2 Communication That Blocks Compassion.md

2 Communication That Blocks Compassion

• life-alienating communication => alienate us from our natural state of compassion.
• Moralistic Judgments
  • moralistic judgements: imply wrongness or badness on the part of people who don't act in harmony with our values.
  • e.g., blame, insults, put-downs, labels, criticism, comparisons, and diagnoses.
  • => trap us in a world of ideas about rightness and wrongness => our concern centers on "who is what".
    • => focus on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting.
  • Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.
    • => increase defensiveness and resistance.
  • value judgments != moralistic judgment
    • value judgment => of qualities we value in life.
    • moralistic judgments => of people and behaviors that fail to support our value judgments.
  • e.g., “Violence is bad,” => “I am fearful of the use of violence to resolve conflicts; I value the resolution of human conflicts through other means.”
  • Classifying and judging people promotes violence.
    • e.g., verbal, psychological, or physical violence.
• Making Comparisons
  • comparative thinking => self-induced misery => blocks compassion.
  • Comparisons are a form of judgment.
• Denial of Responsibility
  • Our language obscures awareness of personal responsibility.
    • => clouds our awareness that we are each responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
    • e.g., "have to", "makes one feel".
  • When we attribute the cause of our actions outside ourselves:
    • Vague, impersonal forces - “I cleaned my room because I had to.”
    • Our condition, diagnosis, or personal or psychological history - “I drink because I am an alcoholic.”
    • The actions of others - "I hit my child because he ran into the street."
    • The dictates of authority - "I lied to the client because the boss told me to."
    • Group pressure - "I started smoking because all my friends did."
    • Institutional policies, rules, and regulations - "I have to suspend you for this infraction because it's the school policy."
    • Gender roles, social roles, or age roles - "I hate going to work, but I do it because I am a husband and a father."
    • Uncontrollable impulses - "I was overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar."
  • We can replace language that implies lack of choice with language that acknowledges choice.
  • We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.
• Other Forms of Life-Alienating Communication
  • Communicating our desires as demands => threatens listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply => blocks compassion.
    • We can never make people do anything.
  • Thinking based on "who deserves what" blocks compassionate communication.
    • merit reward versus merit punishment.
  • Life-alienating communication has deep philosophical and political roots.
    • stems from and supports hierarchical or domination societies, where large populations are controlled by a small number of individuals to those individuals, own benefit.
• Summary
  • “It is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving compassionately. We have, however, learned many forms of life-alienating communication that lead us to speak and behave in ways that injure others and ourselves. One form of life-alienating communication is the use of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness or badness on the part of those who don’t act in harmony with our values. Another is the use of comparisons, which can block compassion both for others and for ourselves. Life-alienating communication also obscures our awareness that we are each responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Communicating our desires in the form of demands is yet another characteristic of language that blocks compassion.”