A Discussion with Laurette Lynn of the Unplugged Mom Podcast

This is a discussion I had with Laurette Lynn of www.unpluggedmom.com . We covered the subjects in my previous post (the Trivium method of critical thinking and Non-Violent Communication) but applied the insights to parenting and general interpersonal communication. For anyone who was left confused or unclear as to the previous post, this interview and discussion might serve to add deeper levels of clarity and understanding.

Host Laurette Lynn offered insight and commentary on topics that challenged mainstream, status quo thinking and offered alternative solutions for living a liberated life.  The shows focus was centered around education.  Laurette discussed the various unhealthy issues with modern compulsory education and encouraged parents to “unplug” from conventional schooling to enjoy home-based, independent education.  Through provocative discussion and educational interviews with a variety of high-profile guests, UMRadiooffered advice, support and resources for every family looking to embrace a school-free life.

CRITICAL THINKING MEETS CRITICAL EMPATHY

Critical Thinking Meets Critical Empathy: Knowing and Understanding the Intellectual Lens of Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

The Language of Choice, as Juxtaposed to the Ever-Present Language of Obligation

by Darrell Becker

Glossary

empathy (n.) – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. 1903, from German Einfühlung (from ein “in” + Fühlung “feeling”), coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia “passion, state of emotion,” from en “in” + pathos “feeling”. A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer’s ability to project his personality into the viewed object.

choice (n.) – an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.
mid-14c., “that which is choice,” from choice (adj.) blended with earlier chois (n.) “action of selecting” (c.1300); “power of choosing” (early 14 c.), “someone or something chosen” (late 14c.), from Old French chois “one’s choice; fact of having a choice” (12 c., Modern French choix), from verb choisir “to choose, distinguish, discern; recognize, perceive, see,” from a Germanic source related to Old English ceosan “to choose, taste, try.” Late Old English chis “fastidious, choosy,” from or related to ceosan, probably also contributed to the development of choice. Replaced Old English cyre “choice, free will,” from the same base, probably because the imported word was closer to choose.

obligation (n.) – the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something. 1300, from Old French obligacion “obligation, duty, responsibility” (early 13c.) and directly from Latin obligationem (nominative obligatio) “an engaging or pledging,” literally “a binding” (but rarely used in this sense), noun of action from past participle stem of obligare. The notion is of binding with promises or by law or duty.

Definitions taken from www.oxforddictionaries.com and from www.etymonline.com.

1. Introduction

Darrell Becker is a professor of oriental medicine at the Hawaii College of Oriental Medicine (HICOM, found at www.hicom.edu ), where he teaches and trains student acupuncturists, and helps them navigate through a master’s program, clinical internship in the HICOM community healthcare clinic, and each of the four challenging acupuncture licensure board exams. He teaches Western and Eastern medical classes, as well as practicing holistic medicine and herbalism in his private clinic. Darrell has studied and practiced Non-Violent Communication for three years, and has studied and been finding relevant applications of the Trivium method of critical thinking for 4 years.
His intellectual and NVC-related work can also be seen at www.voluntaryvisions.blogspot.com, and in the private forum of the Tragedy and Hope community at www.tragedyandhope.ning.com.

2. Introduction to the Trivium Method of Critical Thinking:

Relevant to the discussion of how NVC fits with the Trivium, it helps to spell out what I mean by the Trivium method:

1. Grammar: the words, the data, answers Who, What, Where, When (often in that order, but not necessarily). This is what a video camera takes in, but it includes all sense and measurable evidence. This is Knowledge, without deeper evaluation, as a child would take it in.

2. Logic: the removal of contradictions, answers the question Why, this includes the use of the informal logical fallacies, a literal mental “virus scan”, keeping contradictions to a minimum. This is also the rational methods of an individual, used to divine a course of action, reason and purpose. This is Understanding.

3. Rhetoric: the practical applications of Grammar and Logic, this answers How. A very important aspect of Rhetoric is the Rhetorical Triangle (RT), where the Author, the Message of the Author, and the intended Audience who receives the Message are analyzed, as well as the Context surrounding the RT. This becomes important when understanding NVC. This is also known as Wisdom, so long as it is describing practical applications and/or actions (including the use of words for such purposes).

“If it’s not practical, it’s not Wisdom.”

4. The Trivium Method is an intellectual lens, used to focus the adult mind of reason, and from my experience, to go through these steps while learning, doing and teaching produces vastly more predictable and wonderful results, as well as helping to learn the arts of intellectual consistency and cognitive liberty.

