Tag: power

Care Bear Stares do not work in real life

Real Social Skills

In the Care Bears movies, the heroes could solve just about any problem by speaking truth to power. Whenever a handful of bears cared enough to act, they could get together and give the villain the Care Bear stare. Their intense caring made the villain care too — at least until the next episode. (And in the movies, it was sometime permanent.) Whenever they weren’t solving a problem, it was because they were failing to care about it. The real world does not work that way.

In the Care Bears world, caring is magic. In real life, it’s not enough to care about something — you also have to have power. It’s not enough to know what needs to change — you also have to have a strategy for changing it. Sometimes speaking truth of power can be a source of power; sometimes you need other kinds of power. Sometimes you need to vote, get out the vote, build coalitions, wait for the right moment, make compromises, fundraise, reach out behind the scenes or otherwise find another source of power. Most real-life power is partial, most real life change is not fully satisfying — but it’s real, and it’s worth pursuing.

People unfamiliar with advocacy sometimes cause problems by expecting Care Bear stares to work in real life. They assume that any group of activists who cares about something should be able to get together, speak truth to power, and change hearts and minds with the sheer power of concentrated caring. As a result, when they see that a handful of activists who say that they care about a problem have not solved it, they angrily assume that this means that the activists just don’t care enough to be willing to do the Care Bear stare. When people aren’t solving a problem, it’s important to ask *why* they’re not solving the problem. Sometimes it’s because they don’t care, but often it’s because they don’t have the power to make all of the change they want to make. Often, they’re doing the best they can with the resources available to them.

This also happens in politics: For instance, people sometimes ignore the implications of the fact that the Democrats are the minority party in Congress and that there is a Republican in the White House. They believe, implicitly, that if the Democrats just *cared* enough, they would be able to stop the Republicans from passing bad laws and appointing awful people — and that they could pass the laws that we need without any Republican support. They sometimes reach the dangerous conclusion that Democrats don’t really care and aren’t worth voting for. But in real life, Democrats don’t have the option of using the Care Bear stare — they need power. If we want the Democrats to have the power to protect us from Trump and pass better laws, we have to vote in more of them.

People also sometimes expect *themselves* to be able to use a Care Bear stare. People stuck in this mindset feel a lot of shame when they notice problems that they don’t know how to solve, because they it must mean that they don’t really care as much as they think they do. It is much more helpful to understand that caring about problems does not in and of itself create the ability to solve problems.  In real life, you won’t have the power to fix everything you want to fix, but you will have the power to fix something. When you accept that caring doesn’t create power by itself, it can enable you to find the things that do — including solidarity with other advocates who are doing the best they can.

Short version: Care Bear stares do not work in real life. In real life, caring about a problem does not in and of itself create the ability to fix the problem. In real life, you also have to have power. When people ignore power and expect caring to fix everything, it creates a lot of problems in advocacy.

Beware of collectors

Real Social Skills

There are people who I think of as collectors. Collectors like to maintain collections of people who they can manipulate. Often, collectors target marginalized people — especially activists and advocates who are growing into their own voices and power.

Collecting often works like this:

  • The collector will find someone who is starving for respect or struggling to be seen as a human being deserving human rights.
  • They will give you something that feels like an unusual amount of respect or allyship.
  • Often, this comes in a the form of expressing an opinion that it’s unusual for privileged people to have.
  • Eg: An autism professional might express opposition to ABA, or the opinion that communication should always come before behavioral intervention.
  • They might talk a lot about centering marginalized voices, and give you some access to space that people like you don’t normally have.
  • Eg: They might be a man who refuses to speak on all male panels and proactively gets you invited to speak at male-dominated conferences.
  • This support comes with a heavy price. In return, they expect you to act like part of their collection and avoid doing anything to upset them.
  • (And somehow, everything you do that shows power or independence tends to upset them.)

