Today I’m writing not about events but topics that have gone through my head a lot, gradually accumulating some (I hope) clearer thinking.

I think I’ve found a good distinction between violence and force. My recollection of the Nonviolent Communication definition of violence is that it’s any action taken that is done with disregard for another person’s needs. Force is usually framed within “protective force,” and the usual example is of knocking down someone who doesn’t know they are headed into traffic, in order to stop them from being harmed much worse. This is a pretty good rough definition; my intention is to add to its nuances rather than provide some wholly new idea.

I’m using an empirical kind of definition, simply put: what is someone’s response to ouch? I came on this idea while A– and I were watching World Combat League a couple of weeks ago, critiquing the technique and sportsmanship of the competitors. (WCL is a martial arts team competition with some basic rules to prevent serious injury and promote short, action-filled bouts.) It was easy for us to agree on who showed concern for the other person on the mat, and (by degrees) who showed contempt, glorying in their enemy’s suffering. Concern or its lack was clearly evident in a fighter’s posture after an opponent was knocked to the mat. One pair even embraced after a long, well-matched bout. From this, I think it is clear that even force with potential to do serious injury, and without a protective intention as such, can be nonviolent, meeting needs for accomplishment, learning, play, and of course connection, among many others. Martial arts, as A– has said, can be a very intimate exercise. Certainly willingly exposing yourself to injury is about as vulnerable as it gets.

Then there is verbal sparring: sarcasm, trash-talking, “your mama” contests, and so on. I think here it’s also possible to tell when harm is intended, but it can be a lot more difficult to make that call, especially in the heat of the moment, or with relative strangers. Add to this the intellectual machismo that often goes with very verbally talented people, where “ouch” is a show of despicable weakness, and a lot of pain and confusion seems practically inevitable.

Even so, I have many fond memories of times when really terrible-sounding language was used in fun and everyone involved was positively joyful about it. My favourite example is a game of Jungle Speed I played at the December 2007 NVC International Intensive Training with about six or seven other people from all walks of life and a variety of different national backgrounds. The trash-talk, started by me, was ferocious, the most intense ever when playing the game, and it has a tradition of trash-talk, so that’s saying something. People’s abilities or lack thereof were roundly and volubly mocked, tasteless stereotypes about Germany, Russia, Canada, and the USA were indulged in, and physical intimidation was an element of play as well. It was unbelievably fun and would certainly have been less fun without that aspect. (Jungle Speed is a seemingly very intellectual game of pattern matching, except for the element of snatching a playing piece from the center of the table to win contests–I suspect this is what brings out the inner ape so marvelously.) The game went for many rounds, late into the night, and everyone was laughing uproariously.

The big guy who tended to position his hand so that it looked like you’d lose an arm if you tried to grab the totem before he did explained it well the next morning in our last group meeting. He reflected that the trash-talk was itself a kind of proof of container we created by our mutual respect and intimacy (very high at the end of the intensive) and its robustness and authenticity. We knew we were safe, thus we could really go all out with our “jackal talk,” something normally regarded as dangerous. And as we went all-out, and hurt didn’t result, we could tell that the judgment of safety was correct. I don’t recall any “ouch” at that table; there might have been some yellow lights, perhaps.

I guess my point is, force is another way by which we know each other and the world we live in. It is praiseworthy or regrettable not in itself but by what it does with different kinds of feedback. This is like the tool to know whether something is a request or a demand: how does the requester respond to “no?” If they respond with threats or punishment, it’s a demand. So someone who responds to “ouch” with no concern, or accuses the person trying to show their hurt of being a wimp, stupid, over-emotional, or whatever, that seems like a big flat clue that you’re looking at aggression and not play. (I’m also aware that some people use vulnerability as a weapon–indeed, it’s a tactic I’ve used myself–yet I don’t see how responding even to such tactics with contempt is really helpful to anyone.) At its best, force both physical and not represents an avenue of great intimacy and surprising (for most) opportunities to express caring and love, for others and oneself (consider how you respond to “ouch” internally, regardless of where the hurt seems to originate).

I’ve also had opportunity while here to think about conflict and what that means to various people. I like to gripe about the “pneumatic analogy” so I’ll so some of that here. This idea if some kind of emotional steam engine is very popular in my world. Where it comes to conflict there’s an idea of “pressure” building up, and a conflict is a place where that pressure is “let off” or it may even “explode.” I don’t find this set of options very appealing; I want conflict to be more of an exchange, or ideally even a kind of collaboration.

So I’m thinking of it in terms of music, which has a bigger vocabulary. Harmony, disharmony, dissonance, tension, resolution, and so on. There’s pretty good agreement out there that music accommodates different styles, and I think that translates to a possible tolerance for different kinds of conflict and ways to work skillfully with it. And tension in music isn’t anathema–it’s actually necessary for an interesting piece. Thus it isn’t a problem that needs to be fixed or avoided–it’s the condition you’re actually playing with to get a desired effect.

I don’t mean to minimize the tragedies of really intense conflicts like war, abuse, suppression of dissent, and so on. “Disharmony” is a pretty inadequate description of the terrible pain suffered by refugees of wars, soldiers on both sides of a conflict, the grieving families left behind by murder. I just think it’s preferable to the idea of “letting off steam. No big conclusion on this one, it’s a less-developed thought than the stuff above on force & violence.

I’m interested in feedback on how these thoughts strike people, whether they are satisfying ways of describing the world or lacking in some way. So please comment. Thanks!