MARSHALL B. ROSENBERG, Ph.D.
Interview with Terry McNally
“Free Forum” KPFK, Los Angeles 90.7 FM
Aired on October 18, 2001
(Pre-Recorded on October 7th, 2001)
Hello. I’m Terry McNally, and welcome to “Free Forum” and thank you for
joining us.
Because my guest has such a busy travel and training schedule, we had to
pre-record this interview; and it happens that the time we found to do so is the
evening of October 7th – the day the United States and Great Britain have initiated a
military response to the terrorist attack of September 11th. Following that attack, in
the few days afterwards, tonight’s guest, Marshall Rosenberg – who has worked for
thirty years to spread the practice of what he calls “Nonviolent Communication”,
wrote these words:
“If the goal becomes retaliation and punishment each
action will be determined by the answer to this question:
‘Will this action take us closer to punishing those
responsible for the pain we have suffered?’ On the other
hand, if the goal is peace and safety for the world each
action will be determined by answering a very different
question: ‘Will this action bring us closer to lasting
peace and safety for the world’.”
Months ago, when I began pursuing an interview with Marshall, I assumed it
would be primarily about language and communication and focus at least a bit more
on personal relationships than international crises. Once scheduled for this evening,
I knew we would deal with possible responses to September’s attack; but, as you
can see, events have consistently conspired to change and heighten the context of
our conversation and make it, I think, more and more relevant.
Here on “Free Forum” we explore the lives, the work, and the ideas of
individuals that I suspect hold pieces of the puzzle of a world that just might work.
We look at new and innovative and provocative models in business, environment,
health, science, politics and media – all based on the fact that I believe we can do
better, and I want to help you and myself find out how; and that’s as true tonight as
it ever is.
Marshall Rosenberg is the founder and director of educational services for the
Center for Nonviolent Communication®, an international non-profit organization. In
1961 Dr. Rosenberg received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of
Wisconsin. Nonviolent Communication training evolved from his quest to find a way
of rapidly disseminating much needed peace-making skills during the civil rights
struggles of the early 1960’s. Dr. Rosenberg provides Nonviolent Communication
training in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Austria,
Malaysia, India, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Canada, as well as the
United States. He and the Center are also active in war-torn areas and economically
disadvantaged countries, offering Nonviolent Communication training to promote
reconciliation and peaceful resolution of differences.
McNally:
Welcome Marshall Rosenberg to KPFK and “Free Forum.”
Rosenberg:
Thank you Terry, I’m glad to be here.
McNally:
Although we will certainly deal with today’s events my first
question, as it always is on “Free Forum”, Marshall is about
your personal path to the work that you do today, and I invite
you to go back as far as you want. Take as long as you wish-childhood dreams, mentors, models, turning points. We want
listeners to get to know the person behind the ideas and the
work that you’re doing.
Rosenberg:
Terry, I trace the work I do back to 1943.
McNally:
Wow.
Rosenberg:
I was living in Detroit at the time. My family had just moved
there – just in time for the race riots of 1943, and we were
locked in the house for four days while the riots went on, and
there were about 32 people killed in our neighborhood, and that
was a very powerful learning experience for me as a young
boy. It taught me that this is a world where things like your
skin color or your name could be a stimulus for violence. And
that put in my head a question that’s been there ever since;
which is: What happens to people that they enjoy other
people’s suffering? That they want to hurt people? Now the
theory that’s been around for many centuries is that that
happens because people are innately evil, or selfish, or violent.
But I saw that there were people that weren’t like that. I saw
that there were many people that enjoyed contributing to one
another’s well-being. So then I wondered how come some
people do seem to enjoy other people’s suffering while other
people are just the opposite? They enjoy contributing to
people’s well-being. And it was those questions that led me to
the kind of work that I’m doing now. When it came time to go
to the University, I picked clinical psychology hoping I could
find some information relevant to those questions of what leads
some people to enjoy others’ pain and others to want to
contribute to their well-being. And in clinical psychology, I was
exposed to the belief that people get mentally ill, and that’s the
cause of it. But, in the course of my studies I came to see that
that was an overly-simplistic view of things – that it wasn’t that
simple – that all there was was an illness that we could
somehow cure. I began to see that it had much more to do
with the way people are educated and that some people are
educated in a way that makes violence enjoyable. Then what
scared me, I started to see that this was the systematic way
that most people were being educated, and so I’ve made it my
work ever since to show people what I believe are the ways
that we are educating ourselves that is contributing to the
violence, and showing ways that we can educate ourselves that
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will make people much more interested in contributing to one
another’s well-being than to their pain.
McNally:
Um, so you’re saying that you found it to be an education
problem and so your approach has been an education solution.
Rosenberg:
That’s right. I see it as an educational problem, but that
educational problem is part of a broader problem. Then we
have to ask “why did we get educated in this way that creates
the violence?” And my exploration into that question leads me
to believe that we educate people this way to fit the kind of
social structures that we have been creating for several
centuries – what Walter Wink, the theologian, calls “domination
structures” in which a few people dominate many. And when
you have structures like that, it’s necessary to educate people
in a certain way to fit those structures; and a by-product of
that is to make violence enjoyable.
