Why Victory Wouldn't Be Enough - Notes about the Occupy Movement, Nov 11th

by Miki Kashtan

Ever since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and especially since the early days of the Occupy movement in the US, I have been following the wave of unrest that’s been sweeping the globe with great interest. I have visited the Oakland Occupation and participated in the general strike on Nov. 2nd. I have been writing about my amazement, my humility, and my concerns for some weeks. On the basis of all I have seen, heard, read, and felt, I continue to nurse some hope that this movement may be the beginning of transcending the legacy of separation and creating new social structures attentive to the needs of humans, other life forms, and the planet.

At the same time, if I imagine for a moment that the Occupy movement succeeds in replacing existing governments with some other form of governance, I am not so confident that the outcome will be what I most long for: a world that truly works for everyone.

I am fearful that the people who are now the 1% would be mistreated, shamed, incarcerated, or even executed. I am fearful that women will still have an equally challenging time having physical safety, full inclusion in decision-making, and the possibility of affecting the ways that decisions are made. I am fearful that racial and ethnic divides will continue to plague us, and that some people will continue to suffer poverty and human indignities. I am fearful that consumption will continue rampant and the march towards depletion of the earth’s resources will go on. I am even fearful that a new 1% will emerge, sooner or later, and what might be gained would be lost.

Prioritizing social transformation without attending to the ways in which all of us have internalized the very systems and habits of heart and mind that we aim to transform runs the risk of re-creating these systems and habits. From my reading of history, such lack of attention to the internal and relational realms has resulted in astonishing amounts of pain and suffering, sometimes for millions of people. On smaller scales, this lack of attention has meant that many social movements are plagued by vicious conflicts, resentment, cynicism, and despair even while doing inspiring and uplifting work.

I have a very strong desire for the Occupy movement to shift this historical pattern. One of the reasons I have such appreciation for Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. is precisely the depth of their understanding about the personal changes that were necessary to make the movement work. Gandhi put it in simple words: “The very first step in nonviolence is that we cultivate in our daily life, as between ourselves, truthfulness, humility, tolerance, loving kindness.” (Golden Treasury, p. 41.) Here are some beginning pointers to what this work might entail.

The Means and the Ends
I have never understood the logic of separating means and ends. If people are willing to use violence in order to bring about peace, how would they suddenly, after victory is achieved, know to shift into peaceful modes of operating? If leaders of some movements operate in an authoritarian manner, how would they suddenly know to step down and participate as equals in creating a society of peers? If men in a national liberation movement ask women to set their needs aside until victory is achieved, how would they suddenly be able to shift priorities upon victory? Although I don’t pretend to know everything that’s ever happened on this planet, I don’t know of any examples of a victory magically creating such changes.

I have much more trust in aligning the means and the ends. If we begin to live now the values we seek to bring about, and if we create, now, the relationships that we want to see everywhere, I have more trust that there will be a natural continuity into the world of our dreams, where everyone’s dignity and needs are valued, including those who have done harm. I like this image much more than the prospect of a victory over some enemy or another.

The Irreducible Significance of Vision
I have already written both about how I see so much of what the encampments signify to be a model, on a small scale, of some aspects of how we could structure our lives, and in that way being a lived vision. I want more than an implicit modeling of the future. I want all of us who sympathize with, support, or participate in the Occupy movement to be able to articulate what we stand for. A movement can not continue indefinitely when all that unites people is what they are against. Again, if suddenly the movement managed to get everyone currently in power to step down, in the absence of a clearly articulated vision, what would be put in place? I am hoping that every single one of us would dedicate energy and time to exploring this question, alone and in conversation with others: what do we truly care about? What is it that we want to create in the world? How would we structure social life to attend to everyone’s needs? How can we address the human needs of those who are currently in power?

Finding Freedom Beyond Rebellion
My experience of being at the general assembly in Oakland, of reading notes from and about such meetings, and of speaking with people who have facilitated general assembly meetings is very mixed. On the one hand I am in awe of the commitment to a democratic process that provides room for everyone to have a voice. On a number of occasions I have been amazed by the depth of considerations that have gone into different proposals and have appreciated greatly how a decision has been made. I have been moved, repeatedly, by many specific choices and policies that have been adopted.