Once you’re collected, it tends to feel like this:

  • They make you feel like they’re “one of the good ones”, and there’s a constant implicit threat that if you fail to please them, they might stop being so good.
  • They make it clear that you’d better make them feel good and validate their self-image, or else they’ll stop.
  • They’ll do all kinds of things you’d normally object to, and say all kinds of things that you’d normally be offended by.
  • One of the most sure-fire ways to upset them is to point out the threat, or to make it clear that you’re acting out of fear in any way.
  • It gets harder and harder to say things that you know will upset them. It gets harder and harder to express opinions that you know contradict theirs. It gets harder and harder to even have *thoughts* that will upset them.
  • It gets harder and harder to realize how much you’re acting under duress, because noticing the threat will likely result in emotional retaliation.
  • They might put you in a position in which all of your options feel blatantly unprofessional in one way or other.
  • (For instance, they might make you choose between violating the professional ethics code in your field or else withdrawing from a project you’ve publicly committed to in a way that will cause the project to collapse.)
  • They might harshly criticize everyone else you’re allied with, and every community you’re part of. It can feel like you’re supposed to separate yourself from everyone but them. It can be difficult to resist, for the same reasons it’s generally difficult to resist deferring to their views.
  • It gets harder and harder to trust anyone else, or to have positive opinions of people who would treat you better than the collector does.

Collector manipulativeness tends to be excruciatingly confusing, in part because they also keep offering you things that feel important and rare, eg:

  • They’ll often tell you how important your work is, praise it effusively, and help you get access to professional opportunities.
  • They’ll often keep expressing unusual good opinions that make you feel like they must be on your side, deep down, because hardly anyone ever agrees with you.
  • You’re usually not the only one in their orbit. They’ll often be tolerated and praised within your community, even though they blatantly do things that would normally be seen as horrifically unacceptable.
  • (Eg: Maybe they argue for autistic rights but also express graphic sympathy for parents who murder autistic children. Maybe they get women onto panels but also make gross sexual comments and mansplain to everyone who contradicts them.)
  • They’ll often be involved in projects that get publicly praised as a major step forward, despite major flaws and despite the way that they treat marginalized people.
  • Often, open they say and do things that your community normally finds unacceptable, but are perceived as an ally and a friend.
  • (Or even a uniquely valuable and indispensable ally and friend.)
  • It can get really hard to trust your perceptions of right and wrong under those circumstances.
  • Collectors are confusing and it can be hard to extract yourself from them.

When you’re trying to extract yourself from a collector, the most important thing is to find ways to stay oriented. Collectors gain power by confusing you, and they become much less powerful when you’re able to notice what they’re doing.

Some ways to stay oriented:

Notice when your opinions are shifting in ways that might not be coming from you:

  • When you have conversations with the collector, do you tend to feel ashamed of yourself for disagreeing with them or questioning them?
  • Do you tend to go out of conversations feeling like you were wrong about everything and that they’re right?
  • Does the change in your opinions make sense to you, or does it feel like the ground is shifting underneath you in incomprehensible ways?
  • If you’re finding yourself confused after conversations, it can help to have a policy of not making decisions about what you’ve discussed until you’ve been away from the collector for at least for hours (or a day, or however long it usually takes for the effect to wear off.)

Making things explicit can also help:

  • One way collectors confuse people is by shaming you with innuendo instead of using direct language to discuss what they want you to believe and do.
  • They know that if they came out and said it, you would likely disagree with it — so instead of saying it, they manipulate you into losing the ability to contradict it.
  • (Eg: They might not say “it’s ok for parents to use electric shocks to control behavior”, but instead go off on a rant about being understanding every time you mention the issue.
  • Or they might not *say* “we should tolerate men who grope women when they’re also major donors”, but instead talk about how important fundraising is to your organization every time you say that the groping needs to stop.)
  • If you notice what, exactly, it is that they want you to do and think, it can make it *much* easier to figure out for yourself whether or not you actually agree.
  • Some questions worth asking (either to yourself or in conversation with someone you trust):
  • What do they want me to believe?
  • What do they want me to do?
  • What are they suggesting without coming out and saying it directly?
  • What do I think about this? Why?

