Book Thoughts: Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman
Keeping my QUIT record up, I guess! Rut roh.
Reading the first chapter of this was pretty impossible. It begins with a tirade against tech forms of communication in a way that includes zero nuance. What if using tech is more accessible for your disability? Too bad, I guess.
After that it devolves into talking about how you're basically obligated to talk to everyone even when it feels beyond your limits. There's a huge sense of entitlement to other people's time and energy, which is not what I came here for. I came here for nuance.
Sadly, I could not get to the main ideas that people cite this book for. The first chapter says a bunch of things that indicate that this author does not see emotional abuse as a real possibility. The author seems convinced that everything can be solved by talking, with no indication of the quality of communication that is required for that to happen. There are abusive relationships I have observed where the two parties involved talked for hours and hours on end and the only thing that happened from that was that one party was shamed into denying their needs and made to believe that they were inferior and not worthy of love. I have a friend who has been stalked before. Is my friend not allowed to say that they don't want to talk to someone anymore, even if through email? It's kind of ridiculous that this book implies the answer to that is no.
It's hard to explain how weird this first chapter is without just pulling pages of confounding text into direct quote. People in other book reviews have pointed out how this book is ironically self-victimizing. I think Schulman just hates that she's been rejected before.
Big disappointment since this book is cited like everywhere.
Two Goodreads reviews from people who have actually finished this book that I think are particularly relevant:
- Andrea McDowell's review, which goes over how basically all the advice in this book only enables abuse. Schulman's takeaways are very stalker-logic.
- Mike's review, which touches on the parts of this book that actually did something well. Even so, they have a major issue with the style and research present in this book. And are unable to comment about the first two chapters other than that they didn't work.
I will say this: No response is an answer. It is a rejection, and people can reject you. They don't need to have good reasons to do so. A breakup or disinterest in a relationship only requires one party to decide that's true. Saying otherwise is setting up people to be taken advantage of.
I am always thankful to Captain Awkward for teaching me everything I know about relationships and boundaries. "No" is a complete sentence.
Bonus: My Real-Time Confusion
started reading this book and am very surprised by how anti-tech it is.
most recent passage that has surprised me:
Email creates repression and anxiety. No one is seen and no one is affirmed. The only way to recreate the normal human cycle of response is to send even more short emails or texts in a row, each with an evolved position. The next one assures you that I understand, as I am afraid that you are misconstruing me. And the final one wishes you a good trip. And, sadly, I have only made it all worse by now being in the arena of what I know is going to be simplistically called “too much” when in reality it is frankly and literally not enough. Five texts are culturally stigmatized as excessive, but they only cover a minute or two of conversation. And people need interactive conversations, even short ones, in order to understand each other.
Some of this is true (more communication goes to shit over limited modes which is why they say that you shouldn't do all your unionizing through online modes) but the broad generalization is mystifying me a bit.
"too much" meanwhile you and me send each other like 10 paragraphs sometimes.
i do think it is easier to communicate with you over phone than email and a primary mode of that is getting reassurance that you don't think I'm crazy or whatever, but there's a benefit to emailing too where i get more time to condense what im thinking and i can more easily take notes on it later. i wouldn't say our text chats (which were the most real-time of our tech stuff) was even all that more effective than email. big hm
😭😭😭😭 <- literally just used this emoji in my notes so far
whatttisssssshappening here dam 🦫
FROG 🐸 i dont think i cna do this eknflekqowivudjkamsbqjqkdnlalqjfnksndjajndjdndndndndndnmsla
im cryin
man. im straight up laughing here at how bewildered i am. it's like this author has 0 concept of emotional abuse and i sincerely don't... i...
i cannot tell if i should stop reading this book immediately because it seems like a giant fucking miss or if i should keep on it to see if it makes me think a single other thing than "why does all of this come across like the author is just upset about the women she's into not fucking her"
The Aborted Notes
- email and text is unilateral information exchange and in-person is better. even goes so far as to say there is an "artificial nature of these obstructive walls"
- says refusal to communicate is a negative power-play and is one of the main reasons for false accusations. curious. people can give each other silent treatment irl too? also sometimes you feel more pressured not to say what you think in person. like what do you do if the other person Is Actually Abusing You (by controlling your actions or physically hitting you etc.)?
