In studying the question of what alienates us from our natural state of compassion, I have identified specific forms of language and communication that I believe contribute to our behaving violently toward each other and ourselves. I use the term life-alienating communication to refer to these forms of communication.
Certain ways of communicating alienate us from our natural state of compassion.
The author, Marshall Rosenberg, literally starts the chapter on how to communicate empathetically by implying that anyone who doesn’t follow these principles is “behaving violently” and being “life-alienating”. The book has plenty of passages that read to me as morally loaded language that are basically saying “doing things my way is superior to anything else”… while at the same time saying that moralistic judgments are something to avoid.
Rosenberg is very careful to judge speech-acts, here, and not people.
Rosenberg is very careful to judge speech-acts, here, and not people.
He is, but I don’t think that avoids the problem.
agreed. people will hear it how they want it. i just think it’s worth being careful.