It’s also worth paying attention to contradictions. Sometimes when you notice that someone is contradicting themselves, it becomes much easier to feel ok about disagreeing with them. It can help to think about these kinds of questions:

  • What things do they want me to believe? What am I supposed to believe about them? About myself? About my community? About other marginalized groups? About privileged people? About my field? About the world? About other things?
  • Do those things contradict each other?
  • Is it actually possible to believe all of those things at the same time?
  • If so, what would be the likely result of pointing out the contradiction? Would they be interested in figuring out how to reconcile things, or would they be angry at me for noticing?

More generally speaking, it’s easier to figure out what your own opinion is when you notice fear. Questions worth considering:

  • What do I think about the things they want me to believe? Why?
  • What do I agree with? What do I disagree with? What do I have questions about?
  • What questions am I afraid to ask? Why? What do I think the answers to those questions might be?
  • What opinions am I afraid to express? Why?
  • Am I saying yes when I really want to say no? Why?
  • What do I think when they’re not in the room? What changes when they are?
  • What would be the likely result of expressing uncertainty, asking questions, or saying that I disagree about something?
  • Would I be able to say what I actually believe without having a fraught emotional conversation in which I have to praise them and struggle to find ways to say that I agree with them after all?
  • What I am I afraid they might do to me? Realistically, could they do that? Would it be worse than the situation I’m already in?
  • Is there any way to mitigate the threat?

It can also help to ask yourself concrete questions about their actions and how they are percieved:

  • Collectors typically act in ways that blatantly contradict their reputation.
  • Then they manipulate people into not noticing, or they manipulate the conversation to prevent people from having language to describe it.
  • It’s worth asking: *Why* do they have a good reputation? Is it based on anything they’ve actually done to earn it?
  • Does their good reputation depend on excusing an awful lot of statements and actions that would normally be considered dealbreaking if someone did even *one* of those things?
  • If you feel like they’re great and worth putting up with despite the way they treat you, why is that?
  • What’s the best thing they’ve done for you? What has letting them do that for you cost you? Is it worth it? If so, why?
  • Do they really mean the good things that they say? If so, why aren’t they acting like it more consistently?

You’re not as alone as you might feel:

  • Collectors are really good at looking much more powerful and influential than they really are.
  • They may be giving the impression that everyone in your community is ok with what they’re doing, but it’s almost certainly not true.
  • Often, a lot of the silence and praise is because people are afraid to contradict the collector, not because they actually think everything is ok.
  • The collector may be manipulating the conversation in ways that silence others, but you’re not the only one who notices what they’re doing, and you’re not the only one who sees it as a problem. Connecting with others who think that the manipulation is wrong can help, a lot.

It also helps to remember that the world is bigger than the collector is making it seem:

  • Collectors aren’t God, and they’re not the source of all good things.
  • They are not the only ones who will respect you or work with you.
  • There is a whole world out there that is not about them, at all.
  • There are people who don’t care at all about the collectors opinion. There is work being done and art being made that they’re not part of.
  • The world does not revolve around collectors, and your life shouldn’t either.
  • You’re a real person, and you deserve respect in your own right.

Short version: Sometimes people build creepy collections of other people they’re manipulating. If a collector collects you, the world can end up seeming like a tiny and terrifying place, and it may seem like they’re a refuge. This can be very disorienting. Scroll up for some thoughts on how to notice when you’re being collected and some methods for getting your perspective back.

“I never do x” vs “When I do x, it doesn’t count, because it’s justified”.

Real Social Skills

It’s important to have morally neutral language to describe actions. This is especially important for actions that are always, usually, or sometimes morally wrong.

For instance:

  • In English, ‘killing’ and ‘murder’ mean different things.
  • ‘Murder’ always means killing that is either illegal or morally wrong.
  • ‘Killing’ can describe any act that causes someone to die.
  • This distinction makes it possible to talk about when killing is and isn’t justified.
  • Even for people who think that killing is always murder, this is important.
  • Without morally neutral language, it’s impossible to express a clear opinion on whether or not killing is ever acceptable.