On the other hand I hear facilitators say that they have been traumatized by the process. Some people have expressed fear about what would happen if they said or did some particular thing as a facilitator. Facilitators have been heckled. People who express certain minority positions have been silenced by others without facilitators managing to prevent that. Many people speak without regard for the process or for others’ experience. As an experienced facilitator, I have become used to being able to rely on a group to support the process and my own facilitation. I frankly don’t know how I would handle this level of chaos and insistence on no leadership.

Some months ago I wrote an entire piece about the alternative to submission or rebellion. Re-reading this piece now I see its relevance to this situation. When we rebel, we still operate under the terms of those in power. True autonomy, real freedom, involves making choices from within rather than in reaction to what happens outside of us. I very much hope that some participants in the movement who are on a spree of doing what they want because no one can tell them what to do will find sufficient grounding to know what they really want and find ways of going for it that are proactive and interdependent. Without deep engagement with self, without knowing what we want, without having sufficient calm to interact with others even in the face of differences and challenges, it will be exceedingly difficult to maintain the delicate balance of peace within the encampments. When exhausted people who’ve been at it for weeks at a time need to make decisions that are attentive to everyone and to interact with and even collaborate with people who are on drugs, or some that have sexually assaulted others or display extreme levels of rage, their capacity to choose from within and in line with their values is a vital asset.

Cultivating Empathy
For millennia, and especially in the last several hundred years, we have been raised to see ourselves as fundamentally at odds with each other, fighting for scarce resources in a hostile world. Although many spiritual traditions share a common teaching about the oneness of all life, our economic and social structures pit us against each other. We learn to come together against a common enemy, and know little about how to work side by side towards a shared purpose in the service of everyone. Unless we have consciously worked to transform this deeply ingrained habit, we are likely to polarize every time we experience any kind of conflict or disagreement.

Of all the inner resources that I see needed in these challenging times, none is more easily forgotten than the basic human faculty of empathy. Although people have a voice, no one is necessarily listening. When disagreements arise, separating ways of handling them are common in our society, and clearly appear within the movement as well. Anything ranging from debate to shaming and silencing has been known to happen. What would need to happen to support people in truly listening to each other across differences of tactics, preferences, or opinions?

Beyond the internal relationships within the movement, when it comes to the 1%, the level of us-them thinking is high. OccupyWallSt started with a slogan that tapped into a deep vein of meaning and ignited a rush of support and identification from many who are not necessarily participating. And yet, as time passes, I am more and more concerned about how the 1% are viewed. The level of anger, though I fully understand it given the decades and centuries of suffering, concerns me greatly. The only hope I see for a peaceful future lies in finding ways of embracing the humanity of all people. This is what restorative justice is about, which, on a national scale, can take the form of truth and reconciliation committees. Openness to the humanity of others is essential if we are to make something happen that’s not a repetition of all we know with different players.

Freeing Our Consciousness
Since I learned of Nonviolent Communication, I have been working steadily to free up my consciousness from the traps I have inherited. I relentlessly make the effort to remove from my language words that point to certain ways of thinking such as “should”, “can’t”, “have to”, “I don’t have time”, and all war metaphors. I make deliberate choices that are at odds with the addiction to convenience, an addiction whose pull I recognize within myself. I consciously choose to interact with people I don’t know so as to challenge the notion that anyone is a “stranger.” I reveal in public and even in writing aspects of my experience that are often tremendously vulnerable in part in order to affirm my continuity with others. I continually challenge myself to question anything that appears like accepting others’ deference to me because of the position of partial power in which I find myself. I regularly make a conscious attempt to understand people whose actions are incomprehensible to me to increase my capacity for empathy and my ability to hold needs with care. I walk directly towards emotional discomfort again and again so as to create true freedom in myself to live as I want.

