Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

by Sarah Schulman

Only now, the reductive quality of advertising slogans is applied to extremely serious social messages about human rights and safety.

Given constraints on women’s behavior, she retains her purity, her appropriate female lack of erotic feeling. She gets to announce that she is attractive, as women are supposed to be, but she is not attracted, as women are not supposed to be. But what if she was attracted to him and did show it, and won’t acknowledge that? And he doesn’t want to live with the “he hit on me” narrative. As a writer, I know that there is, after all, the right to be described accurately. What he wants is the “I was attracted to him but I wouldn’t acknowledge it, so I got confused” version. We don’t have language or methodology for that option, because it immediately becomes her “fault.” In a world based on blame, women have to be clear to be clean, unfortunately, so avoiding blame means avoiding complexity, contradictions, and ambivalences.

lot to unpack here

If she has knocked, called, and emailed, she is now officially, in the era of overstating harm, a “harasser.”

to be fair, I can only imagine this is how a fair amount of harassment does actually start. and it's also true that the person on the receiving end doesn't owe the other person anything

But in reality, romance doesn’t always start off on the right foot, two people don’t always see the potential in one another at the same time, and thankfully, other people can change us with their hope, forgiveness, and optimism. We can make each other’s lives better, despite all our fears.

At any conflicted moment that is available to interpret one’s self as somehow transgressed, there is often the option of not seeing it that way. Or of asking the other person what they mean.

Of course, to always respond this way is problematic because then we never stand for anything on our own. But while recognizing that for socially marginalized or demeaned people, exclusion and silencing are everywhere and must be addressed, we still have choices about how to understand each other.

No answer is not an answer.

it kind of is though

The problem is that silence is not accountable. Feeling confused, feeling the anxiety of attraction to a body or a mind, feeling that someone has come along who I was not prepared for, these are not signs that someone is doing something bad to me. The woman who told me, “Don’t say you aren’t attracted when you are,” was not harassing me. She was not taking agency away from me, overpowering me, or being controlling. Instead, she gave me a gift. She offered me a code of decency.

really interesting thoughts to end the chapter on

In an environment like New York City that is filled with violence, Hodes had boldly started to notice that clients were increasingly confused about what the word “Abuse” actually means. That it was overused. The paradox is, of course, that many women are unable to recognize that they are being abused, or cannot get acknowledgment of this reality from others. But at the very same time, Hodes found that some women were applying the term Abuse to situations that were really something else. Increasingly, she noticed that women who did not know how to resolve a problem sometimes described that feeling with the word Abuse. So this session had been convened to address that trend directly with service providers.

is it just women, though?

While identifying Abuse is essential to saving lives and providing services, differentiating Conflict from Abuse is also essential to meeting clients’ real need to learn how to face and deal with obstacles, and to develop truthful assessments of themselves and others.

Scapegoating, after all, is often rooted in the false accusation that one person or group is unilaterally responsible for mistakes that are actually contributed to by multiple parties. So what did she mean by undoing an insight that so many of us have spent years learning how to apply?

the recognition of mutual responsibility, but rather the use of the word Abuse, because once the dynamic is mutual, it is not Abuse, which inherently implies one person’s domination.

they can also help people who simply can’t problem-solve because they lock themselves into a victimized self-perception.

I don't know, I think one thing I'm struggling with is the binary of "actual abuse" and "victimized self-perception" -- I guess if her thesis is that things are being overstated as abuse, it's probably worth considering that misusing the term both reduces and elevates it, but it still seems harsh somehow

Lacking the support and encouragement to successfully negotiate does not mean that someone is being victimized.

One suggestion was to ask the client: “Are you unsafe, or are you instead uncomfortable, angry, or hurt?”

again, I'm really struggling with this as a response that could be demeaning and get in the way of dealing with the actual issue (whether abuse or conflict) -- but then I guess Schulman's argument is probably that the feelings are valid but overstatement and inferring harm (from the questioner/social worker through something like this line of questioning) is not -- so rather than "how dare you diminish what I'm coming to you for help for," the response should be being more open and communicating more to/for the professional? seems kind of elitist, but then again, I guess if you're dealing with a professional it's more a matter of them being able to fulfill that role in a way that is empathetic, etc, rather than just presenting themselves as an arbiter of "real" abuse and unsuccessfully managed conflict, etc...

What we have instead is a devolved definition of personal responsibility, which constructs avoidance as a right regardless of the harm it does to others.

So asking a distressed person if they are unsafe, or rather, uncomfortable, angry, or hurt provides them with an alternative idea that might fit better with their actual experience.

It not only elicits helpful information, but encourages the individual to start to think about themselves in a more adult, complex, and responsible manner.

but, again, can this also be a further harm to someone that is being abused?

Does the person feel unsafe when they are not actually unsafe, but rather because the other party, with whom they are in Conflict, is bringing up issues about their life that are troublesome and therefore initially feel overwhelming and difficult to face.

Or is it the safety from being made uncomfortable by accurate information that challenges one’s self-perception?

Avoiding a complete shutdown and instead encouraging a client or friend’s thorough exploration of anxiety is beneficial to the accuser and essential to their object of punishment.

A woman stating that she is “afraid” of her partner may produce a knee-jerk superficial reaction confirming her as a victim and her partner as a perpetrator because she used fear terminology. This resonates with the government’s use of the vocabulary of “terror” to keep citizens from looking at the consequences of our national policy on other people’s lives, or causing us to racially profile people of color, Muslims, and others. But if instead, enough of a conversation of depth ensues to produce concrete articulation of what exactly she fears, or that citizens fear discovering about ourselves, more layers may emerge.

If deep and nuanced support produced this insight, the situation would be revealed as Conflicted. On the other hand, if the same person says, “I am afraid that she will run me over with her car,” it could be Abuse. What makes the difference is if the latter is a substitute for the former, that is, if she suggests a scenario of victimization because she doesn’t have the support to face the actual issue.

Sometimes a person in our lives—a friend, a student, a neighbor or relative—makes negative insinuations about a third party (“He’s a stalker” or “She’s abusive”) and they want us to shun, be cold to, exclude, or in other ways punish this person. Our first responsibility is to determine if they are in physical danger from real violence. If not, then we ask to think with them about the order of events so that the complexities of the situation and how it unfolded can be revealed. It is unethical to hurt someone because we have been told to do so. We are required by decency to ask both the complainant and the accused how they understand the situation. And this, I truly believe, requires an in-person discussion. Asking hard questions and creating an environment in which complexities can be faced is, after all, what a real friend does.

this is hard -- on the one hand, it could avoid undue harm but isn't there also a risk of perpetuating actual harm already done and further possible?

Truths can be multiple and are revealed by the order of events.

As I teach in my creative writing classes, each moment is a consequence of the previous moment.

Anyone who refuses to hear the details is making a deliberate decisi...

Of course, conflicted people can mutually agree that limiting contact between them is best. Or someone in Conflict (not Abuse) may not have the skills or sense of self to be able to communicate productively for some period of time, and can responsibly and kindly request a limit with terms. For example, “I’m not able to act responsibly; let’s have a separation and meet in three weeks and ask our friend Joe to help us communicate.”

Refusing to be shunned for unjust, nonexistent, or absurd reasons is not “stalking.”

I have to say that I feel like maybe there's some conflation going on here

In the case of Conflict, saying “I refuse to speak to her” can be a behavior that performs the role of “righteous victim of abuse” without the actor actually being in that situation.

okay, but isn't it also worth making a distinction between performing a role and the host of other things that that sort of performative utterance can achieve? for example, can't "I refuse to speak to so and so" achieve more and perform more than simply what Schulman is talking about (i.e. virtue signalling?)? I guess my concern, simplified, is how does the situation change when you removed loaded terms like abuse or victim? (and I guess that's probably Schulman's point as well now that I think of it)...

