> But I often see NVC abused as passive aggressive manipulation as opposed to open communication. That's because it is a passive aggressive framework. Violence

> But I often see NVC abused as passive aggressive manipulation as opposed to open communication. That's because it is a passive aggressive framework. Violence is primarily a physical concept, and made use as as a relational metaphor with varying degrees of internal consistency. For example when one is being "violent" in a communication, what is it that they are actually violating? If you're in violation of a narcissistic other's grandiose self-image, are you really being violent? Is saying stop to an abuser without 'I feel' statements being violent? Aren't I-feel statements at best saving your particular interaction but still enabling such behavior to be put upon the next guy who is not as savvy in such overly nice, "please don't hurt me" tactics? "Successful communication" frameworks are sold as virtuous, harmonious constructs, but they are really an invention of 21st century to enable getting minimally along with strangers you have to interact. It is a truncated version of human self-expression that helps you survive a day with narcissists of the hyper-individualized social spheres. They don't dare to put any demands of change on the other, and as such maintain the narcissists' arena. Real virtuousness would include the possibility of being courageous to say "hey, that's wrong!", a correction which many others who interact with the corrected would benefit. Unlike NVC it would have a skin-in-the-game, lets-be-better telos. In such a setting, pathological characters wouldn't bubble up to top, and people wouldn't need to constantly pay the NVC tax. If you've seen the movie A Quiet Place, it perfectly exemplifies this. People don't coordinate and speak up to throw the monsters off, they just auto-censor themselves more than the other guy, and in the end reduced to bare survival.