McNally:
Let me ask you, when you’re using the word “education”,
you’re meaning that very broadly, I would assume – you don’t
mean just that that’s what people get in school?
Rosenberg:
No, because as I’m using “education”, it’s been going on for
centuries before we had public education.
McNally:
So, where does that education come from?
Rosenberg:
It comes from what you might call the story that every culture
has – a kind of way that people are just taught by their
parents, by the church, by the community; about what the
good life is; about what is the heroic image. Every culture has
this kind of story that they teach people. But we have been
teaching a story that leads to rather violent consequences for
many hundreds of years.
McNally:
Tell you what; let’s circle around, Marshall, and return to the
story and the meaning of what you’ve seen as possible
solutions to that story and its effects; but let me tell people
first, you’re listening to “Free Forum” on KPFK Los Angeles,
90.7 FM. I’m your host, Terry McNally, and we’re speaking with
Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Center for Nonviolent
Communication®, and author of Nonviolent Communication: A
Language of Compassion, and you can learn more about that at
www.cnvc.org, and on that website you can also find,
occasionally there are free workshops; free trainings in Santa
Barbara, and I believe there’s one coming up fairly soon, so
check the website for those. They come up intermittently. Um,
what I was going to say is let’s go back to the unfolding theory
and so on, but let me also first get a little more of your
personal story; so, you were struck as a child? You were kind
of focused on that question. You went to school, and then
what?
Rosenberg:
I went to the University, and got a doctor’s degree in
psychology, but in the course of getting that degree, I saw that
the study of clinical psychology – I didn’t think that it really
answered the question in the depth that I wanted – which is
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how come people act in this violent way? Clinical psychology
took the approach that this was, as I say, some kind of mental
abnormality and that we could cure it with some kind of
psychological therapy, and I saw that that kind of view did not
take into consideration the kind of social structures that we’re
living in and how they educate people, and by making such a
narrow focus, as though there’s some kind of illness that
accounts for this violence – that it was actually getting in the
way of our learning more how to cope with this violence.
McNally:
Sure, if the violence is actually more a norm than an
aberration.
Rosenberg:
Exactly.
McNally:
And that those who choose not to be violent in obvious active
ways may still be being violent in more subtle ways. . . would
be my guess.
Rosenberg:
Yes.
McNally:
And I referred in the introduction to your work in civil rights.
Could you tell us a little bit about – as I say, weave that story a
little bit about where you began to practice – take your interest
in this question into the real world?
Rosenberg:
Well, before we get to that, then, I need to put another part in
there. . .
McNally:
Go right ahead.
Rosenberg:
. . .which is where I got dissatisfied with clinical psychology for
answering these questions that were on my mind. I was
dissatisfied with the approach that clinical psychology took
which is to look at what is pathological and try to fix it rather
than starting with another question which I thought would be
more helpful, which is: “How are we meant to be? What is our
nature? What is the person who’s functioning as human beings
were meant to function? What do such people function like?
So I then started to do a quick study of comparative religions to
see what all of the religions defined as the answer to this
question: “How were we meant to live?” And I began studying
people who I really valued and I started to see that there were
many people who didn’t get caught up in all the violence; that
they had a different way of looking at the world and so it was
by studying such people and trying to extract from studies of
comparative religion that I came to the answer to the question
of “How were we meant to live?” and that answer came out
that we were meant to contribute to one another’s well-being;
that that’s really what human beings like to do more than
anything else. But the reason that we’ve turned out so violent
is not in our nature but, as I have said, our education. So in
putting together how I thought we were meant to connect with
each other, I pulled together a process of communication
whose purpose is to help us to connect in a way that enables us
to do what I think is really our nature which is to contribute to
one another’s well-being. And I was then in private practice
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and offering what I was pulling together, this process of
communication, to families that were having trouble
communicating with each other; to people who were having
trouble with the people that they were working with. And this
process that I pulled together was providing a great support for
such people. And then some people who were working in race
relations heard of my work and invited me to begin working on
getting black and white groups working cooperatively together,
and this subsequently led me for about thirteen years to do a
lot of work on civil rights around the United States.
McNally:
Uh huh. And those years would be?
Rosenberg:
That would have been from about 19. . . oh, let’s say 67 or so
to about 1980.
McNally:
Mmm hmmm. Long time. And my guess is that once that
became your focus, that it’s unlikely you returned back to
private practice dealing with individuals and families; am I
correct?
Rosenberg:
Yes. Once I started on that route, and I saw how valuable the
process I was teaching was, then I wanted to see if I could
teach other people how to teach it; to start to set up
communities of people in different parts of the United States
that themselves could provide the training where it would be
most useful. And so then that was the end of my private
practice. From that point on, I’ve been traveling.
McNally:
And that traveling is to train as well as to utilize Nonviolent
Communication in difficult situations?
Rosenberg:
Yes. And so, after the race relations work, some people in
Europe began to hear of my training and invited me to come to
countries in Europe, and offer the training to people in various
conflict situations; and then in recent years, we have been
going into war-torn countries like Rwanda, Israel, Palestine,
Serbia, Croatia, Ireland – and identifying people in those
countries who find our training valuable, and with them,
creating teams that make the training available where it can be
doing the most good for the peace efforts.
McNally:
Okay. Let me tell people – you’re listening to “Free Forum” on
KPFK Los Angeles, 90.7 FM. I’m Terry McNally, and we’re
speaking this evening with Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the
Center for Nonviolent Communication® and author of
Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Compassion, and
you can learn more about the book the trainings, the concepts
and when trainings are available in the area at www.cnvc.org.
Okay, um, let’s talk now about when you ask the question
“Why people want to be violent” – you then saw a better
question: “What’s the state that people really want to be –
what’s the ideal state of human relations?” You then found
what you call “Nonviolent Communication” as a method to help
human beings approach that intended state. What is
Nonviolent Communication? How does it work?
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Rosenberg:
It basically focuses on two questions: “What’s alive in us”, and
“what would make life more wonderful”. And so Nonviolent
Communication shows us a way of expressing nakedly what’s
alive in us – how we are, in other words – without any criticism,
without any analysis of others that implies wrongness. The
training is based on the assumption that anything that people
hear coming from us that sounds like a criticism, or sounds like
an analysis of wrongness on their part gets in the way of our
connecting in a way that everyone can end contributing to one
another’s well-being. Part of it is to say clearly what’s alive in
us without criticism. Another part is to say clearly what we
would like to make life more wonderful, and to present this to
others as a request and not as a demand. So the training
shows how to communicate from ourselves to others this way
and it shows us how to hear this same communication in the
messages of others, regardless of how they speak. This is one
of the things that people like most about the training. The
other person doesn’t have to have been trained in it for us to
connect with them in a way in which we can end up
contributing to one another’s well-being.
McNally:
So it’s not only in how you speak, it’s in how you listen.
Rosenberg:
Exactly. Our expressions from ourselves to the others, and
how we receive others’ messages to us.
McNally:
Okay. Let’s get more specific. Um, in asking “what’s alive in
us”, what does that end up meaning? In a. . . you can choose
a specific example.
Rosenberg:
Well, let’s say that, as I said, I give an example in my book of
one time when I was in a refugee camp in a country not very
friendly with the United States, when a gentleman heard from
my translator who was introducing me that I was from the
United States, he immediately screamed, jumped up and
screamed at me ,“Murderer!” Now our training suggests that
any criticism, any analysis that implies wrongness, any insult is
basically an expression of what that person’s needs are that are
not getting met. So, in that situation, what’s alive in that
person, as we look at it, is “what need of this person is not
getting met that would lead him to communicate that way?”
What’s the need behind him calling me a murderer? And we
also try to find the feeling that goes with that. What kind of
pain is resulting in that person – as a result of that need not
getting met? So, our training teaches us how to try to connect
with that. Now, this involves some inference. We need to kind
of infer “what could this person’s needs be when he hears that
I’m an American and he calls me a murderer? Here’s what I
said back to him – I had to guess; I didn’t know for sure. I said
“Are you feeling annoyed because your need for support is not
getting met by my country in a way that you’d like?” I had
some clues to go on at that particular time, but even if I’m
wrong in guessing that, notice what it tells the other person. It
tells the other person that no matter how you communicate,
I’m interested in what’s alive in you.
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McNally:
So what you’re saying with that one, Marshall, is that you don’t
have to be right; you don’t have to guess correctly; but you’ve
shifted something as soon as you express an interest.
Rosenberg:
If it’s sincere, sincerely trying to connect with what is alive in
this human being. And in this case, I happened to guess right.
He said, “Yes, you’re darned right, we don’t need your weapons
being sent over here. We don’t have housing. We don’t have
sewage.” So I stayed with what was alive in him. I said, “So
you’re saying sir, if I’m understanding you correctly, that when
you don’t have such basics as housing and sewage, it’s very
painful to have weapons sent over.” And he again said, “Yes.”
And then he said, “Do you know what it’s like to live under
these conditions for twenty-eight years?” And again, I kept my
attention on what he was feeling and what he was needing. In
other words: what’s alive in him. An hour later this gentleman
invited me to a Ramadan dinner at his house. We now have
one of our schools in that refugee camp. Schools where all of
the students, teachers and parents are trained in Nonviolent
Communication.
McNally:
Okay. Now, could you shift it just to a much more local
interpersonal kind of an experience just to demonstrate the
same thing, because one thing that I can tell from this, and
from reading the book and having taken one of the one-day
workshops is that it’s clear – it’s very clear. It’s elegant almost.
But our habits and our learning of other ways is so strong that
to make a listener really get it clearly, let’s go – could you do
another example – but one that’s, you know, just a couple of
folks together – a relationship; a husband and wife – that sort
of thing.