For instance (names randomly generated using https://www.fakenamegenerator.com/gen-random-us-us.php):

  • Heather: *shoots Sonja*.
  • Sonja: *dies as a result of being shot by Heather*.
  • In this situation, Heather definitely killed Sonja. Whether or not she murdered Sonja is something people can argue about.
  • Eg: If Sonja was trying to kill Heather and Heather shot her in self-defense, almost everyone would argue that this isn’t murder.
  • Eg: If Heather was trying to rob Sonja’s store and shot her to prevent her from calling for help, almost everyone would consider that murder.
  • Eg: If Heather felt threatened by Sonja in a public space and shot her rather than trying to run away, most people would consider that murder, but some people would vehemently disagree.
  • Because ‘murder’ and ‘killing’ are different words, everyone would be able to express their opinion in a clear way.

When it’s impossible to describe actions without condemning them, it can be impossible to describe what people are actually doing. This makes it hard to have an honest conversation, and even harder to hold people accountable.

Here’s a disability services example (randomly generated names):

  • Charles (a staff person): I don’t believe in coercion. I never control my clients or tell them what to do. They’re totally in control of their own lives.
  • Patricia  (a disabled adult client): I want to eat some cookies at 3am.
  • Staff person: You can’t eat cookies at 3am. You agreed to take care of yourself by making healthy choices, and it’s important to keep your agreements.
  • Patricia: You’re telling me what to do instead of letting me decide.
  • Staff person: No I’m not. I’m telling you that you can’t eat cookies at 3am because staying up past your bedtime and eating junk food aren’t healthy choices. I would never tell you what to do.
  • Patricia doesn’t get access to cookies, and is put on a behavior plan if she leaves her room after 10pm.

In this example, Charles is blatantly and unambiguously controlling Patricia and telling her what to do. When Patrica says ‘telling me what to do’, she means it literally. When Charles says, ‘telling people what to do’ he really means ‘telling people what to do (without a good reason)’. He doesn’t realize that coercion is still coercion even if he thinks it’s justified coercion. Without a direct literal way to refer to the act of controlling people, it becomes nearly impossible to discuss when coercion is and isn’t justified.

This happens a lot, in any number of contexts, often following this kind of pattern:

  • Person: I would never do The (Unacceptable) Thing!
  • Person: *does The (Unacceptable) Thing*.
  • Someone else: You literally just did The (Unacceptable) Thing.
  • Person: No, I didn’t do The (Unacceptable) Thing. I had a good reason, so it wasn’t The (Unacceptable) Thing. I would never do The (Unacceptable) Thing.

Sometimes people who talk this way are lying — but not always. Sometimes it’s that they don’t understand that reasons don’t erase actions. Sometimes they think actions only count as The (Unacceptable) Thing when they consider the actions to be unjustified/unacceptable. If you point out that they are, in fact, literally doing The Thing, they think that means you’re accusing them of being bad — and that you couldn’t be right, because they have a good reason.

This language problem is breaking a lot of conversations that need to happen, particularly around privilege and misuse of power.

Short version: It needs to be possible to describe what people are doing in morally neutral terms. This is especially important for actions that are always, usually, or sometimes morally wrong. Scroll up for more about why and a concrete example.

A red flag: “I don’t want you to see me as an authority figure”

Real Social Skills

If your boss or academic advisor says something like “I don’t want you to see me as an authority figure,” that’s a major red flag. It almost always means that they want to get away with breaking the rules about what powerful people are allowed to do. They’re probably not treating you as an equal. They’re probably trying to exercise more power over you than they should.

