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Thursday, May 9, 2019

Stranger in a Strange Land

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stranger in a Strange Land Cover.jpg
Hardcover, showing Rodin's sculpture,
Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone
AuthorRobert A. Heinlein
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherG. P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date
June 1, 1961
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages408 (208,018 words)
ISBN978-0-441-79034-0

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and eventual transformation of—Terran culture.

The title "Stranger in a Strange Land" is an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the novel's working title was The Heretic.

In 1991, three years after Heinlein's death, his widow, Virginia Heinlein, arranged to have the original unedited manuscript published. Critics disagree about which version is superior, though Heinlein preferred the original manuscript and described the heavily edited version as "telegraphese".

In 2012, the US Library of Congress named it one of 88 "Books that Shaped America".

Plot

The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to, and understanding of, humans and their culture. It is set in a post-Third World War United States, where organized religions are politically powerful. There is a World Federation of Free Nations, including the demilitarized U.S., with a world government supported by Special Service troops. 

A manned expedition is mounted to visit the planet Mars, but all contact is lost after landing. A second expedition 25 years later finds a single survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Smith was born on the spacecraft and was raised entirely by the Martians. He is ordered by the Martians to accompany the returning expedition.

Because Smith is unaccustomed to the conditions on Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital, where having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff only. Seeing this restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman eludes the guards and goes in to see Smith. By sharing a glass of water with him, she inadvertently becomes his first female "water brother", considered a profound relationship by the Martians. 

Gillian tells her lover, reporter Ben Caxton, about her experience with Smith. Ben explains that as heir to the entire exploration party, Smith is extremely wealthy, and following a legal precedent set during the colonisation of the Moon, he could be considered owner of Mars itself. His arrival on Earth has prompted a political power struggle that puts his life in danger. Ben persuades her to bug Smith's room and then publishes stories to bait the government into releasing him. Ben is seized by the government, and Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her. When government agents catch up with them, Smith makes the agents vanish, then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's earlier suggestion, conveys Smith to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer. 

Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence, coupled with a childlike naïveté. When Harshaw tries to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as "one who groks", which includes every extant organism. This leads him to express the Martian concept of life as the phrase "Thou art God", although he knows this is a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, while the idea of an afterlife is a fact he takes for granted because Martian society is directed by "Old Ones", the spirits of Martians who have "discorporated". It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead, in a rite similar to Holy Communion. Eventually, Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet already inhabited by intelligent life.

Still inexhaustibly wealthy, and now free to travel, Smith becomes a celebrity and is feted by the Earth's elite. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch wherein sexuality, gambling, alcohol consumption, and similar activities are allowed, even encouraged, and only considered "sinning" when not under church auspices. The Church of the New Revelation is organized in a complexity of initiatory levels: an outer circle, open to the public; a middle circle of ordinary members who support the church financially; and an inner circle of the "eternally saved" — attractive, highly sexed men and women, who serve as clergy and recruit new members. The Church owns many politicians and takes violent action against those who oppose it. Smith also has a brief career as a magician in a carnival, where he and Gillian befriend the show's tattooed lady, an "eternally saved" Fosterite named Patricia Paiwonski.

Eventually, Smith starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All Worlds" combining elements of the Fosterite cult (especially the sexual aspects) with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and thus acquire psychokinetic abilities. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy", and the church building is destroyed; but unknown to the public, Smith's followers teleport to safety. Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has been bequeathed to the Church. With that wealth and their new abilities, Church members will be able to re-organize human societies and cultures. Eventually, those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die out, leaving Homo superior. Incidentally, this may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who were responsible for the destruction of the fifth planet, eons ago. 

Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites. From the afterlife, he speaks briefly to grief-stricken Jubal, to dissuade him from suicide. Having consumed a small portion of Smith's remains in keeping with Martian custom, Jubal and some of the Church members return to Jubal's home to regroup and prepare for their new evangelical role founding congregations. Meanwhile, Smith re-appears in the afterlife to replace the Fosterites' eponymous founder, amid hints that Smith was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael.

Characters

Heinlein named his main character "Smith" because of a speech he made at a science fiction convention regarding the unpronounceable names assigned to extraterrestrials. After describing the importance of establishing a dramatic difference between humans and aliens, Heinlein concluded, "Besides, whoever heard of a Martian named Smith?" ("A Martian Named Smith" was both Heinlein's working title for the book and the name of the screenplay started by Harshaw at the end). The title Stranger In a Strange Land is taken from the King James Version of Exodus 2:22, "And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land".

