Minding our interactions, both verbal and nonverbal
Have microaggressions become natural responses to our fellow humans?
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
“Yet when we ‘choose life,’ we quickly confront the reality of a culture riddled with violence. By violence I mean more than the physical savagery that gets much of the press. Far more common are those assaults on the human spirit so endemic to our lives that we may not even recognize them as acts of violence.” (Parker Palmer)
“Violence is anytime a person violates the identity or integrity of another person” (Parker Palmer)
With this corruption,
This worm at the core,
We are nurturing, whether
Intentionally or unintentionally,
Consciously or unconsciously,
A culture of violence;
From which we may never recover.
This corruption consists of seeds
That are cultivating
Disrespect and dishonor,
Inequality and hatred,
Inferiority and superiority,
Oppression and dominance.
We are rotting
From the inside out
From the outside in
From the top down.
Physical
We all know that
War and genocide are the ultimate and most obvious forms of violence.
We all know that
Murdering other humans is criminal and should be punished.
We all know that
Too many politicians (including presidents) sit on the border of being war criminals.
We all know that
War is never the answer.
AND we all know that
Even though this is one of the most extreme forms of violence
This is not the most prevalent form of violence.
We all know there is the daily violence
in our homes and schools and workplaces;
child abuse, sexual aggression, spouse abuse,
and when there isn’t a “beloved” human nearby,
then we kick the dog until we feel better.
But violence is much much more than physical.
Emotional
Emotional abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse, especially since it can go on day after day without anyone else knowing or helping. It leaves the victim more alone and vulnerable than anything can.
Verbal
A form of emotional abuse uses words as its weapons. Words are often a dart to the heart. Its damage breaks the heart over and over leaving no hope in sight. It belittles, bullies, and reduces the “other.” The damage that it inflicts is never ending and to the core.
“So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest. And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by hell.” (James 3:5,6, Bible)
Nonverbal
Nonverbal abuse is another form of emotional abuse that is even more prevalent than physical or verbal abuse.
“Dr. Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, conducted several studies on nonverbal communication. He found that 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc).”
This includes attitude and tone of voice; communicated through any and all of our tools of communication: eyes, words, presence, and hands. In gentle teaching we are taught that these are the tools that we use to express to a vulnerable person that they are safe and valued. Intentionally honoring and respecting others must become the default rather than the thoughtless violence of looking down on someone.
Subtle and Pervasive
“Yet when we ‘choose life,’ we quickly confront the reality of a culture riddled with violence. By violence I mean more than the physical savagery that gets much of the press. Far more common are those assaults on the human spirit so endemic to our lives that we may not even recognize them as acts of violence.
“Violence is done when parents insult children, when teachers demean students, when supervisors treat employees as disposable means to economic ends, when physicians treat patients as objects, when people condemn gays and lesbians ‘in the name of God,’ when racists live by the belief that people with a different skin color are less than human. And just as physical violence may lead to bodily death, spiritual violence causes death in other guises—the death of a sense of self, of trust in others, of risk taking on behalf of creativity, of commitment to the common good. If obituaries were written for deaths of this kind, every daily newspaper would be a tome.”
{Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness—The Journey Toward An Undivided Life, pp. 168-9}
Opinionation
We all have opinions about things. But too often we make them personal and absolute. We need to learn to approach differences of opinion with curiosity and intrigue and a spirit of inquiry. Too often we approach conversations with a spirit of dogma and a closed mind rather being open to learning. Once we close our minds, learning ends. If I already know, I can no longer learn.
Argumentation
Discussion versus Dialogue: violent implications.
"Contrast this with the word 'discussion', which has the same root as 'percussion' an 'concussion'. It really means to break things up. It emphasizes the idea of analysis, where there may be many points of view. Discussion is almost like a Ping-Pong game, where people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself. Possibly you will take up somebody else's ideas to back up your own - you may agree with some and disagree with others - but the basic point is to win the game. That's very frequently the case in a discussion.
"In a dialogue, however, nobody is trying to win. Everybody wins if anybody wins. There is a different sort of spirit to it. In a dialogue, there is no attempt to gain points, or to make your particular view prevail. Rather, whenever any mistake is discovered on the part of anybody, everybody gains. It's a situation called win-win, in which we are not playing a game against each other but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins."