3. NVC—History and Applications:

Discovered by Marshall Rosenberg, himself a student of the methods of Carl Rogers, Rosenberg began codifying the foundational aspects of Non-Violent Communication in 1972, using the format of observations, feelings, and action-oriented wants. Dr. Rosenberg connected the relevance of the emotion being felt by an individual to the values and desires (motivating factors) which that person possessed. By 1992, this had been made into the main format: O-F-N-R, Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests.

1. Observations: without evaluation, as a video camera sees it. These are relatively tangible.

2. Feelings: the names of the emotions, such as frustration, sadness, anxiety, excitement, joy. These are relatively intangible and are abstract concepts that are attempts at describing very palpable subjectively felt emotions

3. Needs: these are the intangible values, desires and motivating factors that create feelings within an individual. There are useful lists of both feelings and needs which demonstrate the lack of general or proper nouns or tangible strategies, and show instead a word list which leads to a literacy of feelings and needs. Needs are abstract concepts.

4. Requests: This refers to actions, whether kinetic (spoken/written words usually) or potential (plans of action spoken silently to one self).

If this is as much NVC as someone learns, it might be that they first learn to speak like this:

“When you do <insert: Observation>, I feel <insert: Feeling>, because my need for
<insert: “Need”> is not being met. Would you be willing to <intert: Request>, so that my need for <insert: “Need”> can be met?”

From my experience, speaking in this way can be off-putting, to say the least. Many people have been learning “Street NVC”, which is when NVC practitioners creatively use words that essentially aim to understand the Feelings and Needs of all individuals who are communicating.

Marshall Rosenberg has also codified the 4 D’s of Disconnected Communication (4D’s), specific methods of creating disconnected feelings such as hostility, anxiety, shame and grief, feelings which could be simultaneously generated internally within both the Author of the Message and the Audience. The 4D’s are:

1. Demands: as opposed to making requests. Requests allow for the respect of each individual to choose to accept or decline the invitation. “Admit you are wrong for spanking your child!”

2. Diagnoses (Unrequested): these are un-asked-for labels, adjectives, and diagnoses, and often are interpreted as deeply and undesirably critical in a less-than helpful way. Example: “You’re a Statist!”

3. Deserve-Oriented Language: these are words designed to imply or describe extrinsic motivating factors such as punishments and rewards, and demonstrate the abdication of personal responsibility, as well as emphasizing obligations of the individual or others. Examples: “You oughta be locked up!” and “You’ve been a good boy, here’s your reward!”

4. Denial of Responsibility: this is the use of words to openly declare the abdication of responsibility (responsibility in this setting meaning the ability to respond, specifically identified as an opportunity, rather than an obligation). Example: “You made me feel so mad I had to yell at you, so it was your fault!”

The use of the 4D’s in one’s speech or writing is called “Jackal Language” in NVC jargon. Some word lists expand the 4D’s into an evaluative word list, which helps to flesh out the potential feelings and motives of individuals who employ such words.

Resources:

• http://en.nvcwiki.com/index.php/Evaluative_words
• and for T&H members: http://tragedyandhope.ning.com/group/nonviolent-communication-study-group/forum/topics/the-evaluative-word-list-a-language-of-obligation-part-of-the

The NVC practitioner then can incorporate the knowledge and understanding of the internal environment (their own O-F-N-R, Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests, or Actionable Strategies).

The person is using the perspective of Abundance: issues are viewed through the lens of “And/Also”, and a Win-Win Scenario is being envisioned and engineered. This is juxtaposed to the perspective of Scarcity: Either/Or, usually a Win-Lose or Lose-Lose Scenario is being envisioned and engineered.

As part of the Abundance Perspective, this person assumes 100% responsibility of all of their own feelings and the values and desires that create those feelings, while still remaining as cognizant as they can of the actualities of cause and effect taking place in the tangible world. Part of this responsibility is involved in the forming of explicit boundaries of desired situations and less preferable situations, communicated to all relevant individuals. The person using NVC also understands and finds acceptance of the fact that, unless explicitly spelled-out by someone, most other people do not take 100% responsibility for their own feelings, as evidenced in the 4^th D, Denial of Responsibility. The person notes the use of the 4D’s in the other person, and sees these as ways that the other person is attempting to communicate what they are feeling and what they are motivated by, in terms of their personal values, desires and physical needs. They then attempt to see what the other person sees (observations from the other person’s perspective), to know what the other person Feels, to understand what values and desires are motivating the relevant feelings of the other person (Needs) and to hear what it is the other person may actually be Requesting.