Is this an act of social change? Absolutely not in and of itself. A commitment to inner work without a continued and singular focus on social transformation runs the risk of being adaptive to the ways of the world, as social structures have phenomenal power to persist despite significant personal awareness. I continue to engage in these and dozens of other practices, large and small, because it’s the only way I know to have some trust that another way is possible. Rather than waiting for some miraculous victory to begin to create some mysterious world whose contours I haven’t imagined, I want to know that I have done all I can, truly all I can, to move in the direction of my dreams in each and every moment, internally, and, with others, in the world.

No Pushing, No Giving Up

by Miki Kashtan

One of the common misconceptions about the practice of Nonviolent Communication is that it’s about being “nice.” It’s probably a similar misconception to that of thinking of nonviolence as passivity. I believe both misconceptions derive from our habit of either/or thinking. Most of us don’t have models for a path that’s neither aggressive nor passive. Within this either/or thinking, if the only two models are imposing on others or giving up on our own needs, many of us will interpret nonviolence as the latter.

What does this look like? In our relationship to authority, I already wrote about how we can move beyond submission and rebellion. When parenting, as my sister Inbal described in Compassionate Connection: Nonviolent Communication with Children, we can find a path that’s neither coercive nor permissive. And in our relationships, we can find that sweet spot between pushing for what we want and giving up on what we want.

The either/or paradigm as it applies to human relationships rests on two assumptions. One is that we are separate form each other. The other is that there isn’t enough to go around. It is the combination of these two assumptions that pits us against each other fighting for our needs. It is this legacy that prevents us from having satisfying relationships of authenticity and care. As soon as any difference arises between what we want and what someone else wants, our habits direct us to push or give up. How can we transform this legacy?

From Demands to Requests
If we are habituated to pushing for what we want, the message we convey to everyone around us is that their needs don’t matter. If we are the boss or the parent, our employee or child, as the case may be, is put in a position of doing what we want or suffering consequences. While we may get what we want on some superficial level, the cost is high. Every time someone does something just because we have the power to deliver unpleasant consequences, we lose respect, or love, or both. 

In a relationship of fundamental equality, pushing for what we want looks like a fight. When we don’t have the power to deliver consequences, we can’t officially punish or fire the other person. We can, and do, call them names, or judge them, or get angry, or give them the silent treatment, or take revenge at a later time. That’s what “punishment” looks like between equals. The result is the same. We are watering resentment and fear in the other person, and our own well-being is likely to be held with less and less care by them.

Shifting from making demands and pushing for what we want into an interdependent relationship of mutual care invites us to change our orientation to life as well as how we interact. Making requests is premised on integrating the radical understanding that if something works for us and not for another we pay a price that’s too dear. It also rests on choosing, wholeheartedly, to transcend the fear of scarcity so we can commit to the other person’s needs mattering alongside ours. 

From Agreement to Empathy 
If we are habituated to giving up on what we want, the message we convey to others is that our needs don’t matter, and they can do whatever they want without concern for the effect their actions have on us. Transforming this habit takes two steps. The first is learning to differentiate between agreement and understanding, so that we can offer our empathic presence and interest to another without thereby feeling compelled to do what they want. For many of us this shift requires an inner transformation so that we can take our own needs seriously enough to be willing to offer our hearts to another without necessarily agreeing to do what they want. 

Once we are able to set our own internal limits and trust our capacity to stand up for our needs, we can develop the flexibility and discernment to know when we are caving in and when we are acting out of true generosity of heart.

Asking for What We Want

The second step of shifting our habits and letting others know that our needs matter is learning to ask for what we want. Often enough we don’t ask because of being afraid that we will be seen as making demands. This is where both ends of the either/or split come together. For those of us who find it hard to let go of having what we want, learning to ask is about letting go of outcome. For those of us who have a hard time asking at all, learning to ask is about embracing our power, our significance as human beings, and the preciousness of our needs.

Ultimately, what we need to learn is to shift from pushing or giving up to full engaging with both of our needs.

I will be doing a 2-session phone summer course on this topic and I invite those of you who are intrigued to get more information and consider if this might just be the nudge for you. If you are local to the Bay Area or are open to travelling for a weekend of more in-depth learning, I look forward to meeting you.