Sometimes authority figures say “I don’t want you to see me as an authority figure” because they want you to do free work for them. The logic here works like this:

  • They want you to do something.
  • It’s something that it would be wrong for an authority figure to order you to do.
  • If they were a peer asking for a favor, it would be ok to ask, and also ok for you to say no.
  • The authority figure wants you to obey them, but they don’t want to accept limits on what it’s acceptable to ask you to do.
  • For purposes of “what requests are ok to make”, they don’t want to be seen as an authority figure.
  • They also want you to do what they say. It’s not really a request, because you’re not really free to say no.

For example:

  • It’s usually ok to ask your friends if they would be willing to help you move in exchange for pizza. It’s never ok to ask your employees to do that.
  • It’s sometimes ok to ask a friend to lend you money for medical bills (depending on the relationship). It’s never ok to ask your student to lend you money for a personal emergency.

Sometimes authority figures pretend not to have power because they want to coerce someone into forms of intimacy that require consent. They know that consent isn’t really possible given the power imbalance, so they say “I don’t want you to see me as an authority figure” in hopes that you won’t notice the lines they’re crossing. Sometimes this takes the form of sexual harassment. Sometimes it’s other forms of intimacy. For instance:

  • Abusive emotional intimacy: Excepting you to share your feelings with them, or receive their feelings in a way that’s really only appropriate between friends or in consented-to therapy.
  • Coming to you for ongoing emotional support in dealing with their marital problems.
  • Trying to direct your trauma recovery or “help you overcome disability”.
  • Asking questions about your body beyond things they need to know for work/school related reasons.
  • Expecting you to share all your thoughts and feelings about your personal life.
  • Analyzing you and your life and expecting you to welcome their opinions and find them insightful.
  • Abusive spiritual intimacy: Presuming the right to an opinion on your spiritual life. (Eg: Trying to get you to convert to their religion, telling you that you need to pray, trying to make you into their disciple, telling you that you need to forgive in order to move on with your life.)

If someone says “I don’t want you to see me as an authority figure”, it probably means that they can’t be trusted to maintain good boundaries. (Unless they’re also saying something like “I’m not actually your boss, and you don’t have to do what I say”.) Sometimes they are intentionally trying to get away with breaking the rules. Sometimes it’s less intentional. Some people feel awkward about being powerful and don’t want to think about it. In either case, unacknowledged power is dangerous. In order to do right by people you have power over, you have to be willing to think about the power you have and how you’re using it.

Short version: If someone has power they don’t want to acknowledge, they probably can’t be trusted to use their power ethically.

For disabled presenters: Handling ableist laughter from your audience

Real Social Skills

Disabled presenters tend to face really intense ableism. One way this plays out is that audiences laugh at us when we talk about serious things.

This happens particularly frequently when:

  • Nondisabled professionals or our parents are also on the panel, or presenting right before or after us.
  • The audience is primarily parents of disabled children/adults.
  • The audience is primarily professionals who work with people with intellectual disabilities.
  • We talk about a desire to be taken seriously.
  • We discuss our objections to being treated like children.
  • We describe being proud of a personal accomplishment.
  • We describe being treated inappropriately by a professional.
  • We describe how we felt as disabled children.

When audiences do this, it’s not nice laughter. It’s a way of asserting power. That laughter means “I don’t have to take you seriously”.

As a disabled presenter, it’s often possible to insist on respect. It’s easier said than done. It gets easier with practice, but the practice often hurts. Here are some things I’ve found helpful:

It can help to remind yourself that you know what you’re talking about, and the things you’re saying are important:

  • You’re presenting because you know what you’re talking about.
  • People should take your expertise seriously. When you talk about the things you know, they shouldn’t laugh at you.
  • Your accomplishments are not a joke. People should not laugh or be condescending about them.
  • People who treat you like a baby are doing something wrong. Your desire to be treated in an age-appropriate way is not a joke. People shouldn’t laugh at you for talking about it.

When an audience laughs at you, it can help to make it uncomfortable for them:

  • Don’t smile, and don’t laugh yourself.
  • Wait for the audience to stop laughing.
  • Wait a second before going on to make it feel awkward.
  • One option: Ask the audience “Why is that funny?” then continue.
  • Another option: Repeat what you said before people started laughing.