OFNR is now being “run” like a computer program, internally, externally, and continues to run throughout the communication. Coupling this with the Trivium Method described above, the missing Grammar often not known and understood are the Feelings and Motivating Factors (causing those feelings) of the Author and the Audience, adding to the Grammar of the Rhetorical Triangle. OFNR is added to both Grammar and Logic for analysis, as is the knowledge of the use of the 4D’s. The method of one’s own and the other person’s procedure for establishing what is logical is ascertained and understood, using questions that help to isolate how a person makes decisions which are relevant to the communication which is going on. This method being referred to is the other person’s method of making decisions. Knowing and understanding this method is the first goal, finding ways to communicate without touching upon any “cognitive dissonance” related to the method of decision-making is the second goal. As an example, if I prefer to employ the Trivium method mostly, for making decisions, and someone I communicate with prefers to appeal to a particular authority to proclaim the usefulness of their decisions, or if there are certain claims made that seem circular (“The Bible’s true because it says in the Bible that it’s true!”) these methods are identified as part of the other person’s method of thinking. This is important to emphasize: Attempts are made to respect the perspective of the other person, and to demonstrate an accepting and permissive attitude toward the autonomy of the other person to choose as they wish.

There is usually a series of attempts made to create a palpable connection of caring/respect between each of the individuals. O-F-N-R is used to make a guess as to finding a way to connect to any specific individual. In order of potential likelihood of effectively forming a connection, here is a demonstration of the use of the knowledge and understanding of the Feelings and Needs of two people who are communicating:

1. Speak specifically in reference to the other person’s Needs (motivating factors, values & desires). This means the abstract concepts (see: literacy of needs), with no nouns or proper nouns.

2. Speak of your own Feelings, as a method of being vulnerable, unless you would think this could be confused with an attempt to solicit pity or some other emotion, in reference to the discussion.

3. Speak of your own Needs (motivating factors stated in the abstract), unless you would think this could be confused with an attempt to beg or persuade, and if it seems such attempts would not serve to create connection.

4. Speak of the other person’s Feelings, unless you think this could be confused with some Diagnosing of the other person, or some other psychological “intrusion” into unwanted emotional territory.

Also open to discussion, for the purposes of connecting empathetically and potentially creating intellectual harmony, is communicating about the Observations and Strategies (a.k.a. “Requests” or Actions). It is here that specific acceptable boundaries of each individual, as well as all motivations for continuing the attempts at communication, can be revealed to each other, after a solid connection of empathy has been established. This is a vaguely described situation, due to the nature of the subjective and internally verified situation of people respecting each other, and this implies a practiced skill in applying these tactics.

1. Speak to how the other person Observed the situation (from their perspective).

2. Speak to how you Observed the situation, unless you think this could be confused with an attempt to persuade or imply some inaccuracy on the part of the other person.

3. Speak to how you wish to respond with Requests which could lead to enhanced levels of connection and empathy, unless you see such requests being confused with Demands.

4. Speak to how the other person choses to respond (their Requests or actions), unless it seems that speaking about the other person’s choice of response is being confused for a Diagnosis.

After establishing an empathetic connection (to whatever degree you deem sufficient for having some meaningful form of communication) the personal limits and boundaries of each individual can be established, if it seems necessary or prudent. The motivations of each individual can be revealed, as far as each individual’s purpose for having any particular discussion, including the ostensible and desired goals of the discussion.

4. Relevant Metaphors

1. Splinters in the Mind. Mental Splinters are composed of the dependence and exclusive use of the informal logical fallacies as methods of making important decisions. Emotional Splinters are composed of emotional “wounds” or emotions that indicate values and desires that are not adequately being tended to, and are often used to create decisions that are based upon the “Stimulus-Emotion-Pre-Programmed Response” pattern of the choice of action.

2. Bridge of Empathy. This refers to the connection of caring between individuals, a perceptible and subjectively felt quality of mutual compassion between communicating individuals.
   The properties of this “Bridge” include the qualities of this bridge only being crossable by the voluntary action of each person to each other person. One cannot push or pull one’s own self or someone else across this bridge, only a voluntary decision to care about each other can constitute the construction of a solid “Bridge of Empathy”.

