Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/non-violent-communication-nvc/page/24/)
My question is about any attempt to create fundamental change using a model of change that focuses primarily on individuals changing their behavior or ideas.
When I can choose to relate to people, I am exercising choice instead of habit or obligation. I want my choice to be based on care and respect for the other person at the same time as holding tenderly my own vulnerability and caring for my needs. When I am able to do that, then even the most faltering moments of confusion become opportunities to transform my consciousness and align it with living into a future possibility.
There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish. — Mary Parker Follett
Does Outrage Work?
When I consider how my own mind has changed, it was never because someone attacked and judged me harshly. It almost always arose from the surprising response of someone I respected. One example: I grew up literally and genuinely homophobic, one of those who are called “haters” though it was not true that I hated homosexuals.
I have always believed that, at some point, the Israeli prime minister and his lobby would lose their grip on U.S. Middle East policy. At least I’ve believed that since 1982 when Tom Dine, AIPAC’s most successful executive director,explained how it would happen. It was during my four year stint at AIPAC that I asked Dine if a president of the United States could take a position opposed by the lobby,in a case where U.S. national security interests were clearly at stake,and prevail. Dine responded that although he hoped that day wouldn’t come, he did not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn’t want to do given the power of AIPAC and “our friends in Congress.” In other words, as long as politicians need AIPAC-directed campaign funds, it wouldn’t happen.
Rather than an exhaustive introduction to Gandhian economics, which can be found through a search on the web, I chose, instead, to look more deeply at two core principles that resonate deeply with me and the path I am on with regards to thinking about money and the economy.
A difficulty that I see stemming from associating power with badness is the corollary move of associating powerlessness with purity… [But] If powerlessness is associated with purity, then those without power are, by necessity, better in some sense. This absence of humility is one of the reasons I see for why when previously oppressed people come into power they often recreate what was done to them.
Many are complaining about mixed moral messaging coming from Pope Francis, including on the subject of abortion. Is it not better to ask if Pope Francis and Spiritual Progressives can find common ground to that assert all human beings are made in the image of God?
Reflecting on Peace Day, we can look to the power of personal peace and see that focusing on bringing peace to our local communities can contribute to a global peace movement.
I believe that one of the best kept secrets about the rewards of choosing interdependence is the wisdom and the richer freedom that are often unleashed through entering dialogue with others as a path to making decisions: together, in complete autonomy, honoring everyone affected.