Nonviolent Communication with Lojban attitudinals


Clarity on Emotions and Needs


Take a moment to observe: When at first you had an unpleasant emotion, and then come to have a pleasant one, there is something which you lacked before, and later, came to have.

I think this is a very important observation. Without it, we may not have invented words like freedom, and respect.

What is it that was lacked and gained? Can we name this type of thing? Yes, the word i'm familiar with in engilsh is need (which unfortunately has other uses as well such as for the lack itself).

Some of you might be thinking, but what was lacked and gained was itself the good feeling. It is true that feeling was gained, but it was not the feeling alone. While emotions and needs are intimately connected, roughly like our sensory perception of an object and the object sensed are connected they are not the same thing. Allow me to illustrate this with an examples:

.oi
The speaker's feeling is clear, but what is he lacking? if need and emotion were the same, should we not know this?


Further, two ppl can sense the lack of one need with two different emotions, and two ppl can sense different needs with the same emotion. You might be thinking "Then how does one ever know what one is needing?" Answer: The emotion does not happen in a vacuum, there are contextual clues; what were you observing when the emotion occurred?

Take care while identifying the need, it might be tempting to say that you needed some specific treatement from some particular person. This is not the need(as i am using the term), but rather the strategy for obtaining the need. Needs are universal and involve no particular person; often we can put one word names on them examples, freedom, equality, respect, acceptance, nurishment, self-sufficiency, ...

In summary, for every negative emotion there is a need lacked, for every positive emotion there is a need gained. There is also an observation that is an important clue, and in the case of negative emotions there is what amounts to a request that is the strategy.

Many tragic communication problems can be reduced to events where some of these four important peices of information are not successfully communicated.

Lojban is cool because it has markers such as za'a(i observe..) and e'o(request), as well as attitudinals for expressing feeling. You might notice that many of the UI are need words. Also, we have the cmavo be'u(lacking/needing) and be'unai(satiation).


NOTE: It would be cool if we could say stuff like:

.oi .iobe'u
(Pain becuase my need for respect is lacking)


Unfortunately, this is not the way be'u and be'unai are interpretted with UI. :-( so you better use the gismu.

However, you probably could get away with:

.ui e'inai be'unai
(happiness because my need for challenge is being met)



Actually, I'm not sure UI can be used to express needs at all as it might be interpretted as intendend attitude. But supposing they could, i have sorted them into categories, which might be corresponding to needs,emotions felt while lacking a need, emotions felt while having the need.

Needs ( also see http://www.cnvc.org/needs.htm )

.e'inai
challenge
.o'ucu'i
composure
.einai
freedom
.e'icu'i
independence
.i'inai
privacy
.iinai
security
ba'ucu'i
accuracy
ki'anai
understanding
.i'a
acceptance
.u'i
amusement
.i'o
appreciation
.o'e
closeness
.e'e
competence
.u'o
courage
.a'o
hope
.iu
love
.e'a
permission
.o'u
relaxation
.io
respect
.i'i
togetherness
pa'e
justice
je'u
truth
ju'o
certainty
se'a
self-sufficiency

Emotions felt while a need is lacked (also see http://www.cnvc.org/feelings.htm )

.e'ucu'i
abandon suggestion
.o'onai
anger
.oiro'i
anxiety
.a'anai
avoiding
.i'anai
blame
.u'enai
commonplace
.uanai
confusion
.u'onai
cowardice
.uunai
cruelty
.a'onai
despair
.i'enai
disapproval
.a'ucu'i
disinterest
.ionai
disrespect
.oiro'a
embarrassment
.i'onai
envy
.a'enai
exhaustion
.uenai
expectation
.iunai
hatred
.a'acu'i
inattentive
.e'enai
incompetence
.uonai
incompleteness
.aicu'i
indecision
.aucu'i
indifference
.u'anai
loss
.o'ocu'i
mere tolerance
.i'ecu'i
non-approval
.oiro'o
physical pain
.oiro'e
puzzlement
.aunai
reluctance
.a'unai
repulsion
.oiro'u
sexual complaint
.o'anai
shame
.iacu'i
skepticism
.oire'e
spiritual complaint
.o'unai
stress
.u'ocu'i
timidity
.uinai
unhappiness
.e'unai
warning
.u'inai
weariness
pa'enai
prejudice
ro'anai
antisocial
le'onai
defensive
se'anai
dependency
fu'inai
difficult
ga'inai
meekness
se'inai
other-oriented
le'ocu'i
passive
ri'enai
restraint of emotion
vu'enai
sin
ju'ocu'i
uncertainty
.o'i
caution
.oi
complaint
.e'i
constraint
.a'i
effort
.ii
fear
.uu
pity
.u'u
repentance
ba'a
I anticipate
le'o
aggressive
ga'i
hauteur
se'i
self-oriented
se'a
self-sufficiency
ki'a
textual confusion
xu
true-false ?

Emotions felt while a need is satiated (also see http://www.cnvc.org/feelings.htm )

.einai
freedom
.u'unai
innocence
.u'ucu'i
lack of regret
.oinai
pleasure
.o'inai
rashness
ga'icu'i
equal rank
ju'ocai
quite certain
.ie
agreement
.a'e
alertness
.u'i
amusement
.i'e
approval
.a'a
attentive
.o'e
closeness
.uo
completion
.u'o
courage
.au
desire
.ua
discovery
.u'a
gain
.ui
happiness
.ai
intent
.a'u
interest
.iu
love
.o'o
patience
.o'a
pride
.o'u
relaxation
.ue
surprise
.u'e
wonder
do'a
generously
ro'u
sexual
vu'e
virtue



Unfortunately, be'u and be'unai do not simply modify the UI as nai and cu'i do. If you would like to use attitudinals for both and not create confusion with proper lojbanists, i propose you either insert a n-hyphen to achieve the desired effect. Like so:

WARNING: This is my own invention, and not valid lojban.
.oi .ionbe'u za'a do cusku zoi .gy Jerk! .gy .i e'o ko ba na go'i ouch-due-to-my-lacking-respect-need Observation: you expressed "Jerk!". Request: Please do not do that in the future.

or you can join me in #bebyban on irc.lojban.org and say it as if be'u simply modified the previous UI like so:
.oi .iobe'u za'a do cusku zoi .gy Jerk! .gy .i e'o ko ba na go'i ouch-due-to-my-lacking-respect-need Observation: you expressed "Jerk!". Request: Please do not do that in the future.

It would be nice to express the need so closely with the emotion. it seems it captures their intimate relationship while simultaneously the clarifying distinction. Plus it can be learned faster, as one can get good usage out of attitudinals before they have learned corresponding gismu. Also, one can easily remember a simple rule to always accompany an emotion with a be'u or be'unai applied to a need, which will encourage valuable self-exploration and greately aid in lojban's effort to develop language which is closer to being descriptive rather than merely ascriptive.

I anticipate one objection, that attitudinals are best reserved for expressions which are immediate and require no thought or exploration. However, it may be that with practice, identification of the need is much more imediate. Seems like an excellent oppurtunity for testing S-W, and if it is true, imagine the gift to humanity it would be.
--LordBrain


Created by arj. Last Modification: Sunday 29 of May, 2005 19:39:08 GMT by arj.