An essay about integrating principles of nonviolence

I’ve been moving around way too much in last several years. And, I have been living alone way too much. So when a dear female friend and I concluded last spring that we could share a home going forward, it was a very big deal. Hope for a kind of stability-in-life that most take for granted, and that I have had to learn to make do without.

My friend and I started looking at how I could fit into her apartment – which furniture I would bring, what she would remove to make room – with the idea that we’d go from her current small place to a bigger one close to “my community”, later in the year. Living together seemed obvious, based on a kind of sisterhood in valuing relationship over results.

All good, or so it appeared. Then I remembered that some years ago, this friend had told me about her then-partner having a gun in their home. And THEN I remembered that she had told me more recently that she was considering – lightly, but actually – getting her own gun. Whops. What with my values around violence and nonviolence? My work with NVC for over a decade; my deepening learning and commitment to principled Nonviolence in the last years… My strong, strong sense – which is backed up in studies – that bringing weapons into a home also invites violence and volatility into that same home. “Oh dear, I thought, I have to bring this up with my friend.”

So, I laid it out kind of bluntly – my “no”, my beliefs, my facts – probably with less skill than I have potential for. My friend heard me but defended her choices, her autonomy, her path… Leaving that first conversation with both our “guards up”, and no solution in sight. For me, I was surprised over having misjudged her, or having missed this side in her completely, having experienced her as a person who intentionally connects with the whole picture, with all involved, before making choice – not someone who would make the unilateral decision to kill or injure if in a “threat power” situation… We share the notion – with each other and with nonviolence – that all of life is one unified whole. But still, she was claiming her freedom to protect herself through violent means if a situation would call for it.

I was stumped. Not sure where to go, neither with that friendship, nor with my moving truck. I discussed my dilemma with others, and with my community in Berkeley. I found that I have people around me who think “getting a gun” is a fair way to “protect oneself”. Even a peace activist in our midst, where the conversation continued by email:

I wrote:
my training says that humanizing others and building relationships is far more effective to prevent or decrease violence, than ever meeting violence or oppression with more violence. in fact oppression “works” because of a paradigm of violence or “power over” —

I have deep respect for my friend, and for her process and inquiry about how to stay safe in this culture — not sure you heard the beginning of the conversation: for me it’s not about “can she have a gun or not” it’s about me, am I willing to live in a house where there is a gun. my current answer is “no”, and my sacrifice is a much needed stability.

Somewhat shocked over having “pro-gun” people in my circles, I was wondering how deeply steeped “they” are in this culture of alienation and violence. Then again, if “they” are, so am I – what is the difference?

My whole life has been an exploration, a journey from the emotional and physical volatility that comes with human disconnection and disintegration, and towards “connection” at various levels. I know intimately how futile is “the feeling of being powerful” in a moment of anger, or how impotent and insignificant the turning away in a huff from near and dear ones. There is nothing to be gained from those kinds of interactions; I understand the psychology and dynamics of it, but still, other than the self importance it might boost for a few moments, there is nothing *real* there, nothing of lasting value. One of European history books’ great emperors reached the same conclusion:

“Do you know what astonished me the most in this world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.” – Napoléon Bonaparte

My path has been to look for other ways; for what creates and maintains human-to-human connection, also in moments of difficulty or distress; looked for that naturally occurring resonance with life itself that comes with practicing presence. But also “willing” myself to see humanity in others, to meet my fears of others’ otherness with an intention for what is more real:

These last few months, I have taken this on “as a practice” with homeless people in Berkeley – to see and validate their humanity, our sameness. I already cared about their situation. From years of moving around a lot in downtown, I had also started recognizing who is on what corner… but most of the time I have felt that only giving some spare change seems to pronounce our separation more than our inherent unity. So. I am working on “willing” myself to interact with these people a little more. Talk with them. Only give money when I experience authentic connection. Not surrendering to guilt. Recently, I saw a man with a sign saying “I want to survive”, next to my usual freeway exit. This was so different to me, stirred my creativity, and for a few weeks I played with ideas about how to help with that. Last week, I dared to stop, lower the car window, and ask if they would appreciate some cooked food: If I would bring that, would that be received as a contribution? The answer was yes. I have yet to deliver.

