I learned what non violent communication is a day ago and I’m using it to mend a friendship.
Have you however used it at the workplace?
I find it unpractical: there are so many things to do at the workplace and the last thing stressed people with deadlines need is to have a conversation about feelings, but maybe I’m wrong?
A question for nurses working bedside: do you actually use non violent communication at your ward with your patients and actually have time to do your other duties, like charting, preparing infusions and meds, dealing with providers, insurance, the alcoholic who fights you, the demented one who constantly tries to leave the unit, the one who wants to leave ama (against medical advice)?
I seriously dislike these somewhat new wording because it trivializes actual problems.
In this case it makes anything that isn’t sweet and nice and places it directly at the same severity as actual violence
For those that can’t distinguish between actual violence and hurt feelings, I don’t know what to tell you, but there is a huge difference between me breaking your bones and me breaking your heart
I’m not trying to negate shitty bosses or toxic work environments, not at all, but I hate that this is now called violence.
It’s the same as people calling everything rape. You’re staying out late in a hotel lobby with some people and when going back up in the elevator you ask the girl that was with you of she would like to join you for a nightcap? Yeah, raaaape! (This happened)
I get the point of it but I feel that the definition of this very “non violent communication” literally makes it “violence” within itself.
The more I write about it in this thread the more I agree that “nonviolent communication” implies “violent communication” which feels like an equivalence between words and physical assault.
I’m all for people communicating in a way that is civil, unambiguous, and direct, but this lexical appropriation sure sounds like manufactured fragility at best, or—as you say—a trivialization of physical violence.
(And I sure hope — shows as an em-dash)
i really don’t know what you’re on about at the start, but exactly which definition of nonviolent communication literally makes nonviolent communication violence within nonviolent communication? i honestly can’t follow
Psychological violence is violence. It doesn’t matter if you disagree. Because you are wrong. I invite you to search online the stories of people who have been victimized and try to empathize with their lived experiences and emotions. If you cannot find this empathy and feel the urge to dismiss them as overreactions or as trivial, I suggest you seek psychiatric attention. Lack of empathy is the leading trait of sociopathy. Therapeutic and psychiatric treatment can help you to adapt well in a nonviolent manner to society.
So you choose violence eh? I invite you to practice what you are preaching so you don’t communicate like a violent sociopath.
… or an insufferable and supercilious lemming.
I don’t care who is “right” in a discussion about communication style, the last guy made some points in good faith and gave an opportunity for discussion, and instead of engaging you start suggesting this other person has mental problems?
Stop being this way.
I just want to take this time to thank you for teaching me a new word. It is important to learn everyday and I appreciate your contribution. However, I am sad that you considered my comment as violence. Some people are not aware that they’re sociopaths. And well adjusted sociopaths do exist in greater numbers than people assume.
However, unlike you, I do not consider it an insult. I’m sorry if it was misconstrued that way. Sociopathy is a disorder, a personality disorder specifically. Just like narcissism, borderline personality disorder and others. I understand that it is a heavily stigmatized word and used as an insult frequently, specially on the internet. But unless we talk about it appropriately and dispel misinformation, we won’t be able to bring mental healthcare to people who have such conditions. Mental disorders are not a moral failing on anyone’s part. And being aware of it is the first step to get help.
You wouldn’t be offended if I told someone with a broken leg to go see a doctor. Why is reminding people that lack of empathy is a disease and they might benefit from mental health care suddenly an offensive attack?
Were this the tone of your first comment I wouldn’t have written mine. This could have been the case even still alluding to alleged “sociopathy” from dissatisfaction with a neologism or turn of phrase.
I do still appreciate a gracious and cool headed response.
To the point of stigma, if I were on the receiving end, it’s less about the mental health suggestion and more about being dismissive of a perspective and writing it off as sociopathy. In your broken leg example, it would not be offensive to suggest a person gets help for a broken leg (you can see it’s broken), but it WOULD be offensive if you said “you wouldn’t have that broken leg if you lost some weight. You should go get some help” especially if that has nothing to do with why their leg is broken. People don’t usually respond positively to public speculations on medical conditions, and that’s double extra true when it’s derisive and offered up as a dismissal to a question, perspective, or circumstance.
Edit: I could have initially made a less pointed reply as well and I didn’t, so apologies for that. Some related $5 vocab words might include “vociferous reply” and “knee-jerk polemic”.
I believe it’s valuable to recognize that the knee jerk reaction was a result of tone and not content. It’s the whole point of nonviolent communication to refer explicitly to facts and to address emotions directly in order to prevent “tone issues”. However, I never implied any form of moral responsibility over the malaise, mental or otherwise. Communication is a two party process, it’s not just what is given as communication by the sending party, it’s also about what the receiving party does with it, how it is interpreted. So the tone problem is a result of two people communicating, the one writing and the one reading, in this case.
