redemptive Nonviolence
‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.’ Matthew 5:38-41.

The Code of Hammurabi enacted in Babylonia, the same place where the myth of redemptive violence emerged, is the first code of law that human civilization knows. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was a law designed to restrain the natural escalation of violence, permitting its controlled use for revenge within the principle of reciprocity. For Jesus, this is not the solution because it tackles violence with violence.

Do not resist an evildoer – To resist violently, to seek revenge or to conquer evil by violent means, is to let oneself be controlled by violence and to perpetuate the myth that salvation is achieved in this way. Theologian Walter Wink notes that this verse has traditionally been interpreted as advocating passive submission to oppression; therefore historically, Christianity has rejected the teachings of Jesus concerning nonviolence as a utopic, impractical and naïve idealism.

The truth, however, is that the Gospels do not teach nonresistance to evil; Jesus teaches us resistance, but without violence. Wink assures us that if we take the words of Jesus in their historical and cultural context, it is clear that Jesus is advocating a creative form of nonviolent opposition to oppression, not submission. On the other hand, Wink also insists that the above verse is a poor translation of the original Greek which according to him says, “Do no react violently against the one who is evil”. The examples that follow are additional proofs of this.

If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also – Any slap on the face is given with the right hand because the left hand, according to the Jewish law, is only used for unclean tasks. Now, to slap someone's right cheek with your right hand, this can only be done with your backhand. Even today, a slap with a backhand is given not with the intention to injure physically, but rather to insult, humiliate and degrade.

It was not given to a person of equal status, but to an inferior; it was the type of slap that a master would give to a slave, a husband to a wife, a father to a son, a Roman to a Jew, in order to remind them of their position of inferiority and put them back in their place; or to cut someone down to size as the saying goes.

To strike the left cheek the aggressor can no longer use the backhand, that is, cannot humiliate again, to strike he would have to do it, this time, with the palm of his hand, something that could happen only between people of the same social status, so that if the aggressor were to do it, he would be lowering himself to the same level as the one he is assaulting.

Therefore, the act of turning the cheek is meant to say at the time that, ‘I am your equal in dignity, I do not accept being humiliated’. He can no longer strike the right cheek with the backhand because it is now hidden, the nose will be in the way. Therefore, more than offering the other or left cheek, he is hiding the right so not to be humiliated again; he is rebelling and leaving the master without arguments, not being able to attack without lowering himself and recognizing the other as an equal.

If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well – To understand these words, one needs to understand the Roman tax system that led the poor farmers to be so indebted to the point of losing their lands or inheritance to creditors, left without any means of sustenance, completely embezzled and unprotected, that is, stripped naked.

The parable of the labourers in the vineyard in Matthew (20:1-16) refers to those who had lost their land because of their debts and are now obliged to go to the square every day in the hope of being hired. Ironically, the landowner hires first those who were the previous owners of the land because they know the work well and only later, in needing more hired hands does he return to the square to hire other labourers.

The debtor had no chance of winning the case in court because the system always favored the creditor. As we saw in the case of turning the other cheek, and later in the case of walking the extra mile, one of the rules of nonviolence is to be assertive; by stripping himself of the only garment left to him, and ending up naked, the debtor protests and points the finger at the system that brought him to this state.

Nakedness was a taboo in Israel, but the shame fell less on the naked person, and more on the ones viewing and causing the nakedness (Genesis 9:20-27). In fact, even today, in many situations, displaying nudity is a form of protest. Stripping off the cloak and leaving the court naked is equivalent to saying, ‘you stole everything from me, I only have my body left, what are you going to do now?’ The attention and accusatory glances are now directed to the one who caused the nakedness, the creditor.

As Wink concludes, Jesus’ teaching on nonviolence points to a strategy of confronting the system by unmasking its essential cruelty and mocking its pretensions to justice. Those who hear these teachings will no longer accept to be treated like sponges to be squeezed by the rich. On the surface they can accept the rules of the game played by the rich, but in reality they are exacerbating the rich and the system to the absurd, and thus exposing their cruelty. By stripping naked before their fellow men, what is left naked is precisely the system and the creditors.

