The judment discrimination points to the universal value of non-discrimimation, which can be understood in a positive way as ‘an awareness of the interconnectedness of all life”. Such a positive awareness can lead us to a care for all life, it can lead to a deep care for the impact of our actions.
The perception of separatedness, on the other hand, is a fundamental illusion, that can be very hard to overcome. And it can lead to a lot of suffering and violence. We can enter into an escalating spiral of hate and disconnection.
People sometimes compare other people with lower animals like vermine, worms or rodents. They can call someone a monster or special derogatory word. Dehumanization would be another jackal to paint the unfulfilled needs when we see this happen. Discriminative thinking, hearing and speaking can lead to horrific acts of physical and spiritual violence. Racist and homophobic crimes, hate crimes against women or minority groups in a society, even genocide. When this kind of thinking is expressed by leaders in a society, it may become a norm.
A blood-stalling example is the current political powerholder in Russia, V. Putin, speaking about Western elites. He says they have been filling their bellies with human flesh for centuries. Check it out with English translation below and notice how you feel, hearing this.
| There is a very strong desire among Western elites to freeze the current situation, this unjust state of things in international affairs. They have been accustomed to fill their bellies with human flesh for money for centuries, but they must understand that the ball of vampires is coming to an end. | В западных элитах очень сильно желание заморозить существующее положение несправедливое положение вещей международных делах. Они привыкли столетиями набивать брюхо человеческой плотью деньгами но они должны понять что бал вампиров заканчивается. |
It can be very challenging to connect with the impact when we hear such words for the first time. My first reactive judgment is – “This guy needs medical help. He is totally nuts.” – You can check inside, what your judgment is.
One challenge is that we habitually react to pain with discriminative thinking. If we do not stop and notice how we make someone wrong and judge the person, we will contribute to more violence on the planet. When we call out another person to be a racist, facist or some other label implying there is something wrong with them, we are joining everybody else in a dance of madness and suffering.
We can loose our ability to be compassionate – and we can recover it.
Hearing ourselves with Care (Discriminative Thinking – Part 1)
Marshall Rosenberg demonstrates how we can be in an inner dialogue with ourselves, hearing our judments not as attacks, but as vessels of our feelings that point to life-serving needs. To be there for oneself, with no other intention than to be present with care and openness.
In this case Marshall transforms his immediate, habitual judgment that a person is homophobic, a nazi or a bigot. He uses two puppets to support clarity who is saying what in that role play between two inner parts. One part is the compassionate listener – the giraffe. Another part is the reactive judge – the jackal.
Transcript – Hearing my Jackals about Haters with Care
Yeah, I have problems with a lot of people in this respect: people that say and do things in relationship to Jewish people, to black people, to Asian people, to gay people. And if you follow the same person around, you’ll see they’ll usually do it to just about every one of those groups, because it’s the same quality of thinking, that I think leads to that.
So what do I do?
Well, to tell you the truth, a lot of the time, I try to put myself as far away from such a person as I can, to be honest with you. I don’t always choose to go to war over it, because if I did that every time, I’d spend nothing else except my whole life, talking to people who make statements like that.
But … if this was important for me, to do something about it, then I would probably – for me – since that behavior gets to me an awful lot – so if I really wanted to talk to these people, I’d probably first go off to a giraffe and say:
“Hey, there’s some stuff going on in my school. Some people saying things about gay people and it’s driving me crazy, and I’m afraid if I don’t get my feelings under control, if I start to deal with them about it, I’m going to jackal the heck out of them, and make matters worse. That’s what’s going on in me right now.” –
“So you’re in a lot of pain. You’d really like to talk to these people, but you need to get your feelings under better control until you do it?” –
“Yeah, you know, it’s just, first I turn into a jackal. I start to label them and I start to say that these people are really Nazis, they’re bigots! And I know that that’s doing the same thing to them, that they’re doing. I’m classifying them. I’m turning them into objects. But by God – when I get angry, that’s just what I want to say. I want to call them names.” –
“Yeah – so that creates a lot of pain in you. You want to scream names at them and yet you feel discouraged, because you can see, that that’s just playing the same game that they’re playing?” –
“Yeah! My God, it really hurts, when I see how they ridicule and dehumanize people.” –
“Yeah, so it really hurts, it really hurts.” –
“Yeah. Giraffe, thanks a lot for that listening. I needed to talk about those feelings. Yeah, okay … I think, I got my pain under enough control to go and talk to that jackal.”
Giraffe Dance with a Hater (Discriminative Thinking – Part 2)
After welcoming his own judgments and listening to them with care, Marshall is ready to speak to a hater at the school and open a dialogue.
Notice the dance of honesty and empathy – as well as the stopping, when Marshall notices anger arising. All of this is beautifully demonstrated in this workshop roleplay in 1991.
Transcript – Dialogue with a Hater
Now I go over and talk to the jackal:
“Jackal, when I hear you making some of the comments you do about gay people, I get really hurt. I guess I’d like gay people to be treated with more respect than that.” –
“Oh are you gay yourself, my friend?”
Now I’m quiet as a giraffe. Now I want to jackal this person a bit. I want to give this person a little fist therapy. So I know that when I’m that angry at the person, I didn’t hear them. Because I know, if I really hear them, that won’t make me angry.
So I know. I use my anger. I don’t repress it, I use it. I use my anger to wake me up. I didn’t hear this person. But now nonetheless I’m angry, so I have to give myself some emergency first aid giraffe treatment. So I don’t allow this person to draw me into his game.
“So I’m sensing from the way you’re coming at me right now, that you really feel disgusted in relation to gay people.” –
“That’s a perversion, man! These people are sick. We ought to drive them out of this country!”
“Really, really, they get you angrier than hell, you really want to punish gay people?” –
“That’s right, man! It’s sick! I’m telling you, it’s sick behavior!” –
“You can’t stand it, even just seeing it. You really hate it.” –
“Yeah, man! It’s sick!” –
“Yeah … yeah … Is there anything more you need to tell me about that?” –
“No, you hear me, man! It’s just sick!” –
“I feel very sad that you have that going on within you. I would really like you to be better able to enjoy gay people.” –
“You trying to draw me into being gay, man?” –
“So that’s really frightening and aggravating for you, even at that assumption?” –
“Yeah, man! Because I tell you, I’m not sick.” –
“You want to be very clear, that you’re not gay.” –
“Yes.” –
“And I’m sad that I’m not able to make clear what I’m trying to say. I’m saying, I’m sad that you can’t see the beauty of gay people that I see, and I’d like you to spend less of your energy aggravating yourself, when really I think you could really enjoy them. So could you tell me what you hear me say, so I can see if I’m making myself clear?” –
“Yeah. You’re trying to say I’m supposed to be a gay lover.“ –
“I’m not trying to say that. I’m trying to say: I feel sad. I’d like you to share in the beauty of the people, that I see.” –
“Are you gay?” –
“I’ll be glad to answer that later, that’s another issue. Right now, could you tell me what you heard me say?” –
“Say it again!” –
“I’m saying I feel sad. I’d really like you to better enjoy the people – as I do. I really hate to see you missing out. And not just missing out, but tormenting yourself with your attitudes toward them. Could you just tell me what you hear me say, so I can see if I’m making any sense?” –
“You feel sad, yeah? Because you want me to be able to enjoy them, like you do.” –
“Thank you. I feel very grateful that you heard me.”