In any conversation, we can choose to hold the other person in high esteem, listen carefully before responding, seek common ground and a win/win outcome. When this happens we all learn more. Of course there is a place for the more assertive “debate” style of conversation. But this also must be guided with either a high level of trust or with structured guidelines. Our natural tendency it to blurt out our own opinions before we take the time to listen. In the words of St. Francis, “May we seek more to understand than to be understood.”
For more on Dialogue see:
Dogmatism
[T]he dogmatic man insists strenuously upon the correctness of his own opinions, and, being unable to see how others can fail to believe with him, dictatorially presses upon them his opinions as true without argument, while he tends also to blame and overbear those who venture to express dissent. [Century Dictionary] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=dogma
In response to a "conversation" thread on social media, I responded to a bunch of empty religious responses with this: "I understand where you are coming from because for 50 years I thought I knew everything too."
Recognizing and removing dogma is “just a way of clearing the space for better conversations.” (Sam Harris)
Anytime we set ourselves up as being right, we inadvertently make all others that differ wrong. There is an inherent violence in this sort of thinking and use of language. We all know nothing is certain and no one if 100% right. It is a form of dominance and oppression or simply bullying.
Labeling (discrimination)
It is one thing to label things or products. This is useful in the marketplace to help us sort through options that would be overwhelming with it, like in the toilet paper isle. But labeling people is a way to dehumanize, reduce, and dismiss people that we feel superior to. If, in our minds, they are inferior to us, then we are safe and secure and we can maintain our own false certainty. Of course, labeling is at the core of most of discrimination. Labeling can be used to identify individuals but when it is applied to whole groups to not only identify but also judge them, then it again becomes a thoughtless form of dominance and oppression or simply bullying.
Manipulation
Manipulating people to think like me or to make a decision that I want is also a form of dominance and oppression or simply bullying. Beware of the marketplace which is full of attempts to tie material possession with our own identity and self worth. I am not my car or my home or my clothes or my shoes or my…
Another form of manipulation is next.
Religious Dogma or Political Propaganda
A person’s values and beliefs must come from within. Using external force to manipulate a person into thinking or believing “like me” is also a form of violence because it is a form of dominance and oppression or simply bullying.
Inner Violence (The Violence of Busyness)
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.” (Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)
On-Line Violence
Have you noticed the increase in use of polemic, inflammatory language with emotional trigger words in social media, news media, and among politicians? It is astounding and meant to be incendiary. Words are used to demean people to being nothing more than things or problems to be solved or animals or rodents that need to be extinguished. Words carry violence. And those violent messages spread like a virus. Memes are the virus of the mind. Powerful emotional ideas that invade us like a virus and then spread like a cancer or virus.
For example, words like invasion, infestation, bad people, murderers, drug dealers, gangs, pouring over our borders, etc. These words are used, not for accurate communication but as trigger words causing an emotional reaction for manipulation.
"It was the obsession that one French scholar , writing of Cambodia, called the “mania for classification and elimination of different elements of society.” In each one of them, the groundwork for violence against a specific group — whether an ethnicity, an economic class or a political faction — was originally laid by a very particular way of using language."
Screaming Into The Void: How Outrage Is Hijacking Our Culture, And Our Minds
Social media changed after the 2016 presidential election.
"I felt myself getting sucked into feedback loops where I would read something, I would feel outraged about it, [and] I would feel compelled to share it with my friends," says Yale psychologist Molly Crockett. "I would then be sort of obsessively checking to see whether people had responded, how they had responded, you know, lather, rinse, repeat.
CALL OUT CULTURE
“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”"If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”https://www.rollingstone.com/…/obama-calls-out-call-out-c…/…
The Power of Nonviolence
"Nonviolence is not some exalted regimen that can be practiced only by a monk or a master; it also pertains to the way one interacts with a child, vacuums a carpet, or waits in line."
—Kenneth Kraft, “Meditation in Action"
“We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”
(Martin Luther King, Jr., “A CHRISTMAS SERMON” 24 December 1967)
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” (Martin Luther King, Jr – Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 1967)
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