In the preface to the uncut, original version of the book re-issued in 1991, Heinlein's widow, Virginia, wrote: "The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were carefully selected: Jubal means 'the father of all,' Michael stands for 'Who is like God?'".
  • Valentine Michael Smith — known as Michael Smith or "Mike"; the "Man from Mars", raised on Mars in the interval between the landing of his parents' ship, the Envoy, and arrival of the second expedition, the Champion; is about 20 years old when the Champion arrives and brings him to Earth.
  • Gillian (Jill) Boardman — a nurse at Bethesda Hospital who sneaks Mike out of government custody; she plays a key role in introducing him to human culture and becomes one of his closest confidantes and a central figure in the Church of All Worlds, which Mike develops.
  • Ben Caxton — an early love interest of Jill's, and an investigative journalist (Jill sees him as of the "lippmann" or, political, rather than the "winchell", or celebrity gossip inclination), who masterminds Mike's initial freedom from custody; he joins Mike's inner circle but remains somewhat skeptical, at first, of the social order it develops.
  • Jubal Harshaw — a popular writer, lawyer, and doctor, now semi-retired to a house in the Pocono Mountains; as an influential but reclusive public figure, he provides pivotal support for Mike's independence and a safe haven for him; elderly but in good health, he serves as a father figure for the inner circle while keeping a suspicious distance from it.
  • Anne, Miriam, Dorcas — Harshaw's three personal/professional secretaries, who live with him and take turns as his "front", responding to his instructions; Anne is certified as a Fair Witness, empowered to provide objective legal testimony about events she witnesses; all three become early acolytes of Michael's church.
  • Duke, Larry – Handymen who work for Harshaw and live in his estate; they also become central members of the church.
  • Dr. "Stinky" Mahmoud — a semanticist and the second human (after Mike) to gain a working knowledge of the Martian language, though he does not "grok" the language; becomes a member of the church while retaining his Muslim faith.
  • Patty Paiwonski – a "tattooed lady" and snake handler at the circus Mike and Jill join for a time; she has ties to the Fosterite church, which she retains as a member of Mike's inner circle.
  • Joseph Douglas — Secretary-General of the Federation of Free States, which has evolved indirectly from the United Nations into a true world government.
  • Alice Douglas — (sometimes called "Agnes"), Joe Douglas' wife. As the First Lady, she manipulates her husband, making major economic, political, and staffing decisions. She frequently consults astrologer Becky Vesant for major decisions.
  • Foster — the founder of the Church of the New Revelation (Fosterite); now existing as an archangel.
  • Digby — Foster's successor as head of the Fosterite Church; he becomes an archangel under Foster after Mike "discorporates" him.

Reception

Heinlein's deliberately provocative book generated considerable controversy. The free love and commune living aspects of the Church of All Worlds led to the book's exclusion from school reading lists. After it was rumored to be associated with Charles Manson, it was removed from school libraries as well. 

Writing in The New York Times, Orville Prescott received the novel caustically, describing it as a "disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism"; he characterized Stranger in a Strange Land as "puerile and ludicrous", saying "when a non-stop orgy is combined with a lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of readers". Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale rated the novel 3.5 stars out of five, saying "the book's shortcomings lie not so much in its emancipation as in the fact that Heinlein has bitten off too large a chewing portion".

Despite such reviews, Stranger in a Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review's best-seller list. In 2012, it was included in a Library of Congress exhibition of "Books That Shaped America".

Development

Heinlein got the idea for the novel when he and his wife Virginia were brainstorming one evening in 1948. She suggested a new version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894), but with a child raised by Martians instead of wolves. He decided to go further with the idea and worked on the story on and off for more than a decade. His editors at Putnam then required him to cut its 220,000-word length down to 160,000 words before publication. 

Originally titled The Heretic, the book was written in part as a deliberate attempt to challenge social mores. In the course of the story, Heinlein uses Smith's open-mindedness to reevaluate such institutions as religion, money, monogamy, and the fear of death. Heinlein completed writing it ten years after he had plotted it out in detail. He later wrote, "I had been in no hurry to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until the public mores changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right."

The book was dedicated in part to science fiction author Philip José Farmer, who had explored sexual themes in works such as The Lovers (1952). It was also influenced by the satiric fantasies of James Branch Cabell.

Heinlein was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: "I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers ... It is an invitation to think – not to believe."

Influence

The book significantly influenced modern culture in a variety of ways.

Church of All Worlds

A central element of the second half of the novel is the religious movement founded by Smith, the "Church of All Worlds", an initiatory mystery religion blending elements of paganism and revivalism, with psychic training and instruction in the Martian language. In 1968, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan religious organization modeled in many ways after the fictional organization in the novel. This spiritual path included several ideas from the book, including polyamory, non-mainstream family structures, social libertarianism, water-sharing rituals, an acceptance of all religious paths by a single tradition, and the use of several terms such as "grok", "Thou art God", and "Never Thirst". Though Heinlein was neither a member nor a promoter of the Church, it was formed including frequent correspondence between Zell and Heinlein, and Heinlein was a paid subscriber to the Church's magazine Green Egg. This Church still exists as a 501(c)(3) recognized religious organization incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and it remains an active part of the neopagan community today.

Grok

The word "grok", coined in the novel, made its way into the English language. In Heinlein's invented Martian language, "grok" literally means "to drink" and figuratively means "to comprehend", "to love", and "to be one with". This word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans, hippies, and later computer programmers and hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

Fair Witness

The profession of Fair Witness, invented for the novel, has been cited in such varied contexts as environmentalism, psychology, technology, digital signatures, and science, as well as books on leadership and Sufism. A Fair Witness is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what is seen and heard, making no extrapolations or assumptions. When in the Fair Witness uniform of a white robe, they are presumed to be observing and opining in their professional capacity. Works that refer to the Fair Witness emphasize the profession's impartiality, integrity, objectivity, and reliability.

Waterbed

Stranger in a Strange Land contains an early description of the waterbed, an invention that made its real-world debut in 1968. Charles Hall, who brought a waterbed design to the United States Patent Office, was refused a patent on the grounds that Heinlein's descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land and another novel, Double Star (1956), constituted prior art.

In popular culture

  • Heinlein's novella Lost Legacy (1941) lends its theme, and possibly some characters, to Stranger in a Strange Land. In a relevant part of the story, Joan Freeman is described as feeling like "a stranger in a strange land".
  • The Police released an Andy Summers-penned song titled "Friends", as the B-side to their hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me" (1980), that referenced the novel. Summers claimed that it "was about eating your friends, or 'grocking' them as [Stranger in a Strange Land] put it".
  • Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire" (1989) mentions the novel.
  • The Byrds' song "Triad"" (1967), a song about polyamory, uses the term "water brother" from the novel.