Rosenberg:
Well, let’s take one that happened right there in Santa Barbara
one time. The woman came to one of the trainings and she
said “Marshall, how do I get my son to pick up the clothes in his
room?” And I said “Is that your objective?” And she said
“Yes.” And I said “Then he’ll probably resist.” And she said
“what do you mean?” I said, “If you have single-mindedness of
purpose where all you are interested in is getting what you
want and the other person senses that, even if they want to
cooperate, there’s a part of them that wants to resist anyone
who has set out to change them.” So she said, “So in other
words, I have to just do all the picking up in the house myself?”
I said, “No, let me show you another option besides just giving
up your need or setting your objective of trying to get him to
do what you want. The goal of Nonviolent Communication is to
create a certain connection; so start by telling your son what is
your need in this situation.” She said “I want him to pick up
the clothes in his room.” I pointed out to her that that’s not
how we define a need. A need is not any reference to a specific
person taking a specific action. It’s the internal need that
would be satisfied by the action that I told her would be helpful
to start with. “What is your need?” And it took her awhile
because the people that come to our trainings are not trained in
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needs; they’re not trained to be conscious of them or to
express them.
McNally:
No one is.
Rosenberg:
And that again goes back to these historical reasons that I
mentioned earlier, that if you’re training people to be nice dead
people in domination structures, the last thing you want to
teach them is what they’re needing because people do not
make good slaves when they are conscious of their needs.
McNally:
Right.
Rosenberg:
So, I helped her with this and finally she saw that her need was
for order, first of all, and for some support in maintaining that
order; and we worked with her on how she could make that
need clear to her son and then after making that need clear,
then make the request “Would he be willing to pick up the
clothes.” And then she said “But what if he says ‘no’?” Then
we showed her how no matter what he says, even if it’s “no”,
how to hear what needs of his keep him from cooperating. So
we showed her how to express her needs and requests to begin
with, how to hear what his needs would be regardless of how
he answers, and once there is that connection where both
parties understand each other’s needs, then we show how to go
to requests, strategies; how to look for ways of getting
everybody’s needs met. But it’s that connection that’s
important. When the person feels that the person is 5 or 55,
they feel that their needs are equally as important to us as our
own. But if people sense that we are only out to change them,
it stimulates more resistance than cooperation.
McNally:
Okay, so the first two steps – oh, you’re listening to “Free
Forum”, KPFK Los Angeles, 90.7 FM. I’m Terry McNally and I’m
speaking with Marshall Rosenberg who is the founder of the
Center for Nonviolent Communication® and the author of
Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Compassion, and
information about both are available at www.cnvc.org. So I see
the first step is observing; and it’s observing the other person,
or yourself, or both?
Rosenberg:
Well the observation in the case of the mother, for example,
would be that she has observed that he hasn’t picked up the
clothes in his room. Now we show people how to make clear
observations – how to say exactly what you have observed
without bringing in any kind of evaluation. So you say “I see
you didn’t pick up the clothes in your room.” Not “Your room is
a mess”, or not “You’re being lazy.” Just the facts to start with.
And then we go to the part where we say what’s alive in us.
What’s alive without making any criticism.
McNally:
And that’s our own, so it’s “I see this and I feel this.”
Rosenberg:
“I feel this” and then my feelings are connected to my needs. I
feel this way because I’m needing – and then you bring in your
need, and then you end on a clear request – what you would
like the other person to do.
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McNally:
Observe, feel, need, request; and they’re all hooked. Now
where in that would you. . . would you do that all focused on
yourself first? In other words, or when. . . or when. . . or. . .
yes, do you do all of that and then make your request and then
when they respond, then begin to say – begin to inquire about
what their need is?
Rosenberg:
Exactly. For example, if the other person says, “I don’t want
to”, our training shows how to try to hear the need behind the
“no”. If the person judges us and says, “you’re always pickin’
on me”, “you’re too demanding”, we hear the need behind the
criticism. So no matter how the other person responds to us,
the training shows us how to connect with what that person is
feeling; what they’re needing.
McNally:
So, it sounds like a real crucial thing in this is that it’s not as
much about what people do as about what people need; and if
you can relate to each other by caring about what each other
needs, and trying to help get needs met, you’ve changed the
whole – the whole what – the whole dynamic for sure, but
you’ve changed any feeling of being a target for instance… is
that what’s up?
Rosenberg:
I think that’s pretty close. When the other person trusts that
we are not judging them moralistically “wrong”, “bad”, “evil”,
“selfish”, we are just expressing ourselves. When they trust
that; that we are not judging them, that we are being honest
with them without judging; when we are making requests
without demanding, and when they trust that we are equally as
interested in their needs getting met as our own, then what I’m
saying, Terry, is I get into a lot of conflict situations in my
work, and it’s rather miraculous that when both parties are at
that point, they see each other’s needs; they trust that the
other person values their needs equal to their own. It is
amazing, then, how conflicts that would seem to be totally
unsolvable almost seem to solve themselves.
McNally:
Uh huh. And, I just want to quote a couple of things that I’ve
heard you say about both of these because I thought they were
just wonderfully put. One was “These techniques allow you to
make conscious choices about how you will respond whether
you get what you want or not.” And you’ve talked about that –
that the person doesn’t actually have to do or change, but you
can still respond – you can be just more conscious and
responsible about how you respond when that happens.
Rosenberg:
But it’s not just that we end on this kind of understanding and
tolerance; we do get to action – we do want to end on actions
being taken so that everyone’s needs get met. So that the
connection – what we call an empathic connection that takes
place between the two parties. But we don’t stop there. Then
after the empathic connection we do need to look for concrete
ways of getting everybody’s needs met.
McNally:
Uh huh. So at that point – how you respond whether you get
what you want or not, is not the end; it’s not a resignation nor
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some sort of a renunciation of your need in some sort of
spiritual way. At that point you continue on, but in a different
transaction – a transaction that’s about getting each other’s
needs met.
Rosenberg:
Exactly. You see, when we say “get what you want” – that’s a
strategy, that’s what we call a request. You may not get what
you are requesting, but if you’re conscious of what your needs
are, we’re confident that you can end up getting your needs
met.
McNally:
Uh huh. And so what you learn is to make the distinction
yourself between your action requests and your underlying
feelings and needs.
Rosenberg:
Very different, and very important to see that difference.
McNally:
Yeah. We’re at the half-way point. You’re listening to “Free
Forum” on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM. I’m Terry McNally and
we’re speaking with Marshall Rosenberg. Marshall is the
founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication® and
author of “Nonviolent Communication – A Language of
Compassion”. And the website to learn more is www.cnvc.org.
Okay, one other thing you said which I want to quote and then
you can expand on that; as you’ve said a couple of times
already this evening – this approach to communication
emphasizes compassion as the motivation for action rather than
fear, guilt, shame, blame, coercion, threat, justification for
punishment – any of that. And then you say, in other words, it
is about getting what you want for reasons that you will not
regret later. Expand on that.
Rosenberg:
Well. . .
McNally:
. . . and if you want to refer to perhaps the current situation
we’re facing internationally – that statement did strike home to
me. It’s about getting what you want for reasons you will not
regret later.
Rosenberg:
You see, if you start with the assumption that people are
basically evil or selfish, then the correctional process if they are
behaving in a way you don’t like is to make them hate
themselves for what they have done. If a parent, for example,
doesn’t like what the child is doing, the parent says something
like “Say you’re sorry!!” The child says, “I’m sorry.” The
parent says “No! You’re not really sorry!” Then the child starts
to cry “I’m sorry. . .” The parent: “Okay, I forgive you.” You
see, that approach is at the basis of our conflicts with children,
with criminals; we’ve been educated to believe that you have to
make a person suffer for what they’ve done – to hate
themselves – to be penitent – we call our prisons
penitentiaries.
McNally:
And the logic there is if you can make them hate themselves
enough, they’ll change.
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Rosenberg:
Yeah, they’ll hate themselves enough to change. Now that’s
the theory; it doesn’t work too well. I think it works just the
opposite, that the more you get a person to hate themselves,
the more they behave in the ways that we don’t like. Our
prisons don’t work. We see from our prisons from the very
beginning our statistics show that if two people – same act –
one goes to our prison and one doesn’t, the one that gets put in
the prison is far more likely to behave in a violent way when
they get out than the person who doesn’t go in. So this system
doesn’t work. It doesn’t work whether we’re dealing with
children in our families, with criminals or with other countries
who behave in ways we don’t like. Punishment is a losing
game and we’ll see it if we ask ourselves two questions.
Question Number One: What do you want the other person to
do differently? If you ask only that question, you can make a
case for punishment; you can probably think of a time when
punishment has influenced somebody to behave as we would
like. But if we ask the second question, I’m confident that we
will see that punishment never works. And the second question
is this: What do we want the other person’s reasons to be for
behaving as we would like them to behave? I would maintain
that if we stop and really get conscious of that we obviously
want people to act because they see how it will serve life, and
to enjoy doing it for that reason. It’s natural to enjoy things
when we do it to enrich life. But punishment gets in the way of
that.
McNally:
Uh huh. And punishment also, I mean, yeah, punishment has
to do with domination and people who feel dominated may
change behavior, but like self-hatred, a feeling of being
dominated is not the kind of thing that creates a society of
healthy vital people.
Rosenberg:
Yes. When we use punishment it justifies violence; it implies
that you have judged that you are right and the other person is
behaving in a way that you defined as bad. They deserve to
suffer for what they’ve done. This is the essential training and
thinking we’ve had over much of the planet.
McNally:
Before we speak specifically about the confrontation right now
between terrorism and its victims, can you talk a little bit – or
give me an example or two of how some of this Nonviolent
Communication has worked in practice in places – in some of
those conflict places that you have tried it; in addition, you
know, you gave the one about a specific individual who started
out with a certain attitude and you ended up, you know, now
there’s a school there and they train and so on, but have there
been some other examples you can give us that can sort of
demonstrate that the fruitful use of this in tough international
situations?