It IS a practice to see through the mirage of otherness and dive into the humanity of others. Aside from the capacity to sense the purity at the core of anyone (that comes with sustained meditation practice) another strategy I rely on is to go towards understanding of the human intra- or interpersonal dynamics. As a kind of search for truth in both the relative and absolute.

So, to bring understanding to those in my circles who would consider getting a gun for self protection, I turned to Boulding’s concept of the Three Faces of Power:

If the only way a person have experienced a sense of power (or powerlessness) is through oppression, threat, coercion, and the like, then it seems obvious that they would look to match that kind of power with more of the same. My potential housemate/friend has lots of other exposure, but my guess is that in certain areas of life the Threat Power [“power-over” in NVC lingo] is the only known form. It’s conceivable that there would be a more life affirming – true to nature – personal narrative available to identify with, that could shift her perspective. But, that would have to come from her, not “me with an agenda to make her change her mind”.

The email conversation with my other community member continued:
“… the idea that “using force” has to mean “acts of violence” is based in a very common misconception, that nonviolence is passive or weak. I see it [power] as just using another force, one some say is more powerful than ever any violence.”

In Exchange Power there is a kind of negotiation involved, which can have its virtues, especially if this can diffuse a volatile “threat” situation. This “second face of power” showed up in the next conversation with my potential housemate/friend: I had concluded that I cannot, will not – even with all the love and respect I have for her – live in a house where there is a gun. So I told her. And she directly offered to postpone her getting a gun for a half year, so that I could move in with her now, at least short term.

I was relieved, my hope for a period of stability and companionship in a shared home was back on track. But soon realized that it was still the same situation. If she was still going in the direction of getting a gun “later”, there was no real change. I then remembered “Nagler’s law” which says that nonviolence with a bit of violence mixed in, is still violence.

So, I took a more firm stance in my truth that I will not live where there is a gun. Backed by gut feeling and facts from social studies, I am unwilling to take that kind of risk, just like I don’t walk through dark neighborhoods (in this country) or spend time with abusive family members.

And in that, I sacrificed the last hope of us being able to share a home, surrendered the stability I had been holding out for…

And then, there was a shift, and the dialogue opened again. I see this as a small moment of Integrative Power that brought us out of our positions and back into shared exploration. I am better able to honor her path, her intention to embrace fully all aspects of humanness, also the shadows, presumably for the purpose of bringing light also to dark places. I get the spiritual dynamics of that, the becoming fully present to whatever “tendency of the ego” is there, as a way to “love the non-truth to have it dissolve into truth”.

Notably, after this point, after sharing this clarity that I would not even want to live in the house of someone who is even exploring a violent path, something shifted deep in me. As if as a consequence of lovingly standing up for my informed truth, I grew in self-respect and dignity. Most clearly this has showed up as a greater degree of calm in situations where people get angry/upset with me, e.g. honking at me in traffic. This is reinforcing my ideas or “map on human nature”, which obviously has its own tinge of satisfaction.

The conversation with my friend is continuing. We have “parked” the gun topic but we’re talking about deeper layers: surfacing our differing narratives – what is leading us to feel safe or unsafe, threatened or unthreatened, more risk taking or less risk taking? How much is that coming from our outlook, how much from the world around us?

 

Written in May 2013,
Maja Bengtson

References:
The Three Faces of Power, Kenneth Boulding
[quoted in M Nagler “The search for a nonviolent Future”. P.28-29]

A. Threat Power – “You have to give me A or I will cause you harm or suffering.”
B. Exchange Power – “I will give you Y, if you perform or yield X.”
C. Integrative Power – “I will take positive action to represent the truth as I see it, and I have faith that in the process we will draw closer in our relationship”

“Nagler’s law” – “Nonviolence with a bit of violence mixed in, is still violence.”
[UC Berkeley, PaCS 164A, online video recording, posted on metacenter.org]

Key concepts of Nonviolence referenced here
Dignity – nobody can take away your dignity without your permission, it’s an inside job.
Sacrifice – be willing to sacrifice all that is non-essential; sacrifice can bring out/make visible the inhumanity of a system or situation.
Worldview, narrative– All of life is one unified whole.