Try to avoid nervous laughter and nervous smiles:

  • It’s taboo for disabled people to talk about disability.
  • Talking about taboo topics can be embarrassing.
  • When we’re talking about embarrassing things, it can be natural to smile or laugh nervously.
  • If you seem embarrassed, the audience is more likely to feel like the topic is embarrassing and laugh to get rid of the embarrassment.
  • If you laugh, the audience is more likely to feel like it’s ok for them to laugh.

Making jokes on purpose:

  • Making jokes can be a way to control what people are laughing about.
  • This can be easier than getting them to not laugh in the first place.
  • In these contexts, it can be better to avoid self-deprecating humor.
  • It’s usually better to make jokes about ableism.
  • (This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule though, do what works for you.)

For instance, say you’re giving a talk about educational discrimination:

  • This is self-deprecating:
  • “I was this ridiculous little kid in third grade. I was so enthusiastic, but I couldn’t even read. I’d hold up the books and pretend. My imaginary friend may have stolen the cookies, but she sure didn’t read for me.”
  • This is making fun of ableism:
  • “My teachers kept assigning me worksheets that I couldn’t do. They kept making me read in front of the class, even though I could never do it. They kept telling me to just do it. And they say we’re the ones who lack empathy and theory of mind.”

Don’t beat yourself up when things go wrong:

  • Presenters/panelists with disabilities face intense ableism.
  • It’s going to hurt sometimes.
  • The problem isn’t that your skin is too thin; the problem is that people are hurting you.
  • A thick skin is still worth developing.
  • If an audience laughs at you, it’s their fault, not yours. They shouldn’t act like that.
  • It’s messed up that we have to develop skills at deflecting ableism and insisting on respect.
  • It’s also worth knowing that these skills exist and can be learned.
  • It gets much easier with practice, but no one succeeds all the time.
  • When a talk goes bad, don’t beat yourself up, and don’t blame yourself for the audience’s ableism.
  • You’re ok, they’re ableist, and the things you have to say are still valuable when they’re not valued.

These are some of the methods I’ve used to deal with audience ableism. There are others. What are yours?

Short version: When disabled presenters give serious presentations, people often laugh at us in ableist ways. Scroll up for some strategies on how to handle that attitude from an audience.

Mean people who aren’t mean all the time

Real Social Skills

Mean people aren’t necessarily mean all the time. Mean people aren’t necessarily mean to everyone.

I think most people who are mean are nice to at least some people at least some of the time. It can be hard to understand that they’re mean to other people in ways that matter if you don’t see it.

One example of this is that many men who are awful to women treat other men well. Some men don’t know this. They often assume that a man who treats them and their male friend group well is basically well-intentioned — and may have a lot of trouble understanding why their female friends think he’s dangerously creepy.

That happens in a lot of contexts. Some of which have to do with socially marginalized groups like gender or race or trans status or disability or religion or any number of other things. Some of them aren’t like that.

Sometimes it’s about in groups and outgroups in ways that aren’t otherwise connected to privilege.

For instance:

  • Jesse is mean, but not mean to everyone.
  • Jesse is nice to people who they like
  • Mostly, Jesse likes people who admire them and don’t contradict them about anything important
  • Jesse is mean to people outside their circle
  • People who are in Jesse’s circle and really admire Jesse might have trouble believing that they’re ever mean to anyone else
  • On the logic that “Jesse has never said anything like that to me; I can’t believe Jesse would say that”. Or something else like that.

It’s not unreasonable to base some of your opinions on what’s probably going on in a conflict on your personal experiences with someone. To an extent, it’s *necessary* to do it that way, because you can’t find out what’s going on by disregarding what you know. But it’s also important to remember that the way someone treats you might not be representative.