Rosenberg:
Well, I was invited to do a mediation between two tribes that
were at war in northern Nigeria. One tribe was a Christian tribe
and the other was a Muslim tribe. In one year’s time there was
one quarter of the population in this village killed in this
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struggle. My colleague did the real hard work here; he worked
with both sides to get them in the room together. This is, in
mediation, often one of the hardest things to do--just to get the
people to get into the room together. So he used our training
to go to both sides individually and then when each side said
basically the same thing: “You can’t talk with these people; the
only language they know is violence.” We used our training to
empathically connect with their fear of negotiation, their rage,
their desire to protect themselves, and only seeing punishment
and violence as a way of getting there. So he heard this on
their part and then he came from his heart, explaining how he
was convinced that other ways existed for resolving this to
everyone’s satisfaction. And after six months of his hard work,
they finally agreed to meet with me. Now of course in that six
months, 65 people were killed by the time we could get them
all into a room together. Okay, so now I’m in a room with
about twelve chiefs from both tribes on either side of the table,
and I start with a question, which is central to what’s alive in
us. I ask both tribes, “What needs of yours are not getting met
in this situation?” And immediately, instead of answering my
question, members of both tribes start to make judgments of
the other side. One of the chiefs screams across the table,
“You people are murderers!” and what comes back from the
other side is, “You people have been trying to dominate us for
80 years! We’re not going to put up with it anymore,” and
they’re screaming at each other. My question was “what needs
of yours are not getting met?” So, what I do in a situation like
that is to translate their criticisms of the other into what needs
are being expressed behind them. So I said to the Chief who
said “You are murderers”, I said, “Chief, when you say that, are
you trying to communicate your need for safety and how you
want any conflict, no matter what, to be resolved in some way
other than violence?” He had to stop and think for a moment
because notice I’m focusing his attention on what’s alive in him
rather than on his judgments of the other side. But after a
second or two he said, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say.”
Okay, so I’d helped him, then to get clear what his needs are,
and now I say to the chiefs on the other side of the table,
“Would somebody on the other side please tell me back what
you heard the chief say?” It’s not enough that we get them to
express their needs. We have to be sure that the other side
hears their need, because when that connection is there, they
see the other person’s need, they see a human being – not the
enemy image they had.
McNally:
And there’s the empathy, right?
Rosenberg:
Well we wouldn’t want to call this pure empathy. At this point,
I’m just wanting. . .
McNally:
. . .but, but I mean there’s the potential; there’s the foundation
– it could happen. . .
Rosenberg:
. . .I’d say it’s a rudiment of empathy. It’s a start toward
empathy.
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McNally:
Right.
Rosenberg:
Just to hear the needs without getting the enemy image all
mixed in. So I did this for both sides. Whenever they were
screaming their insults, I would translate it into a need. I
would get the other side to hear it. After about an hour and a
half of this one of the chiefs jumped to his feet and said
something to me very intensely and I had to wait for my
translator to translate it since they were all speaking a
language I don’t speak, and I liked very much what the
message was that this Chief said to me after his watching this
for just about an hour and a half. He said to me, “If we
communicate this way, we don’t have to kill each other.” And it
didn’t take much longer for us to resolve the conflict to
everybody’s satisfaction – once everybody’s needs were on the
table. Once they were seeing each other’s needs rather than
the enemy image.
McNally:
Okay. You’re listening to “Free Forum” on KPFK Los Angeles
90.7 FM. I’m Terry McNally and we’re speaking with Marshall
Rosenberg, founder of the Center for Nonviolent
Communication® and author of: Nonviolent Communication –
A Language of Compassion. The website to learn more is
www.cnvc.org. Okay, let’s move to the events we’re facing
today and in this time. This interview is being recorded the
evening of October 7th. This morning, in our time, this
morning the U.S. and Great Britain launched a military
response to terrorist attacks of September 11th. Let me repeat
the distinction that I quoted you making before in the interim
between September 11th and today. “If the goal becomes
retaliation and punishment, each action will be determined by
the answer to this question: ‘Will this action take us closer to
punishing those responsible?’ If the goal is peace and safety
for the world, each action will be determined by answering a
very different question: ‘will this action bring us closer to
lasting peace and safety?’” Now what I’d like to do also,
Marshall, if you’ll bear with me for a second, is read a couple of
quotes from President Bush and from Osama Bin Laden. There
was a tape released today – I don’t know how long ago he
recorded it, but it was released today. And I’m going to quote
a little bit from both of them, and then I want you to talk about
your reactions to what’s going on right now. President Bush
says, “More than two weeks ago I gave Taliban leaders a series
of clear and specific demands to close terrorist training camps,
hand over leaders of the Alcaida and return all foreign
nationals. None of these demands was met and now the
Taliban will pay a price. We are supported by the collective will
of the world. Our military action is designed to clear the way
for sustained comprehensive and relentless operations to drive
them out and bring them to justice. As we strike military
targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the
starving and suffering men, women and children of
Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the
Afghan people. Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle
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is broader – every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict
there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the
outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and
murderers themselves and they will take that lonely path at
their own peril.” That’s President Bush. Osama Bin Laden in
his tape said: “These events have split the world into two
camps: belief and disbelief. America will never dream or know
or taste security or safety unless we know safety and security
in our land and in Palestine. God has sent one of the attacks
and has attacked one of its best buildings.” I mention that
because that was his explanation of whether, of who was
responsible for those attacks. Okay, having set up the
language they’re both using, what’s your response to what’s
happening?
