Barbara Deming Born : July 23, 1917 Died : August 2, 1984 Browse All Authors Top 41 quotes by Barbara Deming The point is to change one's life. The point is not to give some vent to the emotions that have been destroying one; the point is so to act that one can master them now. Barbara Deming destroying emotion giving The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions. Barbara Deming diversity real peace Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution. Barbara Deming anger determination thinking A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed. Barbara Deming liberation movement strength Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in noncooperation? Barbara Deming effectiveness wife peace Our own pulse beats in every stranger's throat. Barbara Deming pulse stranger spiritual I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive. Barbara Deming choices enemy thinking Manliness has been defined as assertion of the self. Womanliness has been defined as the nurturing of selves other than our own - even if we quite lose our own in the process. (Women are supposed to find in this loss their true fulfillment.) But every individual person is born both to assert herself or himself and to act out a sympathy for others trying to find themselves - in Christian terms, meant to love one's self as one loves others ... Jesus never taught that we should split up that commandment - assigning 'love yourself' to men, 'love others' to women. But society has tried to. Barbara Deming christian love-you jesus We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women-whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also. Barbara Deming differences voice justice Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide. Barbara Deming change mind people What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal... We do not belong to the other, but our lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others. Barbara Deming peace lying thinking To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created. Barbara Deming nice doe peace It is not as mirrors reflect us but, rather, as our dreams do, that movies most truly reveal the times. If the dreams we have been dreaming provide a sad picture of us, it should be remembered that - like that first book of Dante's Comedy - they show forth only one region of the psyche. Through them we can read with a peculiar accuracy the fears and confusions that assail us - we can read, in caricature, the Hell in which we are bound. But we cannot read the best hopes of the time. Barbara Deming movie dream book People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations. Barbara Deming people needs Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am. Barbara Deming let-me moments live-in-the-moment People may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation. Barbara Deming change running long there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one's whole being in the determination: this must change. Barbara Deming healthy anger determination A great many of us must move from words to acts - from words of dissent to acts of disobedience. Barbara Deming great-men obedience moving Balance and control come from healthy anger. This is just as aggressive as the unhealthy kind. But it is based on a belief and hope for change in social roles and institutions. Healthy anger demands change and creates the confrontations needed for change to occur. It also gives the other an opportunity to help make that change. “Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution. Barbara Deming determination opportunity thinking Nonviolent actions are by their nature androgynous. In them the two impulses that have long been treated as distinct, 'masculine' and 'feminine,' the impulse of self-assertion and the impulse of sympathy, are clearly joined; the very genius of nonviolence, in fact, is that it demonstrates them to be indivisible, and so restores human community. Barbara Deming masculine-and-feminine self two
