[[Who was Marshall Rosenberg|Marshall Rosenberg]] was a genius. He had a definition of violence that was built around the actual purpose of violence, which is to try to make people do what you want and punish them if they do it wrong. Sure, there is "senseless" or "random" violence, but that underscores the point: normal violence has the purpose of compliance. And so, what *is* violence? Marshall expanded the definition of violence to include anything we do to try to compel someone to obey us. Therefore, his definition included using **shame, blame, fear, guilt, punishment, obligation, or reward** to _manipulate_ people into obedience. He never differentiated between most people's definition of violence and his own, which led to some confusion. I have taken his expanded definition and call it "soft violence". You might also call it "psychological violence". Or simply, "manipulation". If you try to make people do what you want, but you don't want or aren't able to coerce them (also, because that breeds resistance), then you can use shame, fear, guilt, blame, obligation, punishment, and rewards to try and influence them to conform. However, each of these methods devalues the feelings and needs of the person you are trying to "make do" something. You are not honoring their actual desires and needs and trying to make them be something different to please you. The problem with this is that it destroys the connection and [[What is natural giving|natural giving]] between the participants in the interaction. If this seems "ok", it's because all of society does this as a matter of course from babyhood up. (Click 'Back')