A shallow relationship with a friend, relative, co-worker, or advocate means that they will not take the time to ask the meaningful questions and to help the person involved overcome shame, anger, and disappointment so they can get to a complex truth about their own participation and how to achieve repair.

The same is true for a group of friends, a workplace, a legal apparatus, a government, or a national or ethnic or religious identity, as well as for those constituted by their HIV status or citizenship.

Members have to actively take responsibility for the ethics and moral values that their small or large group claims to represent and actually enact this responsibility.

How questions are asked fundamentally reveals the value systems at play, particularly whether or not there is a real desire to know what’s true.

There is often a “cadre” of bad friends around a person encouraging them to do things that are morally wrong, unjustified, and unethical, because endorsing each other’s negative actions is built into the group relationship. Kendell recognized how crucial the surrounding community is in determining if a person will insist on false claims of harm or, the opposite, face their own participation.

Again, this is my perspective as a novelist, where my job is to convey how each character experiences their own life.

If the complainant can’t reproduce the other person’s understanding, then they don’t have enough information to complete their story.

that's an interesting perspective -- but is it really everyone's responsibility to understand everyone else's perspective? I guess in the context of community responsibility and duty of repair, it makes sense, so long as it's not subjecting anyone else to harm to do so

According to my logic, Dirk has an ethical responsibility to understand what the woman’s motive and objective were when she came to his friend’s workplace in order to be able to evaluate the events before he reinforces his male friend in the accusation that she was “stalking” him.

He somehow had gotten the wrong message that “being a good friend” meant not asking questions that reveal truths.

Instead he was expected to join in, uninformed, on the condemnation of the woman. Instead, Dirk could have tried to understand the motives and objectives of his friend’s girlfriend, who was obviously already in a place of distress and pain, something that his male friend may have helped to create.

a lot of people could stand to read this part of the book

He could be projecting onto her from traumas caused by other people earlier in his life, which, if harmful to her, is not his right. Or he could be overreacting to normative conflict and, by overstating harm, finding justification for his own excessively punitive or cruel behaviors.

His actions, on the surface, fit behaviors that were undesirable and in response I felt uncomfortable. I, too, lived inside the paradigm where being uncomfortable was grounds for accusing someone of abuse. I contemplated following what seemed to be the obvious, convenient, and socially condoned path of accusing him of “stalking” followed by condemnation, cut-off, and punishment.

Talking about difficult feelings and sharing information on this level was generationally culturally appropriate for him.

Once he saw that I was establishing a new parameter for the relationship by resigning as his advisor, but that at the same time I was neither punishing him, invoking authority, shunning him, nor withholding, we transitioned positively into the next phase.

falsely projecting that my partner in Conflict

but isn't it also a false projection to say that they are partners in conflict, given she didn't do anything in particular to create the conflict other than feeling discomfort about the intensity/volume/whatever of his interest in her? is it really fair to say that they're "partners" in conflict and bear the same level of responsibility for the situation becoming unpalatable?

These people found both the material and emotional consequences overwhelming, but even more so they were hurt by the amorphous nature of the problem. Not being able to know exactly what they were charged with, not being able to talk through the accusations, never knowing where they would face these hostile expressions

It’s a character issue that becomes the building blocks of fascism or any supremacist construction.

interesting segue, I guess?

The system by which we help people step out of conflict is so flawed, and the general understanding in the population so over-simplified that, for example, when the police answer a distress call to a private home, “Survivors may be arrested at the scene,” Hodes said. “Or cross complaints may be issued.

Perpetrators increasingly are the ones to call the police, threaten legal action, send lawyer letters, or threaten or seek restraining orders as part and parcel of their agenda of blame and unilateral control. It is an agenda designed to avoid by any means necessary having to examine their own behavior, history, or participation in the Conflict.

Actively violent and truly abusive people are hard to convict, and innocent people are convicted of crimes every day. At the same time a targeted victim may rarely be convicted and incarcerated based on exclusively harassing uses of the law, but the stigma, the anxiety, the expense and fear caused by cynica...