Is Nonviolent Use of Force an Oxymoron?
The following is the beginning of an article I posted on Medium. It’s way too long for this site, and so I provide a link below it to continue reading if you are interested.
This article has been in the works consciously for at least three years, and, implicitly, since …
Apart and Together: Addressing Needs beyond Market Economies
“Each of us lives in and through an immense movement of the hands of other people. The hands of other people lift us from the womb. The hands of other people grow the food we eat, weave the clothes we wear, and build the shelters we inhabit. The hands of …
Sharing Impact for Liberation: Integrating Power and Love in Moments of Distress (part two)
In my last piece, I offered a general framing about the challenge and opportunity that the task of fully and lovingly sharing impact presents. In this post, I use one example to illustrate and deepen some of the points I named in the first piece. It’s based on an actual …
Sharing Impact for Liberation: Framing the Challenge (part one)
This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs …
Apart and Together: Responding to Opportunity in Extreme Times
I am one of 7,773,458,922 (and changing faster by the millisecond) who are affected by the Coronavirus eruption into our lives. 32,782,280 of us were born this year alone. These numbers are staggering beyond my imagination, and yet our fates are deeply intertwined.…
Can the Social Order Be Transformed through Personal Practice? The Case of Nonviolent Communication – Part 2
In September of last year, I posted the first part of this piece in response to an article questioning the potential of personal practices like mindfulness to transform, or even challenge, the existing social and economic structures of our social world. I explored three deep questions I have about why …
Liberation Lessons from the Desert: Choice, Togetherness, and Flow
On November 19th, three of us: Emma Quayle, Erin Mychele, and myself, embarked on a journey to a remote part of the California desert for four weeks of what I envisioned would be a restful, relaxing time enjoying the natural hot springs present there. I was longing for a spiritual …
Cuba: the Tragic Beacon of Imperfect Possibility
In 1992, at what is often known as the Rio Earth Summit, I was stunned to read that Cuba emerged as a leader in sustainable development. In 2006, I watched the Salud! movie about Cuba’s freely-accessible, community-based approach to medicine and its contribution to the health of untold number of …
Can the Social Order Be Transformed through Personal Practice? The Case of Nonviolent Communication
Some years ago, I was asked to write a review of a book about which I loved everything except the title: Toward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era.[1] What I most appreciated in that book was that psychologists were taking to task their own profession, delving into …
A Window into Structural Power Differences
Oakland has a long and fractious history of difficult relationships between the school district and the community. A few months ago, at an Oakland school board meeting, my friend and colleague Lisa Rothman spoke passionately about Convergent Facilitation as an alternative method that the district could use to make decisions …