Refusing to speak to someone without terms for repair is a strange, childish act of destruction in which nothing can be won. Like all withholding, it comes from a state of rage, and states of rage are products of the past. As some say, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” By refusing to talk without terms, a person is refusing to learn about themselves and thereby refusing to have a better life. It hurts everyone around them by dividing communities and inhibiting learning. When we have terms (e.g., “You stole my money to buy drugs so I will talk to you about this when you have three years sober”), they may not ever be met. But at least there is always a possibility of repair. Withholding this possibility makes normative conflict or resistance the primary source of injustice between us. It is designed to hurt, and it does hurt, with nothing gained but pain.
Without conversation, it is the person with the most limitations who is in control. The desirable goal for all of us is not to restrict those who can, but to bring more communication skills to those who can’t. Refusal through email, texting, and other technologies keeps the person who doesn’t know how to problem-solve from learning how. It keeps them imprisoned in their own imagined negative fears about the other, and their fantasies of their own potential humiliation or demise if they were to talk to the other person and thereby understand what the other person is thinking and feeling. Often these blocks are instigated over Nothing, Normative Conflict, or Simple Difference. It gets elevated in importance in the blocker’s mind because they are too anxious to negotiate, or are paralyzed by negative fantasy about actually speaking to the dehumanized other. But because they also deny these internal conditions, negotiation becomes impossible. They cannot advance, and anyone who is controlled by their refusal cannot advance.
Hm. again what about all the people that are gaslit by their abusers? honestly there is a point where even attempting to communicate is useless between two people and just gets worse.
There is no reason why people do not return phone calls except for the power-play of not answering. It certainly does not save time. It is tragic that we have evolved a social custom that people need to email in order to ask for permission to make a phone call. Just call! Emailing to ask for permission to speak privileges the rage, Supremacy, and Trauma of withholding over the human responsibility to communicate and understand.
- ??????? i,.... sometimes don't return calls because im literally anxious about having to form responses and mask in real time to avoid being judged negatively? i reach out and try to communicate in other ways?? man... regardless of how adaptive my avoidance is, it is 100% not a power play on my part. it literally exhausts me more to have to talk to someone in real time and modulate my tone etc. I don't get why intentions are just being assumed here. some people are also literally just forgetful.
In another example from other people’s lives, sometimes angry, supremacist, or traumatized people send emails commanding, “Do not contact me.” I want to state here, for the record, that no one is obligated to obey a unidirectional order that has not been discussed. Negotiation is a human responsibility. Little children order their parents around: “Mommy, sit there!” When adults give orders while hiding behind technology, they are behaving illegitimately. These unilateral orders do not have to be obeyed. They need to be discussed.
- What about people who have stalkers?????? why are there so many absolutes 😭😭😭😭😭
There is something in the person who hides behind email that wants these offenses to be true. They want to feel victimized. Then they don’t have to look at themselves critically or think about the other person with complexity. There is no guilt or responsibility if one is an email victim.
- ok.png..... this writer Must have talked to actual abuse victims before writing this book, right? so what would be their explanation for asking someone not to doxx you because your parents will literally hurt you if they find out what you're doing online, the other person saying that they'll only agree if you give them enough Attention, and then that Attention is literally more than you have capacity to give? i just don't get it. there is actually a point when you're allowed to stop trying for someone who wants way too much of what you literally cannot give.
Goodreads review mentioning:
"In ch7 Schulman compares the Israeli state (and their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza) to someone with borderline personality disorder. I don't see how a state with military grade weaponry and a history spanning centuries is remotely comparable to a single person suffering from borderline who (probably) can't get the treatment they need. Let's not psychologise institutions which exist at a different level of organisation from individuals. Conflating genocide with mental illness is ignorant, reductive and abject."
THIS SHIT SO ASS
<quit>