For instance:

  • If you’ve never contradicted someone, you might not know how they handle being contradicted
  • If someone’s never been mad at you or someone you respect, you might not know much about how they treat people when they are angry
  • Everyone gets into conflicts.
  • Everyone gets contradicted.
  • Everyone is wrong sometimes.
  • Nobody handles this perfectly. Some people handle this more-or-less reasonably; some people handle it horribly.
  • If you haven’t seen what someone does in those situations, it’s hard to know whether their reactions are reasonable

Short version: It’s easy to misunderstand conflicts by assuming that people who have always been nice to you are always reasonable with everyone. It’s important to consider what you know about someone *and* to consider the possibility that your experiences with someone may not be representative.

Women are not inherently safe

Real Social Skills

Sometimes people talk as though men are inherently dangerous, and imply that women are inherently safe.

Neither is true, because women are people, and people make choices.

Women can do anything that men can do. Including the bad things that men can do. Including abuse. Including violence. Women are people, and people can be dangerous.

It’s important to be able to acknowledge this. Women need to know that they have power, so that they can be careful how they use it.

People who have been hurt by women need to know that what happened to them matters, and that they are not alone.

Short version of the problem with Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

Real Social Skills

This is the short version of this post and this post:

  • In a conflict, sometimes one person is right and the other person is wrong
  • In such cases, it is important to judge the situation and figure out who is in the right
  • Emotional abuse exists
  • Working to meet an abuser’s emotional needs will not stop them from abusing others
  • Genuinely felt emotions can come from an abuser’s abusive values and mentality. Expressing those feelings can be a form of abuse in itself.
  • It is possible to say horrible things about and to other people under the guise of talking about your own feelings and needs
  • It’s important to be able to judge abuse as abuse. Calling it “behavior that does not meet my needs” is not always sufficient.
  • People need emotional boundaries. Your feelings are not always anyone’s business, and you are not always obligated to care about or listen to the feelings of others.

All of these things are vitally important to understand. People who don’t understand these things abuse their power over others. People who don’t understand these things are incredibly vulnerable to being abused by others.

NVC culture denies all of these things. That does tremendous harm to vulnerable people.

Nonviolent Communication can be emotionally violent

Real Social Skills

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) culture facilitates abuse in part because NVC culture has very little regard for consent. (I said a little bit about this in my other post on ways NVC hurts people.) They call it nonviolent, but it is often a coercive and emotional violent kind of interaction.

NVC has very different boundaries than are typical in mainstream interactions. Things that would normally be considered boundary violations are an expected and routine part of NVC dialoging.

That can be a good thing, in some contexts. There are settings where it can be very important to have different emotional boundaries than the default. To have intense engagement with people’s emotions. To hear out their emotions and state yours and try to refrain from judgement and just hear each other, and then talk together about what would meet your mutual needs.

In a NVC interaction, you have to regard your needs and the other person’s needs as equally important, no matter what they are. You have to regard their feelings and emotional reactions as equally valid and worth hearing as yours, no matter what they are. That is a good thing in some contexts, but it’s dangerous and deeply destructive in others.

That kind of interaction can be a good thing. I understand the value. But here’s the problem:

One way NVC can be abusive is that it supports coerced emotional intimacy, and coerced consideration of someone’s feelings even when their expressed feelings are abusive. This isn’t actually a good thing even when someone’s feelings are not problematic in and of themselves. Coerced emotional intimacy is a violation in and of itself, and it’s a violation that leaves people very vulnerable to greater violations.

I recently challenged an NVC advocate to answer this question:

Consider this situation:
An abuser has an emotional need for respect. He experiences it as deeply hurtful when his partner has conversations with other men. When she talks to other men anyway, he feels betrayed. He says “When you talk to other men, I feel hurt because I need mutual respect.”
Using NVC principles, how do you say that what he is doing is wrong?
This was their answer:
“You’ve described him as “an abuser”. Abusing people is wrong because a person with abusive behaviour doesn’t or can’t hold with equal care the needs of others.
Is he doing something wrong? Or is he being honest that he feels hurt when his partners talks to other men? His partner can become his ex-partner if she doesn’t agree to what he’s asking for.“

That, in a nutshell, is the problem with NVC philosophy. This abusive partner’s honest expression of his feelings is actually part of how he is abusing his partner. NVC has no way of recognizing the ways in which expression of genuinely felt emotions can be abusive. It also has no recognized way for someone to legitimately say “no, this is not a conversation I want to engage in” or “no, I don’t consider that feeling something I need to respond to or take into consideration.”

