September 19, 2024 • 23 mins
Discover how to foster more authentic, courageous, and nonviolent interactions in this episode of the Gandhi Institute podcast, 'Perspectives on Peace, Transforming Tomorrow.'
Host Erin Thompson discusses the release of Culture Shift: Nonviolence at Work with its author, Institute Director Emeritus Kit Miller.
The conversation covers the inspiration behind the book, its significance in promoting nonviolence in workplaces, and practical applications for fostering wholehearted and sustainable work environments. Kit shares her journey and insights into cultural humility, the importance of authentic dialogue, and the necessity of creating supportive structures for nonviolence.
Join us as we explore how nonviolence and community can lead to more fulfilling lives and a more compassionate world.
Let's learn together and start our own culture shifts!
Culture Shift: Nonviolence at Work by Kit Miller is available now on various platforms!
Links & Resources from the episode:
Connect with Kit and her work
Get your copy of Culture Shift: Nonviolence at Work
Pace e bene
Bookshop.org
Connect with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to Perspectives on Peace
Transforming Tomorrow.
My name is Aaron Thompson andthis is the MK Gandhi Institute
for Nonviolence podcast.
We've got a special treat foreveryone.
Today we have the release of abook penned by none other than
(00:26):
Institute Director Kit Miller.
This book is called CultureShift Nonviolence at Work.
Having just given thatintroduction, I'm brought back
to a conversation that Kit and Ihad before going live, where,
in her gentle way, she wassaying that she looked forward
to doing a little bit ofconnecting before jumping in
(00:48):
with both feet, and I think itonly makes sense for us to honor
that.
So how are you doing, kitMiller?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Blessed out right now .
It's great to be here.
It's good to talk to you.
It's really fun to be on thispodcast with this book, because
some of my hopes for thisproject have to do with this
work that everybody is doinghere.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
This is like my favoriteholding this book in
hand and, having gone through ita little bit, being able to
connect different elements,different chapters, to things I
have seen play out or part of,and on you to be working in
(01:38):
these areas like to see thisbody of work kind of distilled
into this book is remarkable,and to have it in a tangible
form that people are going to beable to pick up, absorb and use
, it's wonderful seeing ithappen.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
We were together here for a long time.
This is your story too.
It's the story of the peoplewho are here now.
Hopefully it'll be the story ofthe people here.
Well, you know, when nobodyknows our names.
That's always been my hope and,yeah, you know, one of the
important parts of it was doingthe interviews, talking to 19
(02:16):
former staff, current staff,former board members and current
board members to check anddouble-check.
I really want it to beauthentic and sharing what is so
special about this place andhow hard it is to do these
things and how very worthwhileit is to work in the way that
(02:37):
we've tried to work, to standfor what we try to stand for
here.
It's so important in the world,so hooray for all of us.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
This book.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Hooray indeed, kit.
Who would you say that thisbook is intended for?
You know, the backstory of thisbook precedes my time at Gandhi
Institute.
It dates back to when I startedworking as a teenager and
noticed how people work together.
It's always been a subject offascination for me.
My undergraduate was at CornellIndustrial Labor Relations
Program, in part because I'mreally interested in how groups
do things, how people work, howwe spend our time.
(03:17):
I did my master's in socialinnovation and sustainability
still looking at those kinds ofquestions functionally, so this
book is in some ways anorganizational memoir.
It's about how we work in waysthat bring as much
wholeheartedness andsustainability and love into the
(03:38):
world as we possibly can, andalso to help people take a good
second look at nonviolence,because we need it.
I think this book could be foranybody who functions in a group
, whether it be a faithcommunity or for-profit or
not-for-profit.
A lot of the examples for mealso came from being a parent
(04:01):
and the learning of being aspouse, especially in a
politically religiouslydivergent marriage like I have.
It's been amazing.
I learned a lot.
I hope it's a useful book for alot of people who wouldn't
necessarily think it would be abook for them.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay.
Well, one thing that I can sayis that the book is relatively
concise In total, 170 pagescovering nine chapters, all of
which have a number of topics.
Was it tough distilling all ofthis down into chunks?
There's some ground that youcover across the chapter.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean that book was written.
This book was written andrewritten.
I kept thinking, oh, it's done.
And then, oh no, there'sanother rewrite in my future.
I'm just so glad it's done.
God bless this, you're all done.
I wanted it to be superuser-friendly.
I know how busy people are.