Rosenberg:
My response is that both sides have the same needs. You see,
all human beings have the same needs. Notice neither one of
those comments that either of them made was expressing what
their human needs were. It was rhetoric, political rhetoric.
They were talking about their analyses, their beliefs. They
weren’t expressing their feelings, their needs or their requests.
When we get lost in that dangerous rhetoric is when many
people are going to get hurt. So if I were with both of them,
let’s say we had them in a room screaming what they just said
across the table at each other, I would translate those
messages into their needs. What I would say to Mr. Bush
would be something like, “President Bush, I’m hearing you say
that you’re aghast at what has happened and you have a need
to protect the American people. Is this what you’re saying?” I
would turn to Bin Laden and say, “I’m hearing that you are in
enormous pain because some of your primary needs have not
been met by actions taken by the American government in the
past. Let’s get these needs out on the table and look for a way
to get everyone’s needs met. Let’s get away from the rhetoric
implying wrong evil people. Let’s talk the language of human
needs – we can get everybody’s needs met if we keep the focus
at that level.”
McNally:
Marshall, you told a story about the tribes.
Rosenberg:
Yes.
McNally:
Do you really believe. . . well, also, you did preface it by saying
that your partner had done the hard work of getting the two
people in the room. [laughter]
Rosenberg:
The two groups – the two tribes.
McNally:
Yeah, I mean, I’m saying I -- you know, the idea of getting
these two groups in a room is. . is. . I can’t even imagine
happening. But, Um, do you really think that what you’ve said
– I mean, in what realm of possibility do you think that exists?
Rosenberg:
The possibility of getting them in the room? Or the possibility
of once you get them in the room finding a way to get
everyone’s needs met without violence?
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McNally:
Why not both? Let’s take on both. Because obviously if we’re
going to solve these problems differently it’s going to take both.
Rosenberg:
I would say that both are possible; the first is the hard one for
me. It’s been very hard for me to try to get access to Mr. Bush
myself. I’ve tried. So the getting the access would be difficult,
but not impossible. Once you got them into the room, then I’m
very optimistic. And now, let’s not mix up what I’m talking
about with the kind of talks that usually go on between these
political groups. Like we see how the Israelis and the
Palestinians have had talk after talk for years. I’m not talking
about that kind of talk. I’m talking about where you get both
sides connected at the need level. You don’t let them get lost
in political rhetoric. You get both sides seeing the humanness
of each other, and looking for a way to get everyone’s needs
met. I’m very optimistic of what could happen. Now, there are
a lot of people who have judged me as pretty naïve when I say
that. They have images that some people are just basically
evil. My experience has been that that concept of things just
makes matters worse. It leads to self-fulfilling prophecies. If
we believe that people are evil, then therefore they have to be
punished or killed. You provoke in other people the very
behavior that convinces you that your stereotype of them is
true.
McNally:
Now, okay, let me ask first a quick question, which is: have you
been in a situation that is at all similar to this where this hasn’t
worked?
Rosenberg:
Yes. I was in a situation. . . well, not at that level. For
example, down in San Diego I was once working with two
street gangs and they had had a lot of violence between the
two and the social worker who had access to both groups got
them into a room with me; she got them to agree to be in this
room – they would only agree to this for two hours. And they
spoke Spanish, I didn’t speak – I had to have a translator. In
those two hours we didn’t get there. I’m confident if we had
two days we would have. But at that point, we could only get
them in there for two hours.
McNally:
Okay. So it hasn’t been universally successful, but your feeling
is that – okay, I appreciate that. Now, when someone says
that God had sent one of the attacks and has attacked one of
its best buildings, that statement sounds to me like this man is
outside of consensus reality. I’m reminded of Adolph Hitler, Edi
Amin, Charles Manson. Now, how do you communicate with
evil, or how do you communicate with psychosis?
Rosenberg:
First of all, when you’re labeling that way, I think you’re part of
the problem. When we label the person as psychotic or evil, we
are engaged in a process of thinking that I think is, itself, part
of what leads to the violence. So what do I say if I’m in the
room with Mr. Bin Laden and he says that. . .
McNally:
. . . and, and remember, this is someone who says that and,
and let’s just assume, because we don’t know, and I will. . . let
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me say this – that I don’t think – as far as I know, we don’t
have proof – but let’s leave that aside ‘cause we’re having. . .
you know. . . and let’s say that the man was instrumental in
the takeover of those airplanes and the mass-murders, and
destruction that took place and then says that God did it. So
two things: One capable of deliberate – in cold blooded longterm deliberation – strategic deliberation of that kind of act and
then attributing it to God.
Rosenberg:
I would do what our training teaches people to do: Don’t hear
what the person thinks; hear what’s alive in the person that is
at the root of what they’re saying. So when he says this about
God I would say something to him like, “Mr. Bin Laden, are you
expressing that you’re in a lot of pain because basic needs of
yours have not been met by the American Government?” I
don’t get wrapped up in this rhetoric of God did it or that. . . we
focus on what’s alive in the person; what they’re feeling; what
their needs are.