If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile – It was the custom at the time of Jesus that whoever was found on the road or in the street could be forced into service by the Romans, like the Cyrenian who was forced to carry the cross of Christ (Mark 15:21).

In the imperial Rome, high ranking soldiers had slaves, donkeys, horses or carts to carry their baggage; not so with the low ranking ones, therefore they could force whoever they found on the road to carry their baggage for a mile. To carry the baggage for more than a mile was illegal and punishable by Roman military law.

As in the two previous instances, the question here is how the oppressed can regain their initiative and assertively affirm their human dignity, in a situation that for the time being cannot be changed, that is, within the Roman dominion. By carrying the soldier’s baggage for an extra mile, the soldier could not but be taken by surprise and feel provoked as not only he did not have to coerce the Jew to carry his packs but the latter even exceeded in the task. By depriving the soldier of the predictability of his victim’s response, he is thrown into confusion and left without a moral authority.

Now it is the soldier who has to plead to have his pack back to avoid being punished by his superiors. The humor of this situation may have escaped us, but could hardly have escaped Jesus’ audience, who must have been delighted at the prospect of teaching a moral lesson to their oppressors. In conclusion, Jesus is against passivity and violence; evil can be confronted and overcome without the use of violence.

The third way
In the face of danger or threat, the fight (armed revolt, violent rebellion, revenge) or flight (submission, passivity, surrender, withdraw) responses are the two possible reactions of any vertebrate living being because these responses are imprinted, as we shall see in the next article, in our first brain, the reptilian brain.

According to Walter Wink, Jesus offers a third way. This new path marks a historical change in human development: the revolt against the principle of natural selection. With Jesus a new way emerges, by which evil can be fought without being mirrored. These would be the directives that are deduced from the Gospels:

•    Do not stay inactive but take a moral initiative
•    Find a creative initiative to violence
•    Assert your humanity and dignity as a person
•    React to violence with disdain and humour
•    Break the cycle of humiliation
•    Show unrelenting refusal to any position of inferiority
•    Expose injustice in the system
•    Assume dynamically a position of power
•    Shame and ridicule the oppressor into repentance
•    Stay firm
•    Compel the powers to make decisions that they are unprepared to make
•    Recognize your own power
•    Be willing to suffer, instead of taking revenge
•    Compel the oppressor to look at you in a new light
•    Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a demonstration of force is effective
•    Be ready to pay a price for breaking unjust laws
•    Conquer the fear of the domination system and its laws

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC: The deceptive myth of Redemptive Violence

What is a myth?
Myths are narratives that emerged in the early days of human civilization, and they help us to explain and respond to key issues that men have asked at all times, such as the origin of the world, human beings, God, meaning of life etc.

Myths are not historic because they do not refer to events that really happened. However, because they did not happen it does not mean that they are false. In fact, they are true in as much as they try to explain realities at a time when science did not exist. Take for example the myth of the god of time named Kronos, who after giving birth to children eats them up. Of course, this has never happened, it is not historical, but it is true; in fact, time is something that first we have it and then we consume it; each day when we get up in the morning we “give birth” to a new day, so to say; each night when the day is over it’s because we have consumed it.

 In this and other articles to follow, I use the word “Myth” in its anthropological denotation and not in the sense it has now in modern English meaning a delusion, a lie, or something untrue.

The domination system or structure of power
This is how the theologian Walter Wink calls a set of unjust economic relations that are politically oppressive, racially biased and patriarchal in as far as gender is concerned. All this within a society that divides people into social classes in order that relations between people become hierarchical and not egalitarian; and finally, it is also the use of violence to maintain and guard this status quo, which has been in force since the birth of Babylon in 3000 BC.

According to Wink, things do not happen by chance, attached to a domination system there must be a domination myth, a legend or narrative that tries to explain and justify the reason for the situation being as it is, and how we got here.

