Reflections on Non-Violent Power

Been on a workshop today about rank and privilege which I think connects to what we were exploring last Saturday.

Basic idea can be summarised as - we have rank and privilege because of social rank (gender, race, class etc), our positional rank (job, profession etc) and our psychological rank (how well we feel supported internally).

Rank is also dependent on context - eg as a newcomer to a group you'll have less rank (from one perspective) than others who have been in the group for a while.

The connection to conflict and NV, is that if rank is not brought to awareness (both of power over, power under) then it makes it harder to resolve conflicts.

It all is more complex than this, but suggest you look at Arlene and John-Claude Audergon's website for direction to more on this, as their the people who led the workshop. And much of this thinking (and ways to explore) are contained in the book, Sitting in the Fire by Arnold Mindell.