3. 18-Wheeler’s of Logic: This refers to the delivery system of each individual’s information and the method of interpretation that is intended for such information. Picture a “Bridge of Empathy” as providing the terrain required to support the “18-Wheeler” truck carrying the logic cargo from one individual to another. A “Manifest” is included in this cargo, listing all of the included information and the relevant rationales being employed and utilized. Each individual is encouraged to voluntarily choose which items are being desired to “unload” off of the truck and utilize, and which are not being valued (at that time) by an individual, and are left on the “truck”.

5. Examples of the Language of Obligation and the Language of Choice:

OBLIGATION	CHOICE
Should	Prefer to
Must/Need to	Decide to
Ought to	Shall choose to
Right (moral)/Wrong (immoral)	Individually preferable/less preferable
Extrinsically created “Rights”	Intrinsically generated respect of individual choices
Either/Or (Debate)	And/Also (Discussion)
Scarcity Perspective	Abundance Perspective
Win/Lose or Lose/Lose Engineering	Win/Win Engineering
Extrinsic Motivations	Intrinsic Motivations
Punishments/Rewards received/given	External/Internal Cause & Effect known/used
Coercive Situations	Voluntary Situations

6. Identifying the Ramifications of Using the Trivium with NVC Methods: Testing the Tactics.

Voluntary Visions Podcast - Discussion on Judgments and Empathy Exhaustion

Published on Nov 19, 2012 by KindCommunication

A discussion with Alex Leach, of Kind Communication, on the topic of mental judgments versus evaluations. And the issue of empathy exhaustion.
Here is the link:
http://www.clearsay.net/images/nvc-tree-of-life.jpg
to the specific graphic mentioned by Alex Leach 
of www.kindcommunications.org . Thanks to Scott Swain for his 
many NVC graphics, articles and resources, Scott Swain's work
can be seen at www.clearsay.net .

The Great Connection Podcast: An Interview with Darrell Becker on Non Violent Communication and Critical Thinking

I'm finally posting something worthy of your time, you who occasionally read this blog and check my links out. Here is my interview with Cathy Lamb of The great Connection podcast. You can go right to this link at Podomatic and I'm on Episode 7:

http://thegreatconnection.podomatic.com/

Or, you can go directly to this link for a listen:

http://thegreatconnection.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-31T06_23_39-07_00

I would recommend everyone reading go to www.tragedyandhope.com and become a trial member, so that you can join in the discoveries and studies of a variety of subjects pertinent to producing more cognitive liberty. If you join T&H, please visit this discussion:

http://tragedyandhope.ning.com/group/nonviolent-communication-study-group/forum/topic/show?id=3972500%3ATopic%3A145238&xg_source=msg

Please join the NVC group and post a review of the interview, I am open to any and all forms of criticism.
But....only if doing so (by listening and posting) you would feel the same kind of pleasure that a 3 year old child would feel when asked to feed a bunch of hungry ducks. :)

You can visit Cathy Lamb's website to see more of her work as she studies a variety of subjects, including the Technology of Love, an empathetic epistemology utilizing a modification of
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. My interview on her site can be found here:

http://tgconnection.org/podcast/tgc-podcast-episode-7-parallels-and-possibilites-non-violent-communication/

Thank you to everyone who has been instrumental 
in my edification on the subjects of consistent empathetic and intellectual methods, to help produce a more wonderful life for all.

-Darrell

VOLUNTARY VISIONS PODCAST - An Interview with Alex Leach Discussing Nonviolent Communication

This is an interview I did on Monday, September 17 with Alex Leach, a practitioner of Nonviolent Communication who lives and works professionally in Davis, California.  He has studied Psychology and Philosophy at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and is a founding member of the Nonviolent Communication Committee at Occupy Sacramento.  Alex has lead trainings on Nonviolent Communication in the area and with people across the country, and has helped in mediating conflicts using Nonviolent Communication.  As a trained communication coach at the Relationship Skills Center in Sacramento, Alex works with low-income families, couples, and single parents to develop communication and family skills, and is currently enrolled at the Interchange Counseling Institute working on life coaching and counseling skills.
Alex Leach can be reached through his website: http://kindcommunication.org/
Here is the youtube link to : 
Voluntary Visions Podcast - Interview with Alex Leach of Kind Communication
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTu_OnaChUE&feature=g-user-u

Please excuse the bad audio quality but feel free to comment on content, as always.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTu_OnaChUE&feature=g-user-u

Anonymous Responds Before I Can Cogently Reply...

