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ug#603 - Ancient Languages of The Future 2 (Piraha, Non-Violent Communication)

Robin Upton | 04.01.2013 21:28 | Analysis | Culture | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

A sequel to last week's show on human communication. We hear the rest of the talk by Professor Daniel Everett on 'Language, Culture and Being Human', with some Q&A. We hear more on NVC from Marshall Rosenberg.

ug603-hour1mix.mp3 - mp3 27M

ug603-hour2mix.mp3 - mp3 27M


We start our first hour with the conclusion of Daniel Everett's 2012 talk which we started last week. He continues his talk on 'Language, Culture and Being Human', on the connections between biology, culture and language. He concludes by noting mankind's huge (an biologically unexplained) capacity for altruism. Then we hear an edited Q&A section.

As before we conclude with Marshall Rosenberg, the psychologist and negotiator who developed NVC as a method to help resolve conflicts peacefully. He continues his teaching about how to 'speak giraffe', and he tells his audience never to hear the thoughts of jackals, but instead to focus on what their partner needs and what is alive in them.

Echoing Alfie Kohn, Rosenberg warns against trying to control other people such as through rewards or punishments, but instead recommends just empathizing with what is alive in them, as well of course as being alert to what is alive in us. When people work together in this way, he claims, meeting everyone's needs is a simple matter which arises naturally. Like several guests on this show, Rosenberg's thinking seems to exactly reverse some elements of traditional thinking, yet it has its own logic and he cites powerful examples from his own experience as a peacemaker to back it up. Explaining that whatever has happened to us, we are ultimately responsible for our on psychological pain, he cites an example from Rwanda. Some whose families had been slaughtered burned with a desire for revenge, while others felt no desire to repeat the atrocity, but burned with a passion to make sure that no one else suffers such a fate. He concludes by teaching how to say 'Thank You' in 'giraffe speak'.

Robin Upton
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