¿How Will Structure Help (and if it won't help, what is the answer)?

[stupidcoyote]

As long as I can remember as well as stories I have heard right up to the very beginnings of the BPC there have always been strong factions. There have always been groups and individuals who have extremely dissed other groups or individuals. I have always heard people say, I am not going to that ritual because So-and-so is running it. There has

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there are people just being people

[voltron_nut_13]

Unfortunately, in my experiences, there is no solution for this.
Anytime you get more than 1 person you start having arguments. More than 3 and you get cliques. It's the way humans are. There's very little anyone or anything can do. I don't think structure will help. I don't think it would hurt either.

The problem is everyones perceptions. They may not be accurate, but at the same time it's all they have of any one situation. Perceptions shape each person's reality. Percieved hurts are real for that person. Some of us are insensitive jerks. Some of us are oversensitive jerks. (Note, I am saying everyone is a jerk in some way!) I don't think there's anyway to fix this. It's just the way it is.

Silence is not giving permission. Silence is not supporting someone else. Silence is not entering the fight in any way. I supports no one.

Re: there are people just being people

[stupidcoyote]

While reading this, a couple of things come to mind:

Trust a Bear to be a Bear
This is the story of a journey where bear is encountered. Upon first seeing bear, images of the big cuddly teddy bear come to mind. Longing for the comforts a fuzzy friend can bring and childhood in general (and with thoughts of Grizzly Adams) the bear is approached with open arms. The bear promptly rips one of those arms off. The first reaction is to be angry with the bear, but in fact the bear is just being true to its nature. The moral of the story being we as humans have a distinct nature (as do we as individuals). Once we learn to accept this and trust our fellow humans to be true to their nature, the perceived emotional pain they are causing us (whether unintentional or NOT) becomes our own responsibility.

Instead our reaction is all too often retaliation for pain caused to us by others not conforming to our desired expectations. Isn’t that basically what Road Rage is?

Perceived hurts are real for that person.I believe this to be a truth.

Re: there are people just being people

[vsper]

It is primarily our goal to meet a need. In order to meet our needs we often hurt others in the process.

While I believe most of the time it is not a intention or goal to hurt someone, I believe sometimes it is. I think that there are cases where hurting others is fulfilling a need. I will agree it is not a healthy need but people have a lot of unhealthy needs. I like a lot of what NVC has to say but unfortunately not everyone subscribes to it.
Leigh

Re: there are people just being people

[dulcimergoddess]

As someone who moderates a message board as part of her job, I definitely agree that some folks have a need to hurt others. Makes themselves feel better to put someone down, I reckon.

NVC is a great ideal, but all ideals need to be tempered somewhat by reality. Otherwise, you get James Tiptree Jr.'s "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" (for all you sci-fi fans out there.... It's a really good short story about what happens when your head's in utopia, and the reality around you isn't.)

Re: there are people just being people

[stupidcoyote]

In NVC language (which I hate that it is not the same as just using English... but really it is not... and in some ways it can't be) a strategy is a way of meeting a need. The actions taken to hurt someone is the strategy used to meeting the need, not the need itself. So the need might be something like a need for safety and the strategy is putting other folks down so as to feel superior to them and thus safer because who whould challenge someone who is superior without expecting a fight.

This is a rather specific expample, but I hope u can get the idea.

Here is a list of the need categories according to Manfred Max-Neef:
Subsistence, Protection, Affection, Understanding, Participation, Idleness, Creation, Identity, Freedom

Safety would fall under the "protection" category in this list.

Re: there are people just being people

[vsper]

That makes sense. You are being more granular and by separating the strategy from the language it becomes easier to separate the needs to the archetypes. Interesting....similar to removing the emotion from the reasoning to make the reasoning more clear and less clouded. In that frame perhaps the rewording what I said before would be more appropriate to the context.

That being there are those who choose not use participate in NVC because they feel it will not satisfy their strategy. While I would like to believe that everyone is not only essentially good but always well adjusted, unfortunately I understand we as humans frequently are not. In terms of Karma NVC makes a lot of sense.

Liz is getting some material on NVC I will have to look at it a bit closer. It seems like it would go well with the teachings of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Thanks for sharing
Leigh

Re: there are people just being people

[voltron_nut_13]

Trust a Bear to be a BearReminds me of the tale of the scorpion and the turtle. "It's in my nature