TV series

In November 2016, Syfy announced plans to develop a TV series based on the novel with Paramount Television and Universal Cable Productions co-producing the series.

Publication history

Two major versions of this book exist:
  • The 1961 version which, at the publisher's request, Heinlein cut by 25% in length. Approximately 60,000 words were removed from the original manuscript, including some sharp criticism of American attitudes toward sex and religion. The book was marketed to a mainstream readership, and was the first science fiction novel to be listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for fiction. By 1997, over 100,000 copies of the hardback edition had been sold along with nearly five million copies of the paperback. None of his later novels would match this level of success.
  • The 1991 version, retrieved from Heinlein's archives in the University of California, Santa Cruz, Special Collections Department by Heinlein's widow, Virginia, and published posthumously, which reproduces the original manuscript and restores all cuts. It came about because in 1989, Virginia renewed the copyright to Stranger and cancelled the existing publication contracts in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976. Both Heinlein's agent and his publisher (which had new senior editors) agreed that the uncut version was better: readers are used to longer books, and what was seen as objectionable in 1961 was no longer so 30 years later.
Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in 1972 that he thought his shorter, edited version was better. He wrote, "SISL was never censored by anyone in any fashion. The first draft was nearly twice as long as the published version. I cut it myself to bring it down to a commercial length. But I did not leave out anything of any importance; I simply trimmed all possible excess verbiage. Perhaps you have noticed that it reads "fast" despite its length; that is why. ... The original, longest version of SISL ... is really not worth your trouble, as it is the same story throughout—simply not as well told. With it is the brushpenned version which shows exactly what was cut out—nothing worth reading, that is. I learned to write for pulp magazines, in which one was paid by the yard rather than by the package; it was not until I started writing for the Saturday Evening Post that I learned the virtue of brevity."

Additionally, since Heinlein added material while he was editing the manuscript for the commercial release, the 1991 publication of the original manuscript is missing some material that was in the novel when it was first published.

Many editions exist:
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Intuition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A phrenological mapping of the brain – phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain
 
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired. Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.

The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late middle English word intuit, "to contemplate".

Philosophy

Both Eastern and Western philosophers have studied the concept in great detail. Philosophy of mind deals with the concept of intuition.

Eastern philosophy

In the East intuition is mostly intertwined with religion and spirituality, and various meanings exist from different religious texts.

Hinduism

In Hinduism various attempts have been made to interpret the Vedic and other esoteric texts. 

For Sri Aurobindo intuition comes under the realms of knowledge by identity; he describes the psychological plane in humans (often referred to as mana in sanskrit) having two arbitrary natures, the first being imprinting of psychological experiences which is constructed through sensory information (mind seeking to become aware of external world). The second nature being the action when it seeks to be aware of itself, resulting in humans being aware of their existence or aware of being angry & aware of other emotions. He terms this second nature as knowledge by identity. He finds that at present as the result of evolution the mind has accustomed itself to depend upon certain physiological functioning and their reactions as its normal means of entering into relations with the outer material world. As a result, when we seek to know about the external world the dominant habit is through arriving at truths about things via what our senses convey to us. However, knowledge by identity, which we currently only give the awareness of human beings' existence, can be extended further to outside of ourselves resulting in intuitive knowledge.

He finds this intuitive knowledge was common to older humans (Vedic) and later was taken over by reason which currently organises our perception, thoughts and actions resulting from Vedic to metaphysical philosophy and later to experimental science. He finds that this process, which seems to be decent, is actually a circle of progress, as a lower faculty is being pushed to take up as much from a higher way of working. He finds when self-awareness in the mind is applied to one's self and the outer (other) -self, results in luminous self-manifesting identity; the reason also converts itself into the form of the self-luminous intuitional knowledge.

Osho believed consciousness of human beings to be in increasing order from basic animal instincts to intelligence and intuition, and humans being constantly living in that conscious state often moving between these states depending on their affinity. He also suggests living in the state of intuition is one of the ultimate aims of humanity.

Advaita vedanta (a school of thought) takes intuition to be an experience through which one can come in contact with an experience Brahman.

Buddhism

Buddhism finds intuition to be a faculty in the mind of immediate knowledge and puts the term intuition beyond the mental process of conscious thinking, as the conscious thought cannot necessarily access subconscious information, or render such information into a communicable form. In Zen Buddhism various techniques have been developed to help develop one's intuitive capability, such as koans – the resolving of which leads to states of minor enlightenment (satori). In parts of Zen Buddhism intuition is deemed a mental state between the Universal mind and one's individual, discriminating mind.

Islam

In Islam there are various scholars with varied interpretations of intuition (often termed as hadas (Arabic: حدس), hitting correctly on a mark), sometimes relating the ability of having intuitive knowledge to prophethood. Siháb al Din-al Suhrawadi, in his book Philosophy Of Illumination (ishraq), finds that intuition is a knowledge acquired through illumination and is mystical in nature and also suggests mystical contemplation (mushahada) on this to bring about correct judgments. while Ibn Sīnā finds the ability of having intuition as a "prophetic capacity" and terms it as a knowledge obtained without intentionally acquiring it. He finds that regular knowledge is based on imitation while intuitive knowledge is based on intellectual certitude.

Western philosophy

In the West, intuition does not appear as a separate field of study, and early mentions and definitions can be traced back to Plato. In his book Republic he tries to define intuition as a fundamental capacity of human reason to comprehend the true nature of reality. In his works Meno and Phaedo, he describes intuition as a pre-existing knowledge residing in the "soul of eternity", and a phenomenon by which one becomes conscious of pre-existing knowledge. He provides an example of mathematical truths, and posits that they are not arrived at by reason. He argues that these truths are accessed using a knowledge already present in a dormant form and accessible to our intuitive capacity. This concept by Plato is also sometimes referred to as anamnesis. The study was later continued by his followers.

In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes refers to an intuition as a pre-existing knowledge gained through rational reasoning or discovering truth through contemplation. This definition is commonly referred to as rational intuition. Later philosophers, such as Hume, have more ambiguous interpretations of intuition. Hume claims intuition is a recognition of relationships (relation of time, place, and causation) while he states that "the resemblance" (recognition of relations) "will strike the eye" (which would not require further examination) but goes on to state, "or rather in mind"—attributing intuition to power of mind, contradicting the theory of empiricism.

Immanuel Kant finds intuition is thought of as basic sensory information provided by the cognitive faculty of sensibility (equivalent to what might loosely be called perception). Kant held that our mind casts all of our external intuitions in the form of space, and all of our internal intuitions (memory, thought) in the form of time. Intuitionism is a position advanced by Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer in philosophy of mathematics derived from Kant's claim that all mathematical knowledge is knowledge of the pure forms of the intuition—that is, intuition that is not empirical. Intuitionistic logic was devised by Arend Heyting to accommodate this position (and has been adopted by other forms of constructivism in general). It is characterized by rejecting the law of excluded middle: as a consequence it does not in general accept rules such as double negation elimination and the use of reductio ad absurdum to prove the existence of something.

Intuitions are customarily appealed to independently of any particular theory of how intuitions provide evidence for claims, and there are divergent accounts of what sort of mental state intuitions are, ranging from mere spontaneous judgment to a special presentation of a necessary truth. In recent years a number of philosophers, especially George Bealer have tried to defend appeals to intuition against Quinean doubts about conceptual analysis. A different challenge to appeals to intuition has recently come from experimental philosophers, who argue that appeals to intuition must be informed by the methods of social science.

The metaphilosophical assumption that philosophy depends on intuitions has recently been challenged by some philosophers. Timothy Williamson has argued that intuition plays no special role in philosophy practice, and that skepticism about intuition cannot be meaningfully separated from a general skepticism about judgment. On this view, there are no qualitative differences between the methods of philosophy and common sense, the sciences or mathematics.

Psychology

Freud

According to Sigmund Freud, knowledge could only be attained through the intellectual manipulation of carefully made observations and rejected any other means of acquiring knowledge such as intuition, and his findings could have been an analytic turn of his mind towards the subject.

Jung

In Carl Jung's theory of the ego, described in 1916 in Psychological Types, intuition is an "irrational function", opposed most directly by sensation, and opposed less strongly by the "rational functions" of thinking and feeling. Jung defined intuition as "perception via the unconscious": using sense-perception only as a starting point, to bring forth ideas, images, possibilities, ways out of a blocked situation, by a process that is mostly unconscious.

Jung said that a person in whom intuition is dominant, an "intuitive type", acts not on the basis of rational judgment but on sheer intensity of perception. An extraverted intuitive type, "the natural champion of all minorities with a future", orients to new and promising but unproven possibilities, often leaving to chase after a new possibility before old ventures have borne fruit, oblivious to his or her own welfare in the constant pursuit of change. An introverted intuitive type orients by images from the unconscious, ever exploring the psychic world of the archetypes, seeking to perceive the meaning of events, but often having no interest in playing a role in those events and not seeing any connection between the contents of the psychic world and him- or herself. Jung thought that extraverted intuitive types were likely entrepreneurs, speculators, cultural revolutionaries, often undone by a desire to escape every situation before it becomes settled and constraining—even repeatedly leaving lovers for the sake of new romantic possibilities. His introverted intuitive types were likely mystics, prophets, or cranks, struggling with a tension between protecting their visions from influence by others and making their ideas comprehensible and reasonably persuasive to others—a necessity for those visions to bear real fruit.

Modern psychology

In more-recent psychology, intuition can encompass the ability to know valid solutions to problems and decision making. For example, the recognition primed decision (RPD) model explains how people can make relatively fast decisions without having to compare options. Gary Klein found that under time pressure, high stakes, and changing parameters, experts used their base of experience to identify similar situations and intuitively choose feasible solutions. Thus, the RPD model is a blend of intuition and analysis. The intuition is the pattern-matching process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. The analysis is the mental simulation, a conscious and deliberate review of the courses of action.

Instinct is often misinterpreted as intuition and its reliability considered to be dependent on past knowledge and occurrences in a specific area. For example, someone who has had more experiences with children will tend to have a better instinct about what they should do in certain situations with them. This is not to say that one with a great amount of experience is always going to have an accurate intuition.

Intuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred. In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of non-intuitive subjects.

According to the works of Daniel Kahneman, intuition is the ability to automatically generate solutions without long logical arguments or evidence.

Colloquial usage

Intuition, as a gut feeling based on experience, has been found to be useful for business leaders for making judgement about people, culture and strategy. Law enforcement officers often claim to observe suspects and immediately "know" that they possess a weapon or illicit narcotic substances, which could also be action of instincts. Often unable to articulate why they reacted or what prompted them at the time of the event, they sometimes retrospectively can plot their actions based upon what had been clear and present danger signals. Such examples liken intuition to "gut feelings" and when viable illustrate preconscious activity.