I know how short our attentionspans have become, honestly,
(04:59):
trained up through technology,and I also know how important it
is for teams to learn together.
So this book was created forteams to choose a little chunk,
which could be like a page oftext or two pages, some of the
longer sections with reflectionquestions at the end.
I kept thinking of teams likereading it together and talking
(05:21):
about it.
That would be like a littledream come true.
If there's teams of people,this could be faith.
Communities could be using thisbook for profit.
I've had the good fortune ofworking both while I was at the
Institute, before I was at theInstitute and since I left, in
many different settingseducation, healthcare, banking,
(05:42):
the courts.
I just haven't run across aplace yet where people don't
need more support than they getto be able to be human beings
with one another in a reallygood way.
There's a lot more fear nowthan there used to be, in more
and more spaces, and I hope thisbook helps people to be more
authentic, more courageous withone another, more willing to
(06:06):
have the difficult, criticalconversations.
We need to have to do our best.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So this book talks about nonviolence First.
The opening bit is nonviolenceat work.
Are there somemisunderstandings or
misperceptions that folksometimes have about nonviolence
that you're open to address andclarify some of what you've
written?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
what you've written?
Yeah, definitely.
One of the quotes from ourcolleague, alex that I really
like is that people often thinkof nonviolence as moral
perfection and that it's notthat at all.
It's a way of doing more andmore good over time, less and
less harm over time, and that wecan make those small choices.
The book talks again and againabout the small choices we can
make how we use our time, how weuse our language, how we can
step towards one another indifficult moments, the
(06:59):
structures that we can set up sothat we can help each other do
that more.
I want people to understandthat nonviolence isn't just some
realm of perfection that'sdisconnected from our lives.
It's actually critical for usin a world with as much violence
as the one that we have.
We've got to start working outdoing our reps with nonviolence.
(07:24):
I was reading a quote fromAmanda Gorman, the poet,
recently.
She said something along thelines of this country, it's way
easier to ban a book than to banassault weapons.
You know, and we're talking toeach other on the heels of yet
another school shooting.
I just keep thinking of thekids in these schools, you know,
in the ones where districtswhere there haven't been
(07:45):
shootings.
Yet it's haunting schools nowit's haunting children's lives.
The idea that someone couldcome in and hurt them that way
it haunts all of us.
Buffalo and the Tops shooting,tops shooting.
We have got to get a handle onviolence.
I want people to look atnonviolence much more seriously.
It's not just somepie-in-the-sky perfection.
(08:06):
It's what we can work towards,without being perfect, to make
the world a much better place.
And if we can't have the moralimagination to make it better
for ourselves, think of somechild whose life matters to you
and do it for them.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I am curious about the interview conducted with 19
people right, you and I sattogether for Sure did.
Did anything unexpected arise?
Did anything surprise you inthe process of these interviews?
Anything come up that was achallenge or that gave you pause
, as you were putting yourthoughts.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
You know, especially as people who walk around in the
world with black and brown skin, where the status quo
protections actually don't workfor you.
They often work against you.
So you know the need forself-defense, the need to not
(09:16):
trust that the state is going toactually take care of you, your
family, your neighborhood inthe way that it should.
If anything, it's going to comein and be an oppressive place,
like has so often happened inthe neighborhood in which we're
all sitting right now, where theinstitute is located.
I feel grateful to you inparticular for how I tried to
break violence and nonviolencedown in the early part of this
book.
That really came a lot from theconversations not just one you
(09:36):
and I had and really understandthat we can't just be
impractical about taking care ofourselves.
There's all sorts of ways tothink about nonviolence.
If we think about nonviolence,we want to have it within
ourselves.
We want to be people who haveless harsh criticisms and less
imposter syndrome, lessharshness towards ourselves.
(09:58):
Anyone who's spent some timelooking at that we know that
harshness within just spills out.
It just does.
There's no way it doesn't.
If it doesn't spill out on thepeople around us, it spills into
our declining health mental orphysical.
So we want to have a betterrelationship within ourselves.
We want to have betterrelationships with the people
around us.
We want to be more lovingpeople.
(10:20):
We want to be more courageouspeople with our friends, our
colleagues, our neighbors.
We want to know how to do that.
We want to have hope that theworld can be a better place.
So there's all sorts of ideas,I hope, in this book that will
help people take a next step andthen a next step after that.
I hope in this book that willhelp people take a next step and
then a next step after that.
And I have a lot of humilityabout what it's like I can't
(10:43):
speak for what it's like to walkin the room with your identity
as a black man, and so I reallyget that.
