Personality and Peaceful Communication by Kermit Rose Many people seem to be in conflict with others. It need not be this way. It pains me when I see people in conflict. I know that they are needlessly feeling anguish. So I've written the following in hopes that some peole may read it and apply it to resolve and avoid conflicts. We should strive always to be at real peace with other people. By real peace I mean that we act to minimize conflict situations and communicate immediately to resolve those conflict situations that are unavoidable. Almost always conflict is due to mis-communication. Peaceful agreements are reached when both parties are committed to peaceful communication. Peaceful communication flows naturally from these rules: Listen with respect to the other person(s). Listen with the willingness to change your mind if the facts justify it. Make no insults or condescending remarks to the other person(s). Do not threaten or attack the other person(s). By following these rules you make it much more likely that you will be able to come to a good and just agreement. Satisfying our needs depends on the ability to reach good agreements with other people. Different people have developed different strategies for satisfying their needs. There are basically five different strategies. Some are better than others. Some should be avoided completely. The five different strategies are: (1) friendliness (2) intimidation (3) superiority (4) righteousness and (5) dependency. The friendly person is the most peaceful. If you are a friendly person, you desire everyone to be happy. You help others to reach their goals. You do not need to conform to the expectations of other people. You always communicate peacefully. You tend to be successful because friendliness begets friendliness. The intimidating person is the least peaceful. When the intimidating person is successful it is at the price of creating fear and resentment in the other person. It may be that the other person overcomes the fear, but not the resentment. The consequences may be retaliatory intimidation. The superior person rarely has to ask for anything. If you are a superior person, others ask for your help, and you gladly give it. You don't need to brag because your deeds speak for you. It is easy for you to also be friendly. Because of this the superior person tends to be peaceful. If you are a righteous person, you do not ask things for yourself. Rather you call on the human instinct to help anyone in need. You delight in making known the plight of others. You seek justice and peace within society. Whether or not you are peaceful at a personal level depends on whether you are friendly or intimidating. If you are a dependent person, you also call on the human instinct to help anyone in need. Unlike the righteous person, you make yourself the focus of need. Dependency is not a good long term tactic because most people sooner or later grow tired of "being used". You also risk feeling victimized when no-one can help you. It is difficult for the dependent person to be peaceful because dependency tends to blind one to the needs of others. Everyone uses some mix of all of these tactics. The peaceful person avoids intimidation as much as possible, and emphasizes friendliness as much as possible. From Nimish.Shah@durham.ac.uk Mon Mar 23 04:59 EST 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:03:59 +0000 (GMT) From: Nimish Shah To: Kermit Rose Subject: Re: request for criticism Hello Kermit, Okay here goes the gut reaction - if I did not know you then the article has a touch of lecturing about it - because you do not tell the reader why you are writing like you are (what is the context). The 2nd thing is where is the article being published? If it is a religion-like newsletter then fine, otherwise ask yourself - is the person who is going to read this going to be interested? 3rd thing - you could improve it my making it more personal - for example, rewriting it in the 1st person rather than the 3rd person and introducing examples from your personal life. Hope that helps - Nim.