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A review by savaging
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg
3.0
This book was hugely useful, and I'm really grateful for these communication strategies. So why then would my review be mostly criticism? If Marshall B. Rosenberg were here he'd get to the root of it. He'd ask me an empathetic question like "Are you feeling _____ because _____ and needing _____?" And I'd say yes Marshall I am. I totally am.
Rosenberg is right that words are powerful. But I'm not sure they carry ALL the power. I don't believe you can always make something right just by knowing the right words. For instance, you can't just name your chapter "Expressing Anger Fully" when the chapter is, let's be real, about no longer having anger because you are enlightened (or repressed? Always hard to distinguish between the two). The words alone can't make it so.
Or say you need to tell someone something that they're not going to like. Rosenberg suggests you can word it in a way that will 'invite compassion.' If you say it right, you'll get compassion; say it wrong, you are instead inviting anger and violence. I spent my 20s thinking that any time someone was upset with me it was because I worded things wrong. Often they would push this analysis, saying I should have told them at a better time or in a different manner. I would beat myself up over being so bad at communication. The best gift of my 30s is to learn that sometimes it has nothing to do with HOW I phrase something -- it's the content itself that people dislike. When they blame their reaction on my wording they're sometimes just scapegoating.
With so much weight put on the words, I fear it risks victim-blaming. Well of course he responded with anger and violence, since you said it that way!
I'm not sure words are so powerful that speaking the right way will resolve every conflict. Rosenberg says that true "emotional liberation" comes with the realization that "we can never meet our own needs at the expense of others." His examples of proper communication are always of people who both get what they want. I admire that he's moving beyond the 'scarcity thinking' that assumes only one person can 'win' in a conflict. I think this is often useful and true! But is it always? In Rosenberg's examples, the couples in crisis always live happily ever after once they figure out NVC. But couldn't there be a case where someone needed out of a relationship, even though they both practiced NVC? Would getting out be a failure -- 'meeting your own needs at the expense of others'?
I also don't trust that words can undo power hierarchies. Rosenberg gives admirable examples of school kids eventually doing what he wants them to do. He thinks this is solely because he's expressing and inviting empathy. But what about the power imbalance here? Because of his role, he still has the ability to punish these children, even if he doesn't believe in punishment. As long as a structural power imbalance exists, you can't undo it with the right sentence. And if he did succeed in undoing it, would the kids actually sit and listen like he wants them to? Maybe they would, I don't know.
But this leads to the big questions of power imbalance: structural injustice. I feel really uncomfortable about the claim that NVC alone can solve issues of structural injustice and environmental damage.
The forward to this book was written by Deepak Chopra. His second paragraph begins: "The contorted faces of protestors on the streets that make such disturbing images on the evening news..." Those contorted faces, those disturbing images. Does he mean the faces of the Black Lives Matter movement, the faces of Standing Rock, the faces of MeToo, the faces of Never Again is Now? Are those the faces he means? Because yes, these people are angry, and it does show on their faces. And at least while they're protesting they they aren't listening empathetically to the killer cops / polluters / rapists / concentration camp builders. And of course in these movements there is also togetherness and joy and prayer and peace, but the anger remains, and images of it might, I fear, disturb you, Deepak.
I applaud Rosenberg for spending an entire chapter of his book on the evil done without emotion, as with Eichmann. But he also insists that 'righteous indignation' always "contributes tangibly to violence on the planet." His only solution to injustice is a conversation, where you express what you personally are needing.
I've seen this kind of thinking being used to police very mild and reasonable expressions of anger at demonstrations. Instead of mass protest or direct action, we are reprimanded that we need to 'continue engaging in talks' with the side that is killing kids or the planet. We just need to figure out how to say it, and they're sure to come around, right?
I've become so snarky writing this review, but that's not the full truth of it either. These skills are so useful, I got a lot out of this book, and Rosenberg isn't personally responsible if people use his ideas in awful ways. I just want my community to be able to critique these ideas when they're being used in their own, ahem, 'life-alienating' ways.
Rosenberg is right that words are powerful. But I'm not sure they carry ALL the power. I don't believe you can always make something right just by knowing the right words. For instance, you can't just name your chapter "Expressing Anger Fully" when the chapter is, let's be real, about no longer having anger because you are enlightened (or repressed? Always hard to distinguish between the two). The words alone can't make it so.
Or say you need to tell someone something that they're not going to like. Rosenberg suggests you can word it in a way that will 'invite compassion.' If you say it right, you'll get compassion; say it wrong, you are instead inviting anger and violence. I spent my 20s thinking that any time someone was upset with me it was because I worded things wrong. Often they would push this analysis, saying I should have told them at a better time or in a different manner. I would beat myself up over being so bad at communication. The best gift of my 30s is to learn that sometimes it has nothing to do with HOW I phrase something -- it's the content itself that people dislike. When they blame their reaction on my wording they're sometimes just scapegoating.
With so much weight put on the words, I fear it risks victim-blaming. Well of course he responded with anger and violence, since you said it that way!
I'm not sure words are so powerful that speaking the right way will resolve every conflict. Rosenberg says that true "emotional liberation" comes with the realization that "we can never meet our own needs at the expense of others." His examples of proper communication are always of people who both get what they want. I admire that he's moving beyond the 'scarcity thinking' that assumes only one person can 'win' in a conflict. I think this is often useful and true! But is it always? In Rosenberg's examples, the couples in crisis always live happily ever after once they figure out NVC. But couldn't there be a case where someone needed out of a relationship, even though they both practiced NVC? Would getting out be a failure -- 'meeting your own needs at the expense of others'?
I also don't trust that words can undo power hierarchies. Rosenberg gives admirable examples of school kids eventually doing what he wants them to do. He thinks this is solely because he's expressing and inviting empathy. But what about the power imbalance here? Because of his role, he still has the ability to punish these children, even if he doesn't believe in punishment. As long as a structural power imbalance exists, you can't undo it with the right sentence. And if he did succeed in undoing it, would the kids actually sit and listen like he wants them to? Maybe they would, I don't know.
But this leads to the big questions of power imbalance: structural injustice. I feel really uncomfortable about the claim that NVC alone can solve issues of structural injustice and environmental damage.
The forward to this book was written by Deepak Chopra. His second paragraph begins: "The contorted faces of protestors on the streets that make such disturbing images on the evening news..." Those contorted faces, those disturbing images. Does he mean the faces of the Black Lives Matter movement, the faces of Standing Rock, the faces of MeToo, the faces of Never Again is Now? Are those the faces he means? Because yes, these people are angry, and it does show on their faces. And at least while they're protesting they they aren't listening empathetically to the killer cops / polluters / rapists / concentration camp builders. And of course in these movements there is also togetherness and joy and prayer and peace, but the anger remains, and images of it might, I fear, disturb you, Deepak.
I applaud Rosenberg for spending an entire chapter of his book on the evil done without emotion, as with Eichmann. But he also insists that 'righteous indignation' always "contributes tangibly to violence on the planet." His only solution to injustice is a conversation, where you express what you personally are needing.
I've seen this kind of thinking being used to police very mild and reasonable expressions of anger at demonstrations. Instead of mass protest or direct action, we are reprimanded that we need to 'continue engaging in talks' with the side that is killing kids or the planet. We just need to figure out how to say it, and they're sure to come around, right?
I've become so snarky writing this review, but that's not the full truth of it either. These skills are so useful, I got a lot out of this book, and Rosenberg isn't personally responsible if people use his ideas in awful ways. I just want my community to be able to critique these ideas when they're being used in their own, ahem, 'life-alienating' ways.