I want the world to be a saferplace for you and I think that
the ideas in this book couldhelp with that.
And I think that the ideas inthis book could help with that.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I am thoughtful about the pressures that we're under
as a society.
We feel limited in time.
Sometimes there's a scarcitymindset that we adhere to.
You know, the language in thisbook is accessible.
The reflections and the thoughtexperiments are practical.
(11:20):
I really have the sense that ifpeople give the minimum
investment of reading throughprocessing this, that it's going
to provide value.
Who is questioning theviability of folding in some of
these changes to?
They've got shareholders thatthey're responsible for?
(11:41):
There's this gravity to kind ofstay in the system as is and
(12:03):
maximize the current system asis and not introduce a whole
bunch of new elements to it todestabilize right?
How do you create a bridge tonon-violence, to the person
who's deeply immersed in it?
Trappings of society as it is.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, if somebody was deeply invested in the story of
business as usual and receivedthe benefits of it meaning they
were mainstream people whodidn't experience any kind of
harm or inadequacy as a resultof systems not serving them well
it may be very hard to see thatthings need to change.
(12:46):
So what I'm interested in isthe aspects of people's lives
where they recognize and theycan see where things aren't
working well.
That's one thing.
If you have a kid with alearning difficulty or issue and
all of a sudden you notice howthe school doesn't actually help
them in the way that they needto be helped, you've got higher
(13:09):
issues with turnover in yourarea than you want to have and
you've measured and noticed thatthe cost of bringing a new
person onto your team and theloss of institutional knowledge
from that turnover is creatingactually way more pressure and
lowering the effectiveness ofwhat you could be making happen
in the world.
So that's also something that Ithought a lot about in this
(13:32):
book.
I think it's just a question ofwhat matters to you and what
you want to improve.
I also think that for me, oneof the biggest gateways even if
you're walking in the world withan identity where things are
pretty well set up for you.
One of the biggest gateways forme and again I talk about this
(13:53):
in the book is learning peoplewho are different from me like
really loving people I'm solucky to have and it's not just
luck, it's cultivated luck tooto have people that I really
love whose identities divergesignificantly from me because of
their religion, because oftheir sexual orientation,
(14:14):
because of their race, theirethnicity, their immigration
status.
When we love people who are notserved by what's happening,
then it's an invitation for usto use everything that we have,
all the things that we aregifted with.
Gandhi talked about that we aretrustees of the gifts that we
(14:36):
receive, whether our gift ismusic and art, like yours is
Erin, or mine is sometimes liketalking I don't know what my
gifts are, I guess, butlistening for sure.
So whatever gifts we bring intothe world, we can use them in
service of life itself and webecome more generous in what we
(14:56):
want to do with those gifts whenwe have love for people who are
less like us.
Even someone who is working ina large organization, maybe they
have one friend who has a storythat's really different from
them in terms of where they grewup or what their immigration
status is, or they're justnaturally curious.
So I hope that people,regardless of where they are
(15:18):
even if they're, they are seeingthemselves as well-served.
But again, I question anyonewho could really see themselves
as well-served?
Every one of us reads newsheadlines and every one of us
feels the terror of a schoolshooting in our neighborhood.
Every one of us has to look atwhat's happening outside of this
country that the United Stateshas so much responsibility for.
(15:38):
I was talking to a young friendof mine from Afghanistan this
weekend about some of the newrepression that is being put in
place against women by theTaliban and he said shit, he
goes.
People in Afghanistan reallyhold the USA responsible for
everything the Taliban is doingnow, because USA just gave our
(16:01):
country back to the Taliban,even though they fought them for
24 years and they knew whatthey would do.
They knew what they.
They got back into power, butUS US just gave my niece, gave
my wife, gave our daughter, gavemy mother back into the hands
of people that really oppresswomen.
So you know, we all haveresponsibility for things, even
(16:24):
if our lives are working welland we're one of the lucky ones
who's got a job and a nice houseand a decent bank account.
I mean, don't even get mestarted on climate change.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Kit.
I am curious about the entiretyof the impact.
It's looking out a year,looking out five years.
When, in fact, are you open tothat?
Thanks, cultishly.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I would love to hear from a few or more people who
say that their ideas aboutnonviolence changed as a result
of this book.
I hope I'll hear from peoplewho are saying when I read this
book, I have new ideas for howthe work that I do in places
that I work, worship andvolunteer could become better.
(17:12):
I would love to help that.
I want to support people inbeing more wholehearted.
I think wholeheartedness is oneof the greatest assets to have.
If we're divided and torn aboutwhat we're doing, we can't
really get the joy of it.
When we're wholehearted aboutanything, joy often tags along
like a puppy behind you.
So I want folks to have morewholeheartedness.
I also hope that this bookhelps people to question the
(17:37):
kind of conditioning that we'vecollectively received.
You mentioned earlier about timeand I really question.
I mean, we have the mostlabor-saving devices in history,
yet we tell ourselves we don'thave a lot of time.
I think the way that we've beentrained to think has a lot to
do with the sense of scarcity,so that we're not deeply
(17:59):
reflective.
We don't honor relationships inthe ways that we could.
We don't honor ourselves in theway that we could.
We don't honor ourselves in theway that we could, and I hope
that interrupts a lot of peoplewho regularly schedule
programming and helps them tothink like is it true that
there's not enough time?
Is it true that it's okay forus to treat each other like
objects?
I hope it stirs up some goodtrouble.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Do I so, Kit?
I am wondering about the folkswho enjoy receiving book content
via audio.
Any plans potentially in theworks, or could you see yourself
adapting this to like an audiobook format or something?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
There's an e-book.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
There is an e-book Okay so folks can get it
digitally.
Yep, okay, excellent.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, and I've already talked to a couple of
friends about doing translation.
It would be super cool, maybeTurkish, maybe Deutsch, german.
Yeah, and I've already talkedto a couple of friends about
doing translation.
It would be so cool.
Maybe, Turkish, maybe Deutsch,german, okay, who knows, I don't
know.
Not an audio book, but I'mmassively motivated by requests.
So a couple of people say Ihave an audio book, probably
(19:06):
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Where can this book be found?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
People can go to bookshoporg.
We talk a lot about alternativeeconomics in this book, so I
try to keep it off of the usualsuspects.
But I'm finding that the book isactually on the usual suspects
website.
Bookshopsorg is a great placeto give money to.
The publisher is Pache Bene,who's a fantastic nonviolence
(19:31):
organization that's partneredwith Gandhi Institute and
continues to partner with themin so many ways, and so, yeah,
you can go on the Pache Benewebsite and money from this book
is going to go to supportnonviolence and through their
work, and I hope people willalso choose to look in on Gandhi
Institute.
You know, check out more andmore of what we're doing here.
(19:52):
I hope it attracts a lot morefinancial support to the
Institute.
I hope foundations come andfind you from reading this book.
There's project stories in theback of this book about the
different kinds of projectswe've gotten up to.
I hope people read thoseprojects and stories and get
inspired by not just what we did, but also the times when we
chose to let things go.
That's a natural kind of lifecycle of learningutors in
(20:15):
Australia and in Europe forIngramSpark, who's a publisher,
so it's not going to be tons ofmoney to get it of money to get
(20:48):
it All right?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Any opportunity folks may have to hear you talking
about the book, or are youfielding open to us to kind of
share about?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, I would have lots of fun doing that.
Made a little website callednonviolenceatworkorg.
People can reach me through theGhanian Institute website
Pachabeni website.
You can find me through theGandhi Institute website
Pachabeni website.
You can find me.
I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I'll just say, for my part, this is an approachable
book, a readable book.
It's a very fulfilling read.
There's an intentional aspectto the writing and a poetic side
.
The words sit together in a waythat feels good, absorbing, for
everyone.
Listening to this podcast, Irecommend you find a way to read
(21:33):
this.
There's a lot of surface areato respond to a lot of people's
particular interests andcircumstances.
You can almost open up the bookto any page and something
thought-provoking, meaningful,probably applicable to your life
.
Highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I did not give him money to say that or anything.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It's the plain old truth Kit, anything that you
would want to leave people withpart of this conversation that
you would Well, I'm inclined tojust open the book randomly
right now and see what the bookhas to say to us.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
There's a whole section here on cultural
humility, which has been areally important part of my
journey and the Institute'sjourney.
Who said culture is areflection of what we value, of
(22:32):
what you value, and what existedin the culture of the Institute
was dedication to looking atwhat was real.
So I like that idea that we bein more and more places where
people are dedicated to lookingat what's real and that we can
talk about things so that we'renot just sitting there in so
many meetings in different partsof this country in this world
(22:53):
keeping our truth to ourselvesbecause we're afraid to speak.
The world desperately needspeople to be authentic, to bring
their full gifts online, for afuture to be possible, even and
I'm just bananas about feedback,which I talk about in the book
too.
So, yeah, very curious to hear.
Including I don't like thisbook.
Tell me why, and thanks againfor the opportunity to speak
(23:16):
about it on the big day where itgets released into the world.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It's an honor this time with you, kit.
My guest is Kit Miller.
The book that she is releasingtoday is Culture Shift
Nonviolence Work.
This has been Perspectives onPeace.
Thank you very much forlistening.
Hello everyone and welcome to Perspectives on Peace
Transforming Tomorrow.
My name is Aaron Thompson andthis is the MK Gandhi Institute
for Nonviolence podcast.
We've got a special treat foreveryone.
Today we have the release of abook penned by none other than
(00:26):
Institute Director Kit Miller.
This book is called CultureShift Nonviolence at Work.
Having just given thatintroduction, I'm brought back
to a conversation that Kit and Ihad before going live, where,
in her gentle way, she wassaying that she looked forward
to doing a little bit ofconnecting before jumping in
(00:48):
with both feet, and I think itonly makes sense for us to honor
that.
So how are you doing, kitMiller?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Blessed out right now .
It's great to be here.
It's good to talk to you.
It's really fun to be on thispodcast with this book, because
some of my hopes for thisproject have to do with this
work that everybody is doinghere.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
This is like my favoriteholding this book in
hand and, having gone through ita little bit, being able to
connect different elements,different chapters, to things I
have seen play out or part of,and on you to be working in
(01:38):
these areas like to see thisbody of work kind of distilled
into this book is remarkable,and to have it in a tangible
form that people are going to beable to pick up, absorb and use
, it's wonderful seeing ithappen.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
We were together here for a long time.
This is your story too.
It's the story of the peoplewho are here now.
Hopefully it'll be the story ofthe people here.
Well, you know, when nobodyknows our names.
That's always been my hope and,yeah, you know, one of the
important parts of it was doingthe interviews, talking to 19
(02:16):
former staff, current staff,former board members and current
board members to check anddouble-check.
I really want it to beauthentic and sharing what is so
special about this place andhow hard it is to do these
things and how very worthwhileit is to work in the way that
(02:37):
we've tried to work, to standfor what we try to stand for
here.
It's so important in the world,so hooray for all of us.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
This book.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Hooray indeed, kit.
Who would you say that thisbook is intended for?
You know, the backstory of thisbook precedes my time at Gandhi
Institute.
It dates back to when I startedworking as a teenager and
noticed how people work together.
It's always been a subject offascination for me.
My undergraduate was at CornellIndustrial Labor Relations
Program, in part because I'mreally interested in how groups
do things, how people work, howwe spend our time.
(03:17):
I did my master's in socialinnovation and sustainability
still looking at those kinds ofquestions functionally, so this
book is in some ways anorganizational memoir.
It's about how we work in waysthat bring as much
wholeheartedness andsustainability and love into the
(03:38):
world as we possibly can, andalso to help people take a good
second look at nonviolence,because we need it.
I think this book could be foranybody who functions in a group
, whether it be a faithcommunity or for-profit or
not-for-profit.
A lot of the examples for mealso came from being a parent
(04:01):
and the learning of being aspouse, especially in a
politically religiouslydivergent marriage like I have.
It's been amazing.
I learned a lot.
I hope it's a useful book for alot of people who wouldn't
necessarily think it would be abook for them.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay.
Well, one thing that I can sayis that the book is relatively
concise In total, 170 pagescovering nine chapters, all of
which have a number of topics.
Was it tough distilling all ofthis down into chunks?
There's some ground that youcover across the chapter.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean that book was written.
This book was written andrewritten.
I kept thinking, oh, it's done.
And then, oh no, there'sanother rewrite in my future.
I'm just so glad it's done.
God bless this, you're all done.
I wanted it to be superuser-friendly.
I know how busy people are.
I know how short our attentionspans have become, honestly,
(04:59):
trained up through technology,and I also know how important it
is for teams to learn together.
So this book was created forteams to choose a little chunk,
which could be like a page oftext or two pages, some of the
longer sections with reflectionquestions at the end.
I kept thinking of teams likereading it together and talking
(05:21):
about it.
That would be like a littledream come true.
If there's teams of people,this could be faith.
Communities could be using thisbook for profit.
I've had the good fortune ofworking both while I was at the
Institute, before I was at theInstitute and since I left, in
many different settingseducation, healthcare, banking,
(05:42):
the courts.
I just haven't run across aplace yet where people don't
need more support than they getto be able to be human beings
with one another in a reallygood way.
There's a lot more fear nowthan there used to be, in more
and more spaces, and I hope thisbook helps people to be more
authentic, more courageous withone another, more willing to
(06:06):
have the difficult, criticalconversations.
We need to have to do our best.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So this book talks about nonviolence First.
The opening bit is nonviolenceat work.
Are there somemisunderstandings or
misperceptions that folksometimes have about nonviolence
that you're open to address andclarify some of what you've
written?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
what you've written?
Yeah, definitely.
One of the quotes from ourcolleague, alex that I really
like is that people often thinkof nonviolence as moral
perfection and that it's notthat at all.
It's a way of doing more andmore good over time, less and
less harm over time, and that wecan make those small choices.
The book talks again and againabout the small choices we can
make how we use our time, how weuse our language, how we can
step towards one another indifficult moments, the
(06:59):
structures that we can set up sothat we can help each other do
that more.
I want people to understandthat nonviolence isn't just some
realm of perfection that'sdisconnected from our lives.
It's actually critical for usin a world with as much violence
as the one that we have.
We've got to start working outdoing our reps with nonviolence.
(07:24):
I was reading a quote fromAmanda Gorman, the poet,
recently.
She said something along thelines of this country, it's way
easier to ban a book than to banassault weapons.
You know, and we're talking toeach other on the heels of yet
another school shooting.
I just keep thinking of thekids in these schools, you know,
in the ones where districtswhere there haven't been
(07:45):
shootings.
Yet it's haunting schools nowit's haunting children's lives.
The idea that someone couldcome in and hurt them that way
it haunts all of us.
Buffalo and the Tops shooting,tops shooting.
We have got to get a handle onviolence.
I want people to look atnonviolence much more seriously.
It's not just somepie-in-the-sky perfection.
(08:06):
It's what we can work towards,without being perfect, to make
the world a much better place.
And if we can't have the moralimagination to make it better
for ourselves, think of somechild whose life matters to you
and do it for them.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I am curious about the interview conducted with 19
people right, you and I sattogether for Sure did.
Did anything unexpected arise?
Did anything surprise you inthe process of these interviews?
Anything come up that was achallenge or that gave you pause
, as you were putting yourthoughts.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
You know, especially as people who walk around in the
world with black and brown skin, where the status quo
protections actually don't workfor you.
They often work against you.
So you know the need forself-defense, the need to not
(09:16):
trust that the state is going toactually take care of you, your
family, your neighborhood inthe way that it should.
If anything, it's going to comein and be an oppressive place,
like has so often happened inthe neighborhood in which we're
all sitting right now, where theinstitute is located.
I feel grateful to you inparticular for how I tried to
break violence and nonviolencedown in the early part of this
book.
That really came a lot from theconversations not just one you
(09:36):
and I had and really understandthat we can't just be
impractical about taking care ofourselves.
There's all sorts of ways tothink about nonviolence.
If we think about nonviolence,we want to have it within
ourselves.
We want to be people who haveless harsh criticisms and less
imposter syndrome, lessharshness towards ourselves.
(09:58):
Anyone who's spent some timelooking at that we know that
harshness within just spills out.
It just does.
There's no way it doesn't.
If it doesn't spill out on thepeople around us, it spills into
our declining health mental orphysical.
So we want to have a betterrelationship within ourselves.
We want to have betterrelationships with the people
around us.
We want to be more lovingpeople.
(10:20):
We want to be more courageouspeople with our friends, our
colleagues, our neighbors.
We want to know how to do that.
We want to have hope that theworld can be a better place.
So there's all sorts of ideas,I hope, in this book that will
help people take a next step andthen a next step after that.
I hope in this book that willhelp people take a next step and
then a next step after that.
And I have a lot of humilityabout what it's like I can't
(10:43):
speak for what it's like to walkin the room with your identity
as a black man, and so I reallyget that.
I want the world to be a saferplace for you and I think that
the ideas in this book couldhelp with that.
And I think that the ideas inthis book could help with that.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I am thoughtful about the pressures that we're under
as a society.
We feel limited in time.
Sometimes there's a scarcitymindset that we adhere to.
You know, the language in thisbook is accessible.
The reflections and the thoughtexperiments are practical.
(11:20):
I really have the sense that ifpeople give the minimum
investment of reading throughprocessing this, that it's going
to provide value.
Who is questioning theviability of folding in some of
these changes to?
They've got shareholders thatthey're responsible for?
(11:41):
There's this gravity to kind ofstay in the system as is and
(12:03):
maximize the current system asis and not introduce a whole
bunch of new elements to it todestabilize right?
How do you create a bridge tonon-violence, to the person
who's deeply immersed in it?
Trappings of society as it is.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, if somebody was deeply invested in the story of
business as usual and receivedthe benefits of it meaning they
were mainstream people whodidn't experience any kind of
harm or inadequacy as a resultof systems not serving them well
it may be very hard to see thatthings need to change.
(12:46):
So what I'm interested in isthe aspects of people's lives
where they recognize and theycan see where things aren't
working well.
That's one thing.
If you have a kid with alearning difficulty or issue and
all of a sudden you notice howthe school doesn't actually help
them in the way that they needto be helped, you've got higher
(13:09):
issues with turnover in yourarea than you want to have and
you've measured and noticed thatthe cost of bringing a new
person onto your team and theloss of institutional knowledge
from that turnover is creatingactually way more pressure and
lowering the effectiveness ofwhat you could be making happen
in the world.
So that's also something that Ithought a lot about in this
(13:32):
book.
I think it's just a question ofwhat matters to you and what
you want to improve.
I also think that for me, oneof the biggest gateways even if
you're walking in the world withan identity where things are
pretty well set up for you.
One of the biggest gateways forme and again I talk about this
(13:53):
in the book is learning peoplewho are different from me like
really loving people I'm solucky to have and it's not just
luck, it's cultivated luck tooto have people that I really
love whose identities divergesignificantly from me because of
their religion, because oftheir sexual orientation,
(14:14):
because of their race, theirethnicity, their immigration
status.
When we love people who are notserved by what's happening,
then it's an invitation for usto use everything that we have,
all the things that we aregifted with.
Gandhi talked about that we aretrustees of the gifts that we
(14:36):
receive, whether our gift ismusic and art, like yours is
Erin, or mine is sometimes liketalking I don't know what my
gifts are, I guess, butlistening for sure.
So whatever gifts we bring intothe world, we can use them in
service of life itself and webecome more generous in what we
(14:56):
want to do with those gifts whenwe have love for people who are
less like us.
Even someone who is working ina large organization, maybe they
have one friend who has a storythat's really different from
them in terms of where they grewup or what their immigration
status is, or they're justnaturally curious.
So I hope that people,regardless of where they are
(15:18):
even if they're, they are seeingthemselves as well-served.
But again, I question anyonewho could really see themselves
as well-served?
Every one of us reads newsheadlines and every one of us
feels the terror of a schoolshooting in our neighborhood.
Every one of us has to look atwhat's happening outside of this
country that the United Stateshas so much responsibility for.
(15:38):
I was talking to a young friendof mine from Afghanistan this
weekend about some of the newrepression that is being put in
place against women by theTaliban and he said shit, he
goes.
People in Afghanistan reallyhold the USA responsible for
everything the Taliban is doingnow, because USA just gave our
(16:01):
country back to the Taliban,even though they fought them for
24 years and they knew whatthey would do.
They knew what they.
They got back into power, butUS US just gave my niece, gave
my wife, gave our daughter, gavemy mother back into the hands
of people that really oppresswomen.
So you know, we all haveresponsibility for things, even
(16:24):
if our lives are working welland we're one of the lucky ones
who's got a job and a nice houseand a decent bank account.
I mean, don't even get mestarted on climate change.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Kit.
I am curious about the entiretyof the impact.
It's looking out a year,looking out five years.
When, in fact, are you open tothat?
Thanks, cultishly.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I would love to hear from a few or more people who
say that their ideas aboutnonviolence changed as a result
of this book.
I hope I'll hear from peoplewho are saying when I read this
book, I have new ideas for howthe work that I do in places
that I work, worship andvolunteer could become better.
(17:12):
I would love to help that.
I want to support people inbeing more wholehearted.
I think wholeheartedness is oneof the greatest assets to have.
If we're divided and torn aboutwhat we're doing, we can't
really get the joy of it.
When we're wholehearted aboutanything, joy often tags along
like a puppy behind you.
So I want folks to have morewholeheartedness.
I also hope that this bookhelps people to question the
(17:37):
kind of conditioning that we'vecollectively received.
You mentioned earlier about timeand I really question.
I mean, we have the mostlabor-saving devices in history,
yet we tell ourselves we don'thave a lot of time.
I think the way that we've beentrained to think has a lot to
do with the sense of scarcity,so that we're not deeply
(17:59):
reflective.
We don't honor relationships inthe ways that we could.
We don't honor ourselves in theway that we could.
We don't honor ourselves in theway that we could, and I hope
that interrupts a lot of peoplewho regularly schedule
programming and helps them tothink like is it true that
there's not enough time?
Is it true that it's okay forus to treat each other like
objects?
I hope it stirs up some goodtrouble.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Do I so, Kit?
I am wondering about the folkswho enjoy receiving book content
via audio.
Any plans potentially in theworks, or could you see yourself
adapting this to like an audiobook format or something?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
There's an e-book.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
There is an e-book Okay so folks can get it
digitally.
Yep, okay, excellent.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, and I've already talked to a couple of
friends about doing translation.
It would be super cool, maybeTurkish, maybe Deutsch, german.
Yeah, and I've already talkedto a couple of friends about
doing translation.
It would be so cool.
Maybe, Turkish, maybe Deutsch,german, okay, who knows, I don't
know.
Not an audio book, but I'mmassively motivated by requests.
So a couple of people say Ihave an audio book, probably
(19:06):
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Where can this book be found?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
People can go to bookshoporg.
We talk a lot about alternativeeconomics in this book, so I
try to keep it off of the usualsuspects.
But I'm finding that the book isactually on the usual suspects
website.
Bookshopsorg is a great placeto give money to.
The publisher is Pache Bene,who's a fantastic nonviolence
(19:31):
organization that's partneredwith Gandhi Institute and
continues to partner with themin so many ways, and so, yeah,
you can go on the Pache Benewebsite and money from this book
is going to go to supportnonviolence and through their
work, and I hope people willalso choose to look in on Gandhi
Institute.
You know, check out more andmore of what we're doing here.
(19:52):
I hope it attracts a lot morefinancial support to the
Institute.
I hope foundations come andfind you from reading this book.
There's project stories in theback of this book about the
different kinds of projectswe've gotten up to.
I hope people read thoseprojects and stories and get
inspired by not just what we did, but also the times when we
chose to let things go.
That's a natural kind of lifecycle of learningutors in
(20:15):
Australia and in Europe forIngramSpark, who's a publisher,
so it's not going to be tons ofmoney to get it of money to get
(20:48):
it All right?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Any opportunity folks may have to hear you talking
about the book, or are youfielding open to us to kind of
share about?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, I would have lots of fun doing that.
Made a little website callednonviolenceatworkorg.
People can reach me through theGhanian Institute website
Pachabeni website.
You can find me through theGandhi Institute website
Pachabeni website.
You can find me.
I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I'll just say, for my part, this is an approachable
book, a readable book.
It's a very fulfilling read.
There's an intentional aspectto the writing and a poetic side
.
The words sit together in a waythat feels good, absorbing, for
everyone.
Listening to this podcast, Irecommend you find a way to read
(21:33):
this.
There's a lot of surface areato respond to a lot of people's
particular interests andcircumstances.
You can almost open up the bookto any page and something
thought-provoking, meaningful,probably applicable to your life
.
Highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I did not give him money to say that or anything.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It's the plain old truth Kit, anything that you
would want to leave people withpart of this conversation that
you would Well, I'm inclined tojust open the book randomly
right now and see what the bookhas to say to us.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
There's a whole section here on cultural
humility, which has been areally important part of my
journey and the Institute'sjourney.
Who said culture is areflection of what we value, of
(22:32):
what you value, and what existedin the culture of the Institute
was dedication to looking atwhat was real.
So I like that idea that we bein more and more places where
people are dedicated to lookingat what's real and that we can
talk about things so that we'renot just sitting there in so
many meetings in different partsof this country in this world
(22:53):
keeping our truth to ourselvesbecause we're afraid to speak.
The world desperately needspeople to be authentic, to bring
their full gifts online, for afuture to be possible, even and
I'm just bananas about feedback,which I talk about in the book
too.
So, yeah, very curious to hear.
Including I don't like thisbook.
Tell me why, and thanks againfor the opportunity to speak
(23:16):
about it on the big day where itgets released into the world.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It's an honor this time with you, kit.
My guest is Kit Miller.
The book that she is releasingtoday is Culture Shift
Nonviolence Work.
This has been Perspectives onPeace.
Thank you very much forlistening.
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