> It allows people to make demands without ever acknowledging that they are making demands.
Oh for sure, if someone wants to use NVC-style language to make demands or manipulate people, there's nothing stopping them. People are too clever to stop them from hurting each other just by restricting them to certain words.
But if someone is coming across as manipulative despite their best intentions, and wants help with that, I think NVC has a lot of helpful things to say. The distinction between a "request" and a "demand" is very clear: A request is when it's ok for the person to tell you no, and a demand is when it not. That's not always easy to communicate with 100% clarity, but I think you can get a lot of work done by asking yourself (before you start making a request to someone else) "am I actually ok with them telling me no here?" Often we're not ok with no, and no matter what language we use to make the demand then, the demanded-ness of it is going to come across.
Oh for sure, if someone wants to use NVC-style language to make demands or manipulate people, there's nothing stopping them. People are too clever to stop them from hurting each other just by restricting them to certain words.
But if someone is coming across as manipulative despite their best intentions, and wants help with that, I think NVC has a lot of helpful things to say. The distinction between a "request" and a "demand" is very clear: A request is when it's ok for the person to tell you no, and a demand is when it not. That's not always easy to communicate with 100% clarity, but I think you can get a lot of work done by asking yourself (before you start making a request to someone else) "am I actually ok with them telling me no here?" Often we're not ok with no, and no matter what language we use to make the demand then, the demanded-ness of it is going to come across.