McNally:
So what you’re saying is that, while to me that sounds like
someone has. . . has constructed . . . remember we started
very early saying that it had to do with stories – the story,
right?
Rosenberg:
Yes.
McNally:
Now it looks to me like we have a confrontation here between
needs, but also between stories. And I don’t fully, you know, in
other words, let me say one other thing – that I absolutely
agree with what you said about the question of what question
the United States would ask to arrive at its action. You know?
In other words, I think if you ask what will bring safety to the
world, you might act differently than what will punish those
responsible. I agree with that. But having said that, you know,
this person, it seems, I mean, what I’m saying is that I don’t
absolutely agree with George Bush’s story, but I certainly think
that Osama Bin Laden and those men who were willing to flight
train, live in neighborhoods, take a long time to live with the
idea that at a certain day they were probably going to commit
suicide and murder – that they’ve got a very different story;
and I’m not sure -- I’m asking you… yes, they have needs, but
can that ever overpower that story?
Rosenberg:
I think that they have the same needs that we do. We have
the same needs that these people that we call terrorists have.
Our difference is in strategies for meeting our needs, and what
kind of intellectual justification we have for using our
strategies. So, they have this belief that the Americans are evil
and deserving of being punished, and Mr. Bin Laden expresses
that in this abstract way that it’s God that did it. But he’s
basically saying he judged that the Americans are evil in the
way they are doing certain things and need to be punished.
McNally:
. . . and deserving of punishment, yes. And one thing I did
notice, by the way, Marshall, was both of them said “the world
is divided into two sides”. They both did.
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Rosenberg:
I would stay away from that rhetoric because both sides have
the same needs. I would help both sides see that they have
the same needs, and that there are ways of getting everybody’s
needs met. But I doubt the violence is going to get there.
Now, let me say one thing we haven’t said so far. . .
McNally:
. . .the idea of protective force?
Rosenberg:
Yes.
McNally:
Okay.
Rosenberg:
I am not saying that force at times is not necessary, but if
somebody is about to do something that is threatening to our
needs, we use whatever force can protect ourselves. The use
of such force is not to punish people. It’s not based on an idea
that they’re evil and need to suffer. It’s based on simply
protecting our needs. So if we want to have force for that
purpose, that’s not in conflict with what I’m saying.
McNally:
So in asking the question, “What can make the world safe?”
protective force is maybe a piece of what arrives as an answer
to that question.
Rosenberg:
Yes. It may be necessary to get to the place where we can get
both sides together, and force to protect against the violence
continuing may have to be used in order to get to this place
where both sides could get together in the way that I’m talking
about.
McNally:
Okay, Marshall, we have two minutes left. What might you
suggest people/listeners might take from this, given the
situation we’re in?
Rosenberg:
I would hope that they would put their energy into getting both
sides into the kind of negotiations I’m talking about. Not the
usual rhetoric of back and forth against each other, but getting
representatives of both sides together hearing each other’s
needs. I am confident that everyone’s needs can get met if we
communicate at that level and not at this level of who is the
most violent and deserving of punishment.
McNally:
And a final question. This is framed in terms of language and
framed in terms of communication. It’s really about something
bigger and deeper than that, isn’t it?
Rosenberg:
It is based on a spiritual belief that I have that human beings
like nothing more than contributing to one another’s well-being.
It’s our education that leads to the violence – not our nature.
So if we can have a communication that focuses our attention
where we can do what comes naturally, which is contribute to
one another’s well-being, we’ll be amazed at how conflicts
which seemed impossible to resolve when there is this
connection at the human level – people see someone with the
same needs and we see no enemy images – then I’m convinced
that everybody’s needs can get met without violence.
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McNally:
Yeah. I have to say I don’t share your confidence in all cases,
but I share a great deal; and what I heard in the last thing you
said, actually – and I’m taking it a little bit away from the
international situation we have right now – but in our own lives,
that it works both ways: If you can change the education and
change the story, you will probably change the communication.
But if you have people that begin to pay attention to their
needs and the needs of others that will begin to change the
story. Is that true?
Rosenberg:
If I understand you, the two can interact.
McNally:
Yeah. In other words, we can operate – we can either change
the story of western – of modern civilization – we can work at
that; but if we start individual by individual – having people
change this orientation and begin to listen to each other’s
needs, that will, people who behave that way will eventually
change the story.
Rosenberg:
Exactly.
McNally:
Okay. You’ve been listening to “Free Forum” on KPFK Los
Angeles, 90.7 FM. I want to thank you again Marshall
Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication – A Language
of Compassion, founder of the Center for Nonviolent
Communication® on the web at www.cnvc.org. My thanks also
to Ian Johnston, my engineer, and to you, my listeners. If you
have questions, comments, guests or issues you’d like to hear
about on the show, e-mail me at temcnally@att.net. These are
very, very trying times for all of us and I wish you all the best.
I look forward to being with you again in two weeks.
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