“Might is right” – The myth is called “Redemptive Violence” and it entrenches the belief that violence saves and justifies itself, and that war brings peace or as the Romans used to say, vis pacem para bellum, that is, if you want peace, prepare for war. This myth, or stories people tell to explain nature, history and customs, justifies that power is imperative to establish peace and harmony. Like we turn to God when all else fails, so we turn to violence to solve individual and social problems as the last resort, thus attributing to violence the function of a god. As a matter of fact, for Wink, this, and not Judaism, Christianity or Islam, is the prevailing, and the most ancient and dominant “religion” in the world since Babylon.

The myth of redemptive violence endows the domination system with a narrative that can be reproduced in an infinite number of ways, convincing all those involved, both the oppressors and the oppressed, that without this system of domination, or structure of power, the world as we know it would cease to exist. Therefore, only “legal violence”, more specifically that which is exercised by the domination system, can save us from self-destruction.

The game of cops and robbers or heroes and villains
Let’s look paradigmatically how this myth works: a powerful individual, system or group, has caused injury or distress to another particular individual or group. From inside the oppressed group, a hero or powerful group arises, who confronts by violent means, defeats and kills the oppressor, thus ending the reign of terror.

Subsequently, the victorious protagonist and hero creates a system in which the newly liberated people can live freely and in harmony for a period of time. However, because power corrupts, eventually the previously fair liberator, seduced by power, is himself turned into a dominant oppressor, a villain. And so, the cycle starts once again with the eventual emergence of another hero.

It is on the basis of this myth that some historians claim that history repeats itself. Let’s look for instance how this paradigm evolved in the last century in Russia.  The czarist Russia was so oppressive that for a while, sadly a too short while, people felt a relief with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which soon evolved into an even more oppressive regime under the domination of Stalin and those who followed him in the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat.

From an early age, children are indoctrinated into the domination system through the worship and admiration of heroes in cartoons and later in films. Against an invincible hero is an apparent equally invincible villain.

Children, youth, and even us adults, consciously identify ourselves with the hero, in order to have a good concept of ourselves; but unconsciously we also identify with the villain, to whom we project our repressed anger, our rebelliousness and lust, and we enjoy this wickedness of ours for three-quarters of the film, allowing ample time for indulging the violent side of the self, during which evil seems to be prevailing.

When the end eventually comes, and the good declares victory after much effort and suffering, it is as if our innermost selves were able to re-establish order over our own wickedness and base instincts. The villain’s punishment provides catharsis to reassert control over our own inner tendencies, repress them, and re-establish a sense of goodness without coming to any insight about their own inner evil.

This is why we like watching movies or perhaps we need them to keep our aggressiveness under control or at a manageable level. This sort of sublimation also happens in sports; it is always preferable that the rival groups or countries face each other in stadiums at the Olympic Games than in battlefields.

Films serve therefore as a catharsis or release because the punishment of the villain in the film corresponds to a self-punishment of our own evil tendencies. Salvation is found in the identification with the hero, maintaining in this way the use of violence and self-violence, justified and reinforced, and the continuation of the domination system.

By making violence pleasurable, fascinating, and entertaining, the Powers are able to delude people into compliance with a system that is cheating them of their very lives.  We have been educated for thousands of years to make violence enjoyable; all you need is to think there are bad guys and these bad guys need to suffer for what they have done, so it is enjoyable creating pain for these people; revenge is very enjoyable indeed. In a violent society nothing is more enjoyable than the revenge.

Similar to what used to take place in Roman arenas where gladiators fought each other to death or Christians were devoured by beasts, and to this day in bullfighting arenas, throughout history, violence has been not just a means to advocate justice and peace, but our culture has been making it an enjoyable and rewarding spectacle.

In short, the Myth of Redemptive Violence is the story of the victory of order over chaos by means of violence. Based on the fact that man is naturally violent, violence, or better said “legal violence”, justifies itself because it makes us believe there is no alternative way to obtain order and peace. 

The violence in education
“La letra con la sangre entra”
This is the Castilian proverb extolling violence against children as the best method of teaching. At the mercy of sadistic and unscrupulous teachers, children were beaten up in schools and colleges as well as in the bosom of the family. I will always remember a schoolmate of mine, who had lost his father, and because the elderly mother did not have the strength to beat him up and the beatings he received in the school were not sufficient, he would go systematically to the police station to be beaten up there every day.