I'm honored by the repost, although I think the formatting on it is a bit messed up.

I'm fascinated by the idea of maintaining a compassionate way of communicating and I've been pondering it. My own persuasive tactics are less friendly. I am no politician. My first concern socially is a need for security. By pushing people immediately into dissonance without waiting to see whether they're willing to examine themselves like that, I filter out those who will cause problems down the line. (Specifically, people who explode when they're presented with flaws in their own thought are people I don't feel safe conversing with on an intellectual level.) My perspective is of course strictly personal; I percieve this to reduce stress in my life (possibly incorrectly). Even if I'm right about that effect in my own life, when viewed on a broader scale of space or time, I may be failing to persuade people who could be brought around, thus not averting problems so much as shoving them into the future (or onto other people).

However, note that these are statements of personal ignorance on the matter of... what was it, nonviolent communication? I don't understand it. Hence my statement that I have no idea how to correctly interact with your friend. I don't see myself as being in a position to give you advice. Anything I say that's correct is accidental!

Speaking of which, time to push my luck and take a stab at it anyways: It's always nice when people provide a "friend-tionary". Semantic differences are some of the most frustrating disputes, as the involved parties are literally not talking about the same things. Semantic arguments can then be quite productive in turn if the parties to the argument commit to some degree of formal exploration of the subject. You might try asking if you can get your friend to define what 'government' is. 

He said: "A government that approximates 'Anarchy' or 'voluntaryism' is indeed what is needed."

This implies that he is not using the term government in the way that you are using it, and that the two of you are not in agreement as to what the essential features of governance are. If nothing else, it's an avenue for future exploration, and could be intellectually stimulating.

Potentially more interesting though is that he also said: "Property: is ownership protected by governmental sanctioned authority and force of law."

Ownership was not defined... but WAS specified to be a superclass of Property. Your friend is defining property only as that class of ownership that is guaranteed by the government. Does he acknowledge voluntary ownership absent coercion? What protects it? Can those protections be extended to illuminate what a voluntary world would look like? This kind of question is why semantic arguments can be helpful. It may seem like trying to win the lottery, but sometimes there's a hidden agreement concealed by language. 

Anonymous' Response to "A DISCUSSION ABOUT VOLUNTARYISM"

AnonymousSeptember 23, 2012 8:10 AM

Your friend's viewpoint appears to be denying the essential 

personhood of "rich people" and "poor people". I don't think 

he's understanding them as people, but as abstract classes. 

Perhaps he should be reminded that everyone lives near the 

center of their own narrative. Most people are the heroes of 

their own story; when this isn't true, the hero still tends to be 

close by. They acquire resources to improve the world in 

which they live. Rich people and poor people alike do this. 

The desire to live a better life is universal. The fact that the 

modern world is better than the ancient world is testament to 

the fact that progress is real.

Your friend doesn't appear to believe that rich people are 

capable of being voluntarists. He is arguing that rich people 

will never seek win/win transactions with those who are 

poorer than they are. "Never" is a strong word, but it fits here. 

He is directly arguing that rich people will buy up the 

necessary elements of life and then use their exclusive 

access to enslave the poor. This can only work if, as your 

friend clearly believes, the poor have no collective resources 

with which to resist, no ability to use the market, and no 

ability to network with each other effectively.

I wonder if your friend understands that the debtor class in 

modern society is the ultra-wealthy, while the creditor class 

are the working poor and the middle class. People very often 

think "high net worth" equals "no debts, massive savings". 

Historically, that was generally true, but in the modern day 

the so-called wealthy tend to have vast amounts of fixed 

resources and shortages of liquid assets. The collective argument is a symptom of this dehumanizing perspective. Your friend appears to believe that it is right and proper to remove cancerous elements from society with a government's violence, just as it is right and proper to remove 

cancerous elements from the body with a doctor's scalpel. 

The government is not that precise, but that is not the real 

issue. He is dehumanizing people who disagree with him by 

referring to them as cancers in human society. His arguments appear to be an attempt at justifying the forcible 

excision of other people for the crime of disagreeing with him 

as to the best way to improve their lives.

I have no idea how to correctly interact with such an 

individual. There are specific counterpoints to some of what 

he's said that I've skipped mentioning, as none of the logical 

consequences of the policies he's advocating matter so much 

as the fact that he's targeting policies against people he 

doesn't regard as people. As long as he has no empathetic 

connection with the people over whose fate he is arguing, he 

is not going to come to a peaceful solution to their problems.