What is "Non Violence"?

I participate in a Nonviolent Communication study group once a month (based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg), and our November meeting was this past Saturday. There was a woman there who was joining our group for the first time, and one of her first questions was how exactly, in the context of NVC, do we define "violence"?

Good question.

Dr. Rosenberg says this on the subject, on pages 2 - 3 of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life:

...the term nonviolence [is used] as Gandhi used it - to refer to our natural state of compassion when violence has subsided from the heart. While we may not consider the way we talk to be "violent," words often lead to hurt or pain, whether for others or for ourselves.

The definition of the word "violence" is as follows: swift and intense force; rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment; an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws; rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language; damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration.

That's some pretty heavy stuff - there's probably a whole month's worth of blogging in there! For today, I'm going to think about the last one, which is "damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration."

In NVC, at least to my mind, it's all about communicating with other people in an empathetic, non-judgemental way. Judgement can be violence. Clearly, we all make judgements about good and bad - that's how we decide what we do and do not want to do in every facet of our lives. To judge is human. What I'm talking about is when our judgements limit our willingness to meet others where they are, when it causes us to formulate ideas about them based on minimal information. In other words, when our judgements distort our ability to be compassionate, that is violence.

My grandmother used to tell me that "sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." As an adult, I see how that simply is not true. Not only can words hurt my feelings, labels - names - that people give me can hurt my ability to form relationships, to be treated fairly, even to make a living. Yet, even (or maybe especially) among the most loving, conscious people I know, violence in the form of judgement runs rampant. Those who have committed themselves to living compassionately still have a difficult time with the idea of interacting with individuals whose actions they disapprove of - maybe even despise - with an open and loving heart.

This whole idea has me thinking a lot about Alice Miller's classic book, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, which I read many years ago. Yet even after all these years, one idea in particular from her work sticks out in my mind:

I have no doubt that behind every crime a personal tragedy lies hidden
(177).

Every "crime" - against fellow human or against humanity, against the Earth or any of her inhabitants whether animal, vegetable or mineral - has a personal tragedy behind it. A perpetrator who was treated with violence in any number of ways cannot be judged guilty for her disconnection with the Other. And, as Miller so eloquently and thoroughly points out, almost all of us in Western, industrialized cultures have been treated violently throughout our upbringings. All we can do now is try to solve the problem by breaking the cycle of violence, and empowering our children to find the connection and compassion which is their birthright.