Honours

Intuition Peak in Antarctica is so named "in appreciation of the role of scientific intuition for the advancement of human knowledge."
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Nonviolent Communication

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marshall Rosenberg 2005
 
Marshall Rosenberg lecturing in a Nonviolent Communication workshop (1990)
 
Nonviolent Communication (abbreviated NVC, also called Compassionate Communication or Collaborative Communication) is an approach to nonviolent living developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s.

At its heart is a belief all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy. We only resort to violence or behavior harmful to others when we do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs.

Habits of thinking and speaking leading to use of violence (social, psychological and physical) are learned through culture. NVC theory supposes all human behavior stems from attempts to meet universal human needs. The needs are never in conflict. Rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes people identify shared needs, revealed by the thoughts and feelings surrounding these needs, and collaborate to develop strategies and make requests of each other to meet each other's needs. 

The result is interpersonal harmony and learning for future cooperation.

NVC supports change on three interconnected levels: within self, between others, and within groups and social systems. NVC greatest impact has been in personal development, relationships, and social change. 

NVC is ostensibly taught as a process of interpersonal communication designed to improve compassionate connection to others. However, due to its far-reaching impact, has many beneficial "side effects" as a spiritual practice, as a set of values, as parenting Best Practices, as a tool for social change, as a mediation tool, as an educational orientation, and as a worldview.

Applications

NVC has been applied in organizational and business settings, in parenting, in education, in mediation, in psychotherapy, in healthcare, in addressing eating issues, in justice, and as a basis for a children's book, among other contexts. 

Rosenberg related ways he used Nonviolent Communication in peace programs in conflict zones including Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Serbia, Croatia, Ireland, and the Middle East including the disputed West Bank.

History and development

According to a biography of Rosenberg on the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) website, Nonviolent Communication training evolved from his search for a way to rapidly disseminate peacemaking skills. CNVC says that NVC emerged from work he was doing with civil rights activists in the early 1960s, and that during this period he also mediated between rioting students and college administrators, and worked to peacefully desegregate public schools in long-segregated regions.

A master's thesis by Marion Little (2008) says that the roots of the NVC model developed in the late 1960s, when Rosenberg was working on racial integration in schools and organizations in the Southern United States. The earliest version of the model (observations, feelings, and action-oriented wants) was part of a training manual Rosenberg prepared in 1972. The model had evolved to its present form (observations, feelings, needs and requests) by 1992. The dialog between Rosenberg and NVC colleagues and trainers continued to influence the model, which by the late 2000s put more emphasis on self-empathy as a key to the model's effectiveness. Another shift in emphasis, since 2000, has been the reference to the model as a process. The focus is thus less on the "steps" themselves and more on the practitioner's intentions in speaking ("Is the intent to get others to do what one wants, or to foster more meaningful relationships and mutual satisfaction?") in listening ("Is the intent to prepare for what one has to say, or to extend heartfelt, respectful attentiveness to another?") and the quality of connection experienced with others.

Also according to Little's thesis, Rosenberg's work with Carl Rogers on research to investigate the necessary and sufficient conditions of a therapeutic relationship was central to the development of NVC. Rogers emphasized: 1) experiential learning, 2) "frankness about one's emotional state," 3) the satisfaction of hearing others "in a way that resonates for them," 4) the enriching and encouraging experience of "creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathic listening," 5) the "deep value of congruence between one's own inner experience, one's conscious awareness, and one's communication," and, subsequently, 6) the enlivening experience of unconditionally receiving love or appreciation and extending the same.

Little says Rosenberg was influenced by Erich Fromm, George Albee, and George Miller to adopt a community focus in his work, moving away from clinical psychological practice. The central ideas influencing this shift by Rosenberg were that: (1) individual mental health depends on the social structure of a community (Fromm), (2) therapists alone are unable to meet the psychological needs of a community (Albee), and (3) knowledge about human behavior will increase if psychology is freely given to the community (Miller).

According to Little, Rosenberg's early work with children with learning disabilities shows his interest in psycholinguistics and the power of language, as well as his emphasis on collaboration. In its initial development, the NVC model re-structured the pupil-teacher relationship to give students greater responsibility for, and decision-making related to, their own learning. The model has evolved over the years to incorporate institutional power relationships (i.e., police-citizen, boss-employee) and informal ones (i.e. man-woman, rich-poor, adult-youth, parent-child). The ultimate aim is to develop societal relationships based on a restorative, "partnership" paradigm and mutual respect, rather than a retributive, fear-based, "domination" paradigm.

Little also says Rosenberg identified Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration for the NVC model, and that Rosenberg's goal was to develop a practical process for interaction rooted in the philosophy of Ahimsa, which Little translates as "the overflowing love that arises when all ill-will, anger, and hate have subsided from the heart."

In order to show the differences between communication styles, Rosenberg started to use two animals. Violent communication was represented by the carnivorous Jackal as a symbol of aggression and especially dominance. The herbivorous Giraffe on the other hand, represented his NVC strategy. The Giraffe was chosen as symbol for NVC as its long neck is supposed to show the clear-sighted speaker, being aware of his fellow speakers' reactions; and because the Giraffe has a large heart, representing the compassionate side of NVC. In his courses he tended to use these animals in order to make the differences in communication clearer to the audience.

Overview

Cards with basic human needs in the hands of exercise group participants.
 
Nonviolent Communication holds that most conflicts between individuals or groups arise from miscommunication about their human needs, due to coercive or manipulative language that aims to induce fear, guilt, shame, etc. These "violent" modes of communication, when used during a conflict, divert the attention of the participants away from clarifying their needs, their feelings, their perceptions, and their requests, thus perpetuating the conflict. 

Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication, published numerous training materials to help in efforts to bring about radical social change. He was concerned with transforming the "gangs and domination structures" through the method he called "ask, ask, ask". He suggested social change activists could focus on gaining access to those in power in order to "ask, ask, ask" for changes that will make life better for all including the powerful. He wrote about the need for the protective use of force, distinguishing it from the punitive use of force.

Assumptions

Two NVC trainers characterize the assumptions underlying NVC as follows:
  1. All human beings share the same needs
  2. Our world offers sufficient resources for meeting everyone's basic needs
  3. All actions are attempts to meet needs
  4. Feelings point to needs being met or unmet
  5. All human beings have the capacity for compassion
  6. Human beings enjoy giving
  7. Human beings meet needs through interdependent relationships
  8. Human beings change
  9. Choice is internal
  10. The most direct path to peace is through self-connection

Intentions

The trainers also say that practicing NVC involves having the following intentions:
  • Open-hearted living
  1. Self-compassion
  2. Expressing from the heart
  3. Receiving with compassion
  4. Prioritizing connection
  5. Moving beyond "right" and "wrong" to using needs-based assessments
  • Choice, responsibility, peace
  1. Taking responsibility for our feelings
  2. Taking responsibility for our actions
  3. Living in peace with unmet needs
  4. Increasing capacity for meeting needs
  5. Increasing capacity for meeting the present moment
  • Sharing power (partnership)
  1. Caring equally for everyone's needs
  2. Using force minimally and to protect rather than to educate, punish, or get what we want without agreement

Communication that blocks compassion

Rosenberg says that certain ways of communicating tend to alienate people from the experience of compassion:
  • Moralistic judgments implying wrongness or badness on the part of people who don't act in harmony with our values. Blame, insults, put-downs, labels, criticisms, comparisons, and diagnoses are all said to be forms of judgment. (Moralistic judgments are not to be confused with value judgments as to the qualities we value.) The use of moralistic judgments is characterized as an impersonal way of expressing oneself that does not require one to reveal what is going on inside of oneself. This way of speaking is said to have the result that "Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting."
  • Demands that implicitly or explicitly threaten listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply.
  • Denial of responsibility via language that obscures awareness of personal responsibility. It is said that we deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to: vague impersonal forces ("I had to"); our condition, diagnosis, personal or psychological history; the actions of others; the dictates of authority; group pressure; institutional policy, rules, and regulations; gender roles, social roles, or age roles; or uncontrollable impulses.
  • Making comparisons between people.
  • A premise of deserving, that certain actions merit reward while others merit punishment.

Four components

How Observation, Feelings, Needs and Requests are connected in the NVC system

Rosenberg invites NVC practitioners to focus attention on four components:
  • Observation: the facts (what we are seeing, hearing, or touching) as distinct from our evaluation of meaning and significance. NVC discourages static generalizations. It is said that "When we combine observation with evaluation others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying." Instead, a focus on observations specific to time and context is recommended.
  • Feelings: emotions or sensations, free of thought and story. These are to be distinguished from thoughts (e.g., "I feel I didn't get a fair deal") and from words colloquially used as feelings but which convey what we think we are (e.g., "inadequate"), how we think others are evaluating us (e.g., "unimportant"), or what we think others are doing to us (e.g., "misunderstood", "ignored"). Feelings are said to reflect whether we are experiencing our needs as met or unmet. Identifying feelings is said to allow us to more easily connect with one another, and "Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts."
  • Needs: universal human needs, as distinct from particular strategies for meeting needs. It is posited that "Everything we do is in service of our needs."
  • Request: request for a specific action, free of demand. Requests are distinguished from demands in that one is open to hearing a response of "no" without this triggering an attempt to force the matter. If one makes a request and receives a "no" it is recommended not that one give up, but that one empathize with what is preventing the other person from saying "yes," before deciding how to continue the conversation. It is recommended that requests use clear, positive, concrete action language.

Modes

There are three primary modes of application of NVC:
  • Self-empathy involves compassionately connecting with what is going on inside us. This may involve, without blame, noticing the thoughts and judgments we are having, noticing our feelings, and most critically, connecting to the needs that are affecting us.
  • Receiving empathically, in NVC, involves "connection with what's alive in the other person and what would make life wonderful for them... It's not an understanding of the head where we just mentally understand what another person says... Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the life that's alive in them... It doesn't mean we have to feel the same feelings as the other person. That's sympathy, when we feel sad that another person is upset. It doesn't mean we have the same feelings; it means we are with the other person... If you're mentally trying to understand the other person, you're not present with them." Empathy involves "emptying the mind and listening with our whole being." NVC suggests that however the other person expresses themselves, we focus on listening for the underlying observations, feelings, needs, and requests. It is suggested that it can be useful to reflect a paraphrase of what another person has said, highlighting the NVC components implicit in their message, such as the feelings and needs you guess they may be expressing.
  • Expressing honestly, in NVC, is likely to involve expressing an observation, feeling, need, and request. An observation may be omitted if the context of the conversation is clear. A feeling might be omitted if there is sufficient connection already, or the context is one where naming a feeling isn't likely to contribute to connection. It is said that naming a need in addition to a feeling makes it less likely that people will think you are making them responsible for your feeling. Similarly, it is said that making a request in addition to naming a need makes it less likely that people will infer a vague demand that they address your need. The components are thought to work together synergistically. According to NVC trainer Bob Wentworth, "an observation sets the context, feelings support connection and getting out of our heads, needs support connection and identify what is important, and a request clarifies what sort of response you might enjoy. Using these components together minimizes the chances of people getting lost in potentially disconnecting speculation about what you want from them and why."