Beyond Submission and Rebellion

by Miki Kashtan

(This piece is part of a book in progress called, for now, Reweaving the Human Fabric)

I have never been successful at mastering obedience. As a child, often enough it was my attitude toward my father rather than something in particular that I did which was the cause of punishment and criticism. Obedience is highly prized in authority-based systems. No surprise, then, that my father was attempting to control my defiant spirit more than my specific actions.

Obedience is a form of submission, of giving our will to another out of fear of consequences. It is almost essential to obedience that there be no specific rationale for the action demanded by the authority. “Do as I tell you” leaves no room for questions. We are not supposed to understand, only to carry out.

My father never managed to break my spirit, as was his clear and explicit intention (my mother regularly tried to dissuade him from this plan, to no avail). My defiance, a deep-seated rebellion of the spirit, became an article of pride for me. More often than not, I did what he insisted I do, simply because I had no particular reason not to. And yet I knew that I wasn’t going to let him “get to me,” and I know much of his wrath was precisely about that.

Given my inner satisfaction at emerging from childhood with my full defiant self, I was utterly surprised when I first heard Marshall Rosenberg say: “Never give anyone the power to make you submit or rebel.” It had never before occurred to me that my rebellion, however successful, left the power in my father’s hands. Internally I was more preoccupied with not giving in than with knowing what I wanted and going for it. I chose my actions reactively, not truly from within. I didn’t see what is now so clear to me: that true choice, true freedom, emerges from inner clarity.

I still struggle with this legacy, all these years later. Any time I see someone in a position of authority, be it a police officer, a doctor, or even a therapist, I stiffen a little to protect myself. I recognize that vigilance, that intentionality of protection and defiance, as blocking my soft, open-hearted access to myself, my values, my needs, my feelings, and the choice that emerges clearly from there. Still, often enough I don’t have the inner resources to release the protection.

As luck would have it, I also became, myself, an authority figure for hundreds if not thousands of people who have studied with me. I have watched the dynamics of submission and rebellion from this side, too. I have seen people defer to me when I didn’t ask them to do so, and have felt the pain of separation, the loneliness I experience when people give their power away. I have also seen people respond to me in defiance and rebellion, react to what I didn’t say or do, just because I am in power.

I have been studying this now for years. Although I am still learning, I have already figured out some things. I know that much of the challenge revolves around asking for what we want and being asked by others. When power differences exist, which they do most of the time, even in apparently equal relationships, making requests, saying “yes,” and saying “no” are not simple matters.

Transcending the paradigm of submission and rebellion means asking for what we want without giving away our own power and without taking away the power of others. Children are usually trained to believe that the power resides with the parents. Accordingly, instead of asking for what they want, they tend to say “can I …”, a form of request that leaves the decision about what will happen with the parent. This is a form of submission. Rebellion, often in teenage years, though sometimes years earlier, takes the form of “I am going to …” without leaving any room for the parent to have a say. Freedom, for me, resides in the dialogic stance. “I would like to … and I want to know how you are about it.” Possible at any age.

Moving towards full choice also means being able to receive another’s request, however it is couched, in a way that maintains our own dignity, autonomy, and care. I continue to work on being able to say “no” without closing my heart in defiance, and on being able to say “yes” with full generosity and willingness even when someone is in a position of authority and from their perspective there is no room for dialogue. Choice is soft, empowered, intrinsic.

Such choice is at the heart of a radical consciousness that can see and understand without reacting; a consciousness that can stand up to authority without losing love. Radical consciousness means standing outside the authority structures, seeing them fully, understanding the effects they have on us and others, and knowing internally what matters to us. Sometimes what matters to us is at odds with the culture, and sometimes it is entirely within. Sometimes it aligns with what others want, and sometimes it makes us stand out in our naked vulnerability. Either way, we see, and know, and choose from within, continuing to liberate ourselves from our own blindness, fear, complicity, and mindlessness, and moving towards freedom and full human aliveness, until we become unstoppable.