Part of what it would take for NVC to stop being an abusive culture it to recognize that NVC-style dialogue and emotional intimacy require consent every single time people interact that way.  Like sexual intercourse, this kind of emotional intercourse requires consent, every single time. Having a close relationship is not consent to NVC. Having a conflict is not consent. Anger is not consent. Having found NVC helpful in the past is not consent, either. Consent means that both parties agree to have this kind of interaction *in this specific instance*.

NVC can’t be the only kind of interaction allowed, even between people who are very close to one another. And it’s not ok to coerce people into it.

And yet, NVC culture is not careful about consent at all. NVC tactics are routinely used on people whether or not they agree to have that kind of interaction. (Some NVC advocates may say otherwise, particularly in response to criticism. But actions speak louder than words, and NVC proponents do not act in practice as though consent is important. They are case in point for When Your Right to Say No is Entirely Hypothetical) This is wrong. Emotional intimacy requires consent.

NVC practitioners express deeply felt emotions and needs to non-consenting others. They do this with the implied expectation that the other person experience their expressed feelings as very very important. They also expect that person to respond by expressing their feelings and needs in the same pattern. They also expect that person to refrain from judging the NVC proponent’s expressed feelings and needs. It is not ok to force this pattern on someone. Doing so is an act of emotional violence.

It’s not ok to force someone to be emotionally intimate with you. It is not ok to dump your deep feelings on someone with the expectation that they reciprocate. Other people get to decide what they want to share with you.

An example: White NVC proponents sometimes express feelings about their racist attitudes towards people of color, to people of color who have not consented to listening to this. They do so with the expectation that the person of color will listen non-judgmentally, appreciate the honesty, and share their intimate feelings about their experiences with racism as a person of color. This is a horrible thing to do to someone. It is an act of racist emotional violence.

NVC people also use empathy to violate boundaries. They imagine what someone must be feeling, name that feeling, and express empathy with it. Then they either insert a loaded pause in the conversation, or ask you to confirm or deny the feeling and discuss your actual reactions in detail. These are not really questions. They are demands. They do not take “I don’t want to discuss that” as an ok answer. They keep pushing, and imply that you lack emotional insight and are uninterested in honest communication if you don’t want to share intimate information about your feelings. That is coerced intimacy, and it’s not ok.

For instance, an NVC advocate with power over someone might say in response to a conflict with that person: I can see that this interaction is very difficult for you. I’m sensing a lot of anger. I’m saddened that your experiences with authority figures have been so negative. (Expectant pause). I think you are experiencing a lot of anger right now, is that right?

That is not ok. When you have power over someone, it is abusive to pressure them to discuss their intimate feelings rather than the thing they object to in your behavior towards them. Emotional intimacy requires consent; it is not ok to force it on someone as a way of deflecting conflict. And when you have a lot of power over someone and they aren’t in a position to assert a boundary unilaterally, you have a much greater obligation to be careful about consent.

NVC advocates may tell you that they are just trying to have an honest conversation, with the implication that if you want ordinary emotional boundaries, you are being dishonest and refusing to communicate. They are not right about this.

You do not have to be emotionally intimate with someone to listen to them, or to have an honest conversation. It is ok to have boundaries. It is ok to have boundaries that the person you’re talking with doesn’t want you to have. Not all interactions have to or should involve the level of intimacy that NVC demands. It is never ok for anyone to coerce you into emotional intimacy. Using NVC-style dialogue tactics on someone who does not consent is an act of emotional violence.