Research

As of 2008, NVC was said to lack significant "longitudinal analytical research," and few studies had evaluated the effectiveness of NVC training programs. There had been little discussion of NVC in academic contexts, and most evidence for the effectiveness of NVC was said to be anecdotal or based on theoretical support. Since that time, the number of publications reporting research on NVC has more than doubled.

Carme Juncadella produced a systematic review of research as of 2013 related to the impact of NVC on the development of empathy. She found 13 studies which met her inclusion criteria (three were published in peer reviewed journals; ten were unpublished theses or researcher reports). Eleven of these suggested an increase in empathy subsequent to the application of NVC (five of these with evidence of statistical significance) and two did not. Juncadella notes several shortcomings of her review. None of the studies she included were randomized and only three used validated instruments. As a result she used a narrative synthesis review format, which, "lacks precision," but allows the summarization of studies of different types, sizes, outcome measures and aims. She suggests the primary limitation of her review is that a number of relevant studies exist that could not be included due to lack of availability. She suggests these might have significantly altered her results. Finally, she includes the following caveat: "I must mention the inevitable subjectivity bias present throughout the whole review. In spite of the efforts made towards 'disciplined subjectivity'... my decisions show a degree of uncertainty and inaccuracy born via the tension between the weak evidence of the studies and my own convictions about the NVC model." Her overall assessment of the current research on NVC's efficacy in promoting the development of empathy is that the results are promising, but "would need to be confirmed with further studies bearing stronger designs and more appropriate measures." She notes that a major shortcoming of the existing research is the "mismatch between the constructs of the model and the validated empathy measures" and suggests that improved instruments need to be developed to adequately test NVC. 

As of 2017, fifteen master's theses and doctoral dissertations are known to have tested the model on sample sizes of 108 or smaller and generally have found the model to be effective.

Allan Rohlfs, who first met Rosenberg in 1972 and was a founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication, in 2011 explained a paucity of academic literature as follows:
Virtually all conflict resolution programs have an academic setting as their foundation and therefore have empirical studies by graduate students assessing their efficacy. NVC is remarkable for its roots. Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. (clinical psychology, U of Wisconsin) comes from a full time private practice in clinical psychology and consultation, never an academic post. NVC, his creation, is entirely a grassroots organization and never had until recently any foundation nor grant monies, on the contrary funded 100% from trainings which were offered in public workshops around the world. ... Empirical data is now coming slowly as independent researchers find their own funding to conduct and publish empirical studies with peer review.
Richard Bowers' master's thesis (2012), updated to book form by Bowers and Moffett (2012), asserts that NVC has been absent from academic programs due to a lack of research into the theoretical basis for the model and lack of research on the reliability of positive results. Bowers' thesis meets the first objection through an analysis of existing theories which provide solid support for each element of the NVC (mediation) model. Without this theoretical understanding, it would not be clear what aspects of the NVC model make it work or even if it can be effectively applied by anyone other than Marshall Rosenberg. This theoretical analysis can provide a foundation for further empirical research on the effectiveness and reliability of the model. 

Connor and Wentworth examined the impact of 6-months of NVC training and coaching on 23 executives in a Fortune 100 corporation. A variety of benefits were reported, including "conversations and meetings were notably more efficient, with issues being resolved in 50-80 percent less time."

NVC has reportedly been an element of a bundle of interventions that produced dramatic changes in forensic psychiatric nursing settings in which a high level of violence is the norm. NVC was adopted, in combination with other interventions, in an effort to reduce violence. The interventions were said to reduce key violence indicators by 90 percent over a three-year period in a medium security unit, and by around 50 percent in a single year in a maximum security unit.

A 2014 study examined the effects of combined NVC and mindfulness training on 885 male inmates of the Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington. The training was found to reduce recidivism from 37% to 21%, and the training was estimated as having saved the state $5 million per year in reduced incarceration costs. The training was found to increase equanimity, decrease anger, and lead to abilities to take responsibility for one's feelings, express empathy, and to make requests without imposing demands.

NVC has also been reported as effective in reducing domestic violence. Male participants who graduated from an NVC-based batterer intervention program in California had zero percent recidivism within 5 years, according to the relevant District Attorneys' offices. The news report contrasted this with a recidivism rate of 40 percent within 5 years as reported by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project for graduates of their batterer intervention program based on the Duluth Model, said to previously offer the lowest known domestic violence recidivism rate.

Bowers and Moffett provide a thoughtful study of the important role of empathy and human needs in mediation through the development of a theoretical model to explain the effectiveness of NVC mediation. The authors present theories of human needs and the basis for a common core of needs. They discuss theories that explain the importance of understanding human needs in the context of conflict resolution. They clearly distinguish core human needs from interests (strategies) and how focusing on needs is a paradigm shift in the field of conflict resolution. Further, Bowers and Moffett present theories of empathy from the pioneering work of Carl Rogers, Heinz Kohut, and others. Empathy is distinguished from sympathy and active listening, pointing out how the word empathy is often confused in the literature by using it interchangeably with these other two terms. They also examine stage theories of the development of empathy as well as constructive-developmental theories related to empathy. 

Some recent research appears to validate the existence of universal human needs.

Relationship to spirituality

As Theresa Latini notes, "Rosenberg understands NVC to be a fundamentally spiritual practice." Marshall Rosenberg describes the influence of his spiritual life on the development and practice of NVC:
I think it is important that people see that spirituality is at the base of Nonviolent Communication, and that they learn the mechanics of the process with that in mind. It's really a spiritual practice that I am trying to show as a way of life. Even though we don't mention this, people get seduced by the practice. Even if they practice this as a mechanical technique, they start to experience things between themselves and other people they weren't able to experience before. So eventually they come to the spirituality of the process. They begin to see that it's more than a communication process and realize it's really an attempt to manifest a certain spirituality.
Rosenberg further states that he developed NVC as a way to "get conscious of" what he calls the "Beloved Divine Energy".

Some Christians have found NVC to be complementary to their Christian faith. Many people have found Nonviolent Communication to be very complementary to Buddhism, both in theory and in manifesting Buddhist ideals in practice.

Relationship to other models

Marion Little examines theoretical frameworks related to NVC. The influential interest-based model for conflict resolution, negotiation, and mediation developed by Fisher, Ury, and Patton at the Harvard Negotiation Project and at the Program on Negotiation in the 1980s appears to have some conceptual overlap with NVC, although neither model references the other. Little suggests The Gordon Model for Effective Relationships (1970) as a likely precursor to both NVC and interest-based negotiation, based on conceptual similarities, if not any direct evidence of a connection. Like Rosenberg, Gordon had worked with Carl Rogers, so the models' similarities may reflect common influences.

Suzanne Jones sees a substantive difference between active listening as originated by Gordon and empathic listening as recommended by Rosenberg, insofar as active listening involves a specific step of reflecting what a speaker said to let them know you are listening, whereas empathic listening involves an ongoing process of listening with both heart and mind and being fully present to the other's experience, with an aim of comprehending and empathizing with the needs of the other, the meaning of the experience for that person.

Gert Danielsen and Havva Kök both note an overlap between the premises of NVC and those of Human Needs Theory (HNT), an academic model for understanding the sources of conflict and designing conflict resolution processes, with the idea that "Violence occurs when certain individuals or groups do not see any other way to meet their need, or when they need understanding, respect and consideration for their needs."

Chapman Flack sees an overlap between what Rosenberg advocates and critical thinking, especially Bertrand Russell's formulation uniting kindness and clear thinking.

Martha Lasley sees similarities with the Focused Conversation Method developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), with NVC's observations, feelings, needs, and requests components relating to FCM's objective, reflective, interpretive, and decisional stages.

Responses

Several researchers have attempted a thorough evaluation of criticisms and weaknesses of NVC and assessed significant challenges in its application. These span a range of potential problems, from the practical to the theoretical, and include concerns gathered from study participants and researchers. 

The difficulty of using NVC as well as the dangers of misuse are common concerns. In addition, Bitschnau and Flack find a paradoxical potential for violence in the use of NVC, occasioned by its unskilled use. Bitschnau further suggests that the use of NVC is unlikely to allow everyone to express their feelings and have their needs met in real life as this would require inordinate time, patience and discipline. Those who are skilled in the use of NVC may become prejudiced against those who are not and prefer to converse only among themselves. 

Oboth suggests that people might hide their feelings in the process of empathy, subverting the nonviolence of communication.

The massive investment of time and effort in learning to use NVC has been noted by a number of researchers.

Chapman Flack, in reviewing a training video by Rosenberg, finds the presentation of key ideas "spell-binding" and the anecdotes "humbling and inspiring", notes the "beauty of his work", and his "adroitly doing fine attentive thinking" when interacting with his audience. Yet Flack wonders what to make of aspects of Rosenberg's presentation, such as his apparent "dim view of the place for thinking" and his building on Walter Wink's account of the origins of our way of thinking. To Flack, some elements of what Rosenberg says seem like pat answers at odds with the challenging and complex picture of human nature history, literature, and art offer.

Flack notes a distinction between the "strong sense" of Nonviolent Communication as a virtue that is possible with care and attention, and the "weak sense," a mimicry of this born of ego and haste. The strong sense offers a language to examine one's thinking and actions, support understanding, bring one's best to the community, and honor one's emotions. In the weak sense, one may take the language as rules and use these to score debating points, label others for political gain, or insist that others express themselves in this way. Though concerned that some of what Rosenberg says could lead to the weak sense, Flack sees evidence confirming that Rosenberg understands the strong sense in practice. Rosenberg's work with workshop attendees demonstrates "the real thing." Yet Flack warns that "the temptation of the weak sense will not be absent." As an antidote, Flack advises, "Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others," (also known as the robustness principle) and guard against the "metamorphosis of nonviolent communication into subtle violence done in its name."

Ellen Gorsevski, assessing Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion (1999) in the context of geopolitical rhetoric, states that "the relative strength of the individual is vastly overestimated while the key issue of structural violence is almost completely ignored."

PuddleDancer Press reports that NVC has been endorsed by a variety of public figures.

Sven Hartenstein has created a series of cartoons spoofing NVC.

Reportedly, one of the first acts of Satya Nadella when he became CEO of Microsoft in 2014 was to ask top company executives to read Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication.

Organizations

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC), founded by Marshall Rosenberg, has trademarked the terms NVC, Nonviolent Communication and Compassionate Communication, among other terms, for clarity and branding purposes.

CNVC certifies trainers who wish to teach NVC in a manner aligned with CNVC's understanding of the NVC process. CNVC also offers trainings by certified trainers.

Some trainings in Nonviolent Communication are offered by trainers sponsored by organizations considered as allied with, but having no formal relationship with, the Center for Nonviolent Communication founded by Marshall Rosenberg. Some of these trainings are announced through CNVC. Numerous NVC organizations have sprung up around the world, many with regional focuses.
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