Nonviolent Communication/Compassionate Giving

= Introduction =

Marshall Rosenberg strongly believes it is human nature to care for each other. Because of this, he spent most of his life both asking why it is that people hurt other people, and asking how some people stay compassionate, even when it is very, very hard.

As a child, Marshall moved to Detroit in 1943, right before a local riot erupted. It had to do with skin color. His family stayed locked in their home for three days, for safety. Outside of his doors, over forty people were killed on the streets.

After this, Marshall began attending the local school, and found names could also create conflict. A couple of his new peers heard his name called in class ("Rosenberg"). They became angry and asked him harshly, "Are you a kike?" The word "kike" was new to Marshall. It is an insult intended for Jews. The children found him later and attacked him, leaving him very hurt, laying on the ground.

Those experiences began Marshall's search both for the explanation of violence, and for the method people use to stay caring: the two questions mentioned earlier. Some people can feel caring, even when things are going incredibly badly. A woman named Etty Hillesum was incarcerated in a German concentration camp, and it is people like her that Marshall thinks about. She published a diary about this:

"I am not easily frightened. Not because I am brave but because I know that I am dealing with human beings, and that I must try as hard as I can to understand everything that anyone ever does. And that was the real import of this morning: not that a disgruntled young Gestapo officer yelled at me, but that I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion, and would have liked to ask, 'Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?'  Yes, he looked harassed and driven, sullen and weak.  I should have liked to start treating him there and then, for I know that pitiful young men like that are dangerous as soon as they are let loose on mankind."

- Etty Hillesum

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