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

by Sarah Schulman

Today, a “good” family model is based on an ideology called “loyalty” or, more neo-liberally, “being supportive.” Often this is one in which the members reinforce each other regardless of the content of their lives and the consequence of their actions on others. They are “always there for you.” They overpraise in a broad sense. George W. Bush may be a war criminal, but his family is always there for him. As Edith Weigert recalled about Harry Stack Sullivan’s observation, families can create a “deprivation of indulgence.” No standard for how to treat others is forged. They can reproduce class and gender Supremacy systems by not expecting their members to face and deal with conflict, to learn how to take care of themselves or others, to literally and spiritually clean up after themselves, or to be self-critical. As a result, family members learn how to be exploitative, expectant, and entitled. They learn to view some jobs as beneath them or some paths as above them; they understand that accountability is beyond them because they always have the family and its emotional resources to fall back on. They can come to expect a level of gender, class, or race Supremacy without having to work or earn their comforts. From the family’s perspective, this is considered “love.” Some “good” bourgeois families build their strength at the expense of others, especially others in need or who don’t have a family. It’s inherent to the construction of the bourgeois classes. The family says “no” ...