You see, I worked psychological care three years with people in detention and learned that mental illness, with the affected person, is better to address it directly without euphemisms or roundabouts. Most people (not all, just most) who end in detention, have or develop mental illness, many of which are personality disorders. These disorders mean people who have them don’t react too well to any sign that you’re hiding thoughts or secretly passing judgement of their conditions. So I did just that, actually debated over replying and wrote my reply with intent and complete transparency over my feelings and thoughts about the comment. Apologies if my intentions didn’t land, but they don’t come from a place of ill will or bad faith. Quite the opposite. Here’s my rationale.
If you are punched in the face that is, inequivocally, violence. If you insult a person calling them names or threatening to hurt them that is violence. If you do the opposite, being honest, direct and transparent with emotions, then that is almost impossible to be construed as violence. Most people know this intuitively. As you can see by other comments in this very post, most people find it baffling that you have to explain to other human beings that using insults or threats is a form of violence. However, the OC called nonviolent communication violence. How is that? Well, typically, most people understand the relationship of words, interactions and violence from a place of empathy. The ability to imagine and feel what others would feel like in such situations. To consider intentionally nonviolent communication as violence, one must dissociate actions from emotions. This is only possible if one either, can disconnect empathy selectively, or cannot feel empathy at all. Both are strong traits of sociopathy. Violence is not defined by harm, emotional or otherwise, to others in the mind of sociopaths, but as a form of negative transactional process. Material loss and functional inconvenience to a special party, them. The emotional side is erased, because they can’t relate to it healthily. A sociopath doesn’t consider a punch to the face as violence, unless it is detrimental to them, personally. I need to remove a person, so I do. You hurt someone I care about, so I hurt you back. People are objects. No feelings involved. This is how nonviolent communication can become violent, because it disarms the typical instruments of sociopathic behavior. Manipulation, lying, backstabbing, gaslighting, intimidation, etc. are viable tools for the sociopath that carry no remorse. If you take away their tools with clear, direct, honest communications, you disarm the veil of concealment that enables sociopaths to thrive. Thus it is violent, against them. Also, consider the underlying insinuation that people who are kind and compassionate have a hidden agenda or are being secretly hyprocrites and manipulative themselves.
What to do with it? I learned that addressing the elephant in the room is the best policy. I clearly stated what was wrong, to suggest that proper, clear, honest and direct communication is violence is incorrect. “Your kindness is violent” sounds mad and nonsensical, because it is. I can offer further examples, if you look closer to the comment:
Separation of material actions and emotions. Dismissive of emotional consequences. Disconnect with other’s people emotional experiences. The term “actual violence” itself is troubling as it implies an objective definition of violence, which, by the way, implies that it is their definition, disregarding other’s subjective definitions, lived experiences or even socially normative definitions of violence.
Dismissal of emotional suffering as trivial or inconsequential.
Disregard for emotions and trivialization of sexual violence.
Normalization of rudeness, plus the insinuation of hidden agendas from people who are genuinely being nice.
This kind of statements are not opinions I have heard any mentally stable and sound of mind individuals make. But I heard them a lot, in detention, from mentally ill inmates. So, my choice was to be direct and speak my mind. Because I’d rather offend a mentally ill person but get them to seek help and be less of a threat to others around them than to ignore it and let someone with a harmful belief system continue to think that what they’re thinking is ok or normal. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I don’t mind to risk mistakes that hurts nobody if it carries the chance of doing good.
Thank you for a thoughtful comment, unfortunately I don’t have time right now to read it as carefully as I would like, but I have two short points:
I think you misread the first guy (or one of us did). I understand the statement is not “nonviolent communication is violent” but rather calling distasteful communication “violent communication” both increases the threat posed by words alone and decreases the value of the word “violence” in a physical context. Basically it is better for me to call you an asshole than to punch you in the face, so let’s not equate them with terminology.
It may also be possible that your time in psych and corrections makes you more likely to see sociopathy when you’ve potentially misread or misunderstood which is, itself, potentially harmful to getting a message across.
I will basically never tell someone “seek help for XXX” unless I’m being wildly sarcastic or intentionally combative in either case.
Gotta get my kids but I’ll be around later.
Edit:
Basically speech and violence are inherently different things, and I agree with the original poster that I would prefer not to equate them.
Sure, lots of people here on Lemmy may say “obviously words are violence”, but I’m not inclined to trust commentary here to be a representative sample. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, flipping this around, would you expect to get tased and sent to jail for calling a cop a pig, just like if you punched him in the face? If no, then it seems to me there’s an opportunity for nuance. Sure, this is conflating violence and assault, but if we aren’t going to specifically define violence, then it seems to me that’s as good a definition as any other. Otherwise what? Any form of meanness is violence? I don’t buy it.
There is every reason to communicate directly and succinctly to actually make a point, which precludes tone or particular wording that is offensive, no complaints there. But I would say that by giving a common platform to words and actions we are putting a fair amount of weight behind what I will call “manufactured fragility”. It would be great to have the entire world adopt fair and equitable discourse, but that just isn’t going to happen with a fingersnap. And in the meantime we are going to ascribe the same verbiage to both mean posters on the Internet and people who batter their children? I see that as an insulting trivialization of “actual” (physical) violence.
This discussion HAS to start with a recognition and definition of terms, and assimilating terminology tastes bad in this case.