4 ms·

I went through a phase where I was pretty interested in NVC. I learned some useful things mostly have to do with the distinction between observation and evaluat

I went through a phase where I was pretty interested in NVC. I learned some useful things mostly have to do with the distinction between observation and evaluation and emotion and thought. However, I feel the system can't justify its particular choice of words used to describe universal needs and also can't justify the notion that those concepts would apply in any situation. I remember seeing Marshall Rosenberg speak in person once at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. During the question and answer part, one person asked where the universal needs came from and why Rosenberg chose those particular needs instead of others. At first, he acted confused by the question. Then he paused for a moment and finally answered, "I'm not sure. God I suppose. The universe. Whatever you want to call it." What I felt he had done, perhaps unintentionally, in that moment, was to give every person in the room a method to make righteous requests with NVC, not just requests. It made me realize that there's easily a debate to be had about what needs apply in what situation. A person might not be reasonable in suggesting that their needs aren't being met and may develop a really wrong attitude on top of that in viewing their needs as universal (i.e. being righteous and requiring no justification).

ehsanu1 8y ago
Based on that answer, and given the initial confusion, I can't help but speculate that Marshall took the question to literally mean "where do needs originate", to which the obvious literal answer is a creator or the Universe. I think the question was meant to understand how the list of needs was determined, to which I would imagine Rosenberg may have had a different answer. I can't know this for sure, but my understanding is that these needs were identified via some sort of introspection, and probably seemed somewhat obvious to Marshall. This is clearly subjective in some way, but it does seem that most humans do share many of the same needs, so I'm not sure that your criticism holds much weight. The idea behind calling needs universal is to ensure we are talking about the same kinds of needs. eg. I don't need you to accept whatever I do and say it's ok no matter what. But I do need autonomy. The need should not reference specific people, things, times or situations. It should be very general, which helps frame the conversation in a less combative way and makes sure we are talking about the underlying values that motivate all our actions. It's very hard for me to try to think of something that follows those rules of generality and that may be characterized as a need by someone, but is not a real universal need and is overly righteous. Could you help me by giving an example of such a mis-characterized need?

ehsanu1 8y ago

Based on that answer, and given the initial confusion, I can't help but speculate that Marshall took the question to literally mean "where do needs originate", to which the obvious literal answer is a creator or the Universe. I think the question was meant to understand how the list of needs was determined, to which I would imagine Rosenberg may have had a different answer. I can't know this for sure, but my understanding is that these needs were identified via some sort of introspection, and probably seemed somewhat obvious to Marshall. This is clearly subjective in some way, but it does seem that most humans do share many of the same needs, so I'm not sure that your criticism holds much weight. The idea behind calling needs universal is to ensure we are talking about the same kinds of needs. eg. I don't need you to accept whatever I do and say it's ok no matter what. But I do need autonomy. The need should not reference specific people, things, times or situations. It should be very general, which helps frame the conversation in a less combative way and makes sure we are talking about the underlying values that motivate all our actions. It's very hard for me to try to think of something that follows those rules of generality and that may be characterized as a need by someone, but is not a real universal need and is overly righteous. Could you help me by giving an example of such a mis-characterized need?