The Babylonian myth of creation
The most ancient myth or sacred narrative of creation of the universe and human beings tells us that in the beginning there was Apsu, the father god, and Tiamat, the mother god, who gave birth to many children gods; but because the younger gods were extremely noisy when at play and disturbed Apsu in his sleep, he decided to kill them off; the younger gods, however, discovered the plan and in anticipation killed Apsu.

Tiamat pledged revenge for the death of her husband, filled with fear the rebel gods solicited the help of their cousin, Marduk. Coming to their rescue, Marduk captured and killed Tiamat; later he dismembered her body and scattered her blood; so from her dead body, according to the Babylonian myth, the World was created. In other words, creation was an act of violence and not of goodness as in the biblical myth of creation.

In such a world, for cosmic order to exist the violent suppression of the feminine is needed; this is mirrored in the social order by the subjection of women to men, and men to their rulers. In the beginning there was chaos, and violence was used to establish order. It is therefore justified to use violence because without it there would be no order. We can then conclude that the myth of the redemptive violence is about the victory of order over chaos by means of violence.

After the creation of the world, Marduk threw into prison the gods who sided with Tiamat; since these complained of the bad prison food, Marduk and his father, Ea (son of Apsu), killed one of the imprisoned gods and from his blood human beings were created to be servants of the gods.

Therefore, according to the Babylonian myth of creation, violence is natural, it is encoded in our genes. So, it was not mankind who created violence by an act of disobedience to God as the biblical myth has it; violence has always been a reality, and part of the cosmic and human nature. Humans are naturally incapable of peaceful coexistence; peace has to be imposed on from a higher order.

Therefore, the smartest and the most powerful present themselves before others as kings, Czars, emperors, princes, priests and masters, that is, as representatives of the goodness and justice of God with the mission to combat evil and punish evildoers. The “legal” violence of the leaders in the society opposes the “natural” violence in order to defeat evildoers and dissuade others from their evil tendencies thus facilitating social coexistence.

In this way women are advised not to have needs since they must sacrifice themselves for the good of the family; men are instigated to renounce their personal interests to serve the king to the point of giving up their lives in battles to protect and increase the king’s dominion. Similarly, children are instructed from very young that there is right and wrong, good and bad, and that to be good they must give up the use of their natural power outwardly, and use it inwardly against themselves to suppress and repress their evil tendencies and obey authority unconditionally.

The biblical myth of creation
Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. (…) And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (…) God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1, 4, 12, 18, 21, 25).

The biblical myth of creation described in the book of Genesis is quite different from the Babylonian one. However, because it was developed during the time the Jewish people were living in exile and captivity in Babylon, there are similarities between them, but fundamentally it opposes the Babylonian myth. In the Bible, God is good and creation is an act of God’s goodness. The way God creates each of the various realities, he makes sure that what is created is good. In other words, God is good and creates a good creation.

Evil and violence are not part of the creation as God conceived it. Creation is an idyllic garden where the first human beings lived in harmony with each other, with nature and with God. Evil entered later as the result of misuse or abuse of freedom. The world and the realities that God created were good initially, but were later corrupted by the sin of Man.

In the Bible, after Adam and Eve stole from God the prerogative of good and evil, and placed themselves as the standard of all things, arbitrariness entered into the world and with it violence, which is exercised soon after in the second generation by Cain over his brother Abel. Violence never appears in the Bible as a naturally good reality, but always as an artificially evil one; it does not present itself as a natural fact that has to be assumed and accepted, but always as a problem to be solved.

It is clear that the biblical story of creation is not the myth that prevailed all over the world, from Babylon or Mesopotamia to Egypt, Greece, India, or China. Instead, the Babylonian myth is the most ancient and most current, and has no rival; there are very few that confront and challenge it. It is a type of civil religion that is transversal to all cultures, civilizations and religions, and the matrix that is used in most of the films and cartoons that are made, in order to educate the new generations of the necessity of violence to re-establish and maintain order.

Religion as legitimation of power
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement. Romans 13:1-2

The belief that authority comes from God and that whoever exercises it on earth does so in His name belongs to the ideology of the domination system. From this belief of idolizing authority is a short step that many kings and emperors took. Already in our time after the Spanish civil war, the dictator Francisco Franco, in order to justify the usurpation of power, declared himself ruler and even minted coins with his effigy and the words “Francisco Franco, Leader of Spain by the grace of God”.

Religion, instead of asserting its myth that man is not violent per se because he was created by God from an act of love, let itself be influenced by the Babylonian myth, thus becoming violent as in the case of the Jewish religion.

The whole sacrificial system is based on the belief that only with blood is one redeemed or rescued. The only difference between the Jews and the surrounding peoples, or the distant Mayans and Aztecs, is that they replaced human sacrifice with animal sacrifice. Christianity has somehow returned to human sacrifice by giving it a new meaning, this time to the sacrifice of one man once for all, valid for all times and places.

Christianity, the successor of Judaism, as the verse cited by Saint Paul suggests, followed in the footsteps of Judaism, blessing and adopting the myth of redemptive violence. It is certain that Jesus of Nazareth stands apart, and precisely because of this, he was not understood by his disciples and furthermore, his teachings were washed or watered down already in the apostolic generation by his own followers.

For Walter Wink, Christianity was perverted and made chaplain, or religious educator and moral guarantor of all that the State did. Caesaropapism is the ideology that ruled the Western world after the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, despite Jesus being against the union of powers as we conclude from his warning to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. (Matthew 22:21)

The Crusades and the Inquisition are the most exponential cases where the interests of politics united and coincided with the interests of religion, merging into a single goal and strategy, one being justified by the other. In the Crusades, the Church, which declared them, mobilized armies to defend the holy places occupied by Muslims, hence the concept of the holy war, killing in the name of God which is the “non plus ultra” in the self-justification of violence.

The Inquisition, an instrument of the Church to purify and compel faithful to true faith and doctrine, was used more by the state than by the Church herself; the most blatant case was the conviction of Joan of Arc. Both in the Catholic and the Protestant world, witch-hunting was promoted by the state, with the approval of the Church, thus freeing themselves of individuals who threatened the system.

The Karpman or the Bermuda triangle
In short, the myth of redemptive violence is a fallacy that order can only be victorious over chaos by means of violence. As in this myth, violence presents itself as the only possible solution to chaos, barbarism and anarchy; since violence is not a problem but a fact, our world is neither perfect nor perfectible. The world is a theatrical stage of an eternal conflict on which there is a more or less lenient version of the law of the jungle, that is, the survival of the fittest.

Ultimately redemptive violence redeems nothing, neither the victim nor the villain, nor does it solve the problem or conflict that created it. The only thing that it does is to perpetuate itself in a kind of eternal vicious circle. Thus, we have a version of the Karpman triangle (persecutor – rescuer – victim equivalent to villain – victim – hero) and from this sort of Bermuda triangle no one escapes alive.

The Greek thinking is shaped by the myth of eternal return, and so is the Hegelian dialectics that consists of a thesis that is opposed or confronted by an antithesis resulting in a synthesis; with time the synthesis itself becomes a new thesis to which follows a new antithesis and so on ad infinitum. The Greek circular understanding of time also follows the same paradigm, the god of time called Kronos continuously gives birth to children and eats them.

If we do not change the paradigm, if we do not dismiss the Babylonian myth and adopt instead the biblical sacred story of creation, then there is no hope, the world is at a dead end, and so the self-destruction of humanity is the most likely outcome.

Opposed and very different to the Greek paradigm of eternal return is the Jewish thinking because it is rooted in the Hebrew epic of emerging from the slavery in Egypt, passing through the desert of purification and entering into the Promised Land of freedom. Time is not cyclical, but linear; in this view of time we never return to the starting point, unlike a mouse running on a wheel, we walk into a future that enables us to progress ad eternum.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC