[media-credit name=’SUNDEEP MALLADI/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]A world-renowned international peacemaker visited Madison Monday evening to tell hundreds of audience members that nonviolent communication can lead to a peaceful world.

Using a number of unique teaching methods, Rosenberg, a UW alumnus, said society employs retributive justice where superiors judge others, thus determining whether that person deserves reward or punishment. Rosenberg believes this is the reason society is prone to violence.

"Cultures that have that [the retributive] concept of judgment have enormous violence," Rosenberg said.

According to Rosenberg, nonviolent communication supports a restorative concept of justice, which is based on the idea that individuals are all connected and should be genuinely concerned about the well-being of others.

"Our objective in nonviolent communication is to create connections between people," Rosenberg said. "We must enjoy contributing to each other's well-being in a system where all parties get their needs met through compassionate giving."

Rosenberg described a system for dealing with conflict that includes less blaming and criticizing and more recognizing one's feelings and expressing personal needs.

"A literacy of feelings and needs is needed to describe behavior you don't like," Rosenberg said.

According to Rosenberg, every living phenomenon takes actions in service of their own personal needs. Rosenberg said he believes today's culture has severely undermined this theory.

"We have been miseducated to get disconnected from our needs," Rosenberg said. "In our culture, needs are associated with being needy and selfish."

Rosenberg said people must request thoughts rather than demand them.

"'Should' is the most dangerous word in our language, and is a word that has been connected to so much violence," Rosenberg said.

The lecture also offered many interesting tools and techniques for dealing with everyday conflicts.

"I started visualizing certain children that I was going to practice this with," said Mira Bakken, a third-grade teacher at Nuestro Mundo Community School, a charter language school located on the east side of Madison.

Rosenberg's lecture was the kickoff for a two-day seminar on nonviolent communication taking place Tuesday and Wednesday at the Alliant Energy Center.

Ellen Jessen, a teacher at Madison East High School, said she enjoyed Monday's lecture and plans to attend the other events.

"The lecture has just offered a whole new way of thinking about situations," Jessen said. "It got me really excited to attend the seminar this week."

Ed Hallsten drove from Rockford, Ill., and said Rosenberg offered a wide array of life changing ideas.

"Every time I expose myself to Rosenberg's stuff, there is always something else that comes through," Hallsten said. "This stuff applies itself automatically to one's life."

Rosenberg has traveled the United States for years, sharing his vision. In 1984 he founded the Center for Nonviolent Communication based in California and continues to spend more than 250 days a year teaching in a wide range of economic conditions across the globe.