He's an Xbox, and I'm more Atari

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Rosenberg says it is human nature 'to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner.' 

Human nature was shaped by our recent evolutionary past, during the species' tens of thousands of years on the African savanna.  We're hierarchical, social primates:  That past has included many a rough scrape--and a good deal of competition and fighting.  There's scant evidence that 'giving and receiving in a compassionate manner' will bring humanity's mental tuning fork to harmony.

Feelings emerge from social interaction; they have a substantial involuntary component.  Our purchase on reality will not be deepened by viewing them as an internal matter.  Feelings are social.

This week we will be practicing identifying needs and trying to take statements where the speaker is not taking responsibility for their own feelings and translating statement into possible observation, feeling and need.

Not viewing the proposed exercise as a genuine avenue for moral uplift, I will sulk and mumble through the session with my reliably-anonymous game face, as if unvexed by vapidity.

Isn't it nice to be reminded that we have choices in how we receive a negative message from someone or from within ourselves?

That does not strike me as being especially information-laden, no.

One leads to compassionate conversation with self and others and others lead to contentious uncivil discourse.

There are a number of values to which I attempt fealty:  Honor, honesty, openness, responsiveness,  reasonableness, fairness, civility--to name some--none of which defines itself.  (Hence blogging's invention.)

Of late the supreme importance of civility has become a popular shibboleth.  You yourself often claim it your lodestar--in my view, mischievously.  In 2010 bourgeois parlance, 'advocating civility' is viewed a courageous act of high-mindedness.  In reality, it is self-love and self-promotion. 

An ethically serious advocate should define civility, give illustrative examples, state whether incivility can be expressed silently, clarify when civility must take a back seat to other values, explain how infractions against civility should be addressed and show awareness for the evil constituted by overvaluing politeness.

People tend to view serious challenges (to their ideologies, values, identities, i.e.) as being illegitimate.  Dogmatic assertions labeling statements as 'uncivil' should be greeted with skepticism:  Our love of civility ought not give succor to McCarthyites--in whom we are already chest deep.

You list two alternatives for the future:  'Compassionate conversation' and 'contentious uncivil discourse.'  This is a false dilemma--many other possibilities present themselves.  A personal favorite:  Contentious civil discourse.