From Chapter 39: Healing and Reconciliation
Undoing Social Conditioning That Fosters Conflict
“Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.”
~ Bell Hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
The difficult truth is that we have been socially conditioned to dehumanize and disparage each other, and this social programming serves structures of control, colonialism, or “empire,” as some people call it. We have been actively influenced for generations to use strategies of dominance and submission, imposing power over and power under relationships, rather than engaging in the far more respectful dynamic of power with. Respect cannot flourish in unbalanced power dynamics; “power with” is a pre-requisite to harmonious relationships.
This topic of social conditioning contains far more than can be adequately addressed here. However, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication, wrote a comprehensive introductory book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, which delves deeply into this meaty and important issue.
In chapter 2, Marshall introduces a topic which he calls “communication that blocks compassion.” In Marshall’s own words: