When someone tells me about nonviolent communication
GIF
16
24
167
Conversation
1/ To people wilfully misunderstanding this tweet and its humor -Nonviolent communication sets itself up semantically (much like "anti-racism") to make anything against it (e.g. violent communication) sound evil and ridiculous.
6
6
45
2/ The joke is, if nonviolent communication is really "nonviolent" then I like "violent communication". NVC advocates communicating requests without using punishment or negative emotions like guilt/shame. The implication is that there can be communication without manipulation.
4
2
13
3/ We want people to change their behavior to facilitate our evolutionary strategies. The more we dress up how we want other people to change their behavior as "needs" the more convoluted and confusing the manipulation becomes.
4
2
20
4/ Nonviolent communication just facilitates self-deception by dressing up our inherent desire to manipulate others. Instead of "I want you to tell me what you are feeling so I can better predict your behavior" you say "I feel an unmet need for honesty and authenticity"-
7
1
21
5/ In my experience, nonviolent communication is just a slower, more complicated, less efficient, more cognitively demanding way of trying to get what you want that seems superficially virtuous because it uses punishment less effectively and shrouds manipulation in feeling words.
3
4
36
6/ My problems with nonviolent communication are too long for a tweet thread but the assumptions here are divorced from reality about game theory, about biology and about human evolution. This view of human nature is sweet, but totally wrong. baynvc.org/key-assumption
7
1
11
Replying to
I think I disagree with this, might say more when I'm home and on a keyboard