Conflict Is Not Abuse

Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

By: Sarah Schulman

Narrated by: Sarah Schulman

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between conflict and abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning.

Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how supremacy behavior and traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference.

This important and sure-to-be controversial book illuminates such contemporary and historical issues of personal, racial, and geo-political difference as tools of escalation towards injustice, exclusion, and punishment, whether the objects of dehumanization are other individuals in our families or communities, people with HIV, African Americans, or Palestinians.

©2016 Sarah Schulman (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A concluding call to address personal and social conflicts without state intervention via police and courts caps off a work that's likely to inspire much discussion." (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

Important Perspective

I really appreciate how Sarah explores the complicity of conflict in our time. She doesn't resort to simplifying and demonizing language to make a point (as we often see), and backs up her points with both research and relatable stories.

Abuse and bullying survivors will benefit from listening to this!

A thoughtful, kind, ethical analysis of conflict and abuse. Very beneficial for those who wish to view the world with nuance and behave in a truly compassionate way.

Complex and requires re-reads

What could I possibly say here to convince one of reading, that the language of outrage in 1 Star reviewers here would not be said to better sell the text with their eloquent style of defensiveness and admittance to being driven to throw the book away in moral disgust after reaching the end of chapter.
I suppose they'd say they feel invalidated,
that their ears were being abused..

My only contention with the text is what the author refers to as "Childish" regarding descriptions of behavior and rationalization is often an insult to children.

A Drunken Rant of a book

Have you ever had a friend drunkenly rant to you about their field of expertise? This book is like one of those conversations.

Schulman has some very illuminating points to make about how people can lock themselves into a victim hood mindset which causes them to further victimize people through social ostracization campaigns. She also expands this point to Geopolitics as well with minimal success. When the book sticks to interpersonal power dynamics it is at it's most successful.

Schulman starts the book by stating that she is undisciplined so the book should be taken as a discussion piece rather than a research paper. This is good advice. On those merits the work is largely successful. However when it veers into Israel-Palestine conflicts, the book careens off the rails and becomes a mess.

About one-fourth of the novel is a chapter which lists out Israel atrocities towards Palestinians. The chapter is littered with endless twitter and Facebook quotations which goes on so long it becomes numbing. That's a fine tactic if the point is to show how commonplace the atrocities are but it instead completely loses the main argument of the book.

Her point is how nations also fall under the same cycles of victim hood which allows the nation to justify atrocities. However, the point would have been made better in one-third of the time.

Schulman also made the very ill advised decision to narrate the book herself. Her pacing is slow, lifeless, and low energy. Additionally her recording equipment seems to be of low quality as the dynamic range on her pickup flattens the volume of her voice. She talks about being involved in the arts and acting scene, please hire one of those people next time.

This is definitely a self published book. it's self indulgent, bloated in sections, and goes off on rather ill-advised tangents (this woman hates email). However it also has thought provoking discussions on rather important conflicts. If you came to this looking for the definitive book on shunning and victimhood, this ain't it chief, but it does point in the right direction.

I grew as a result

Of listening to this audiobook
Lots to digest
helpful for learning how to understand more fully and communicate better with fellow hominids!

conceptually great, delivery flat

Downloaded this book because I'm interested in understanding ways in which transformative justice can be executed. I knew the author wasnt a mental health professional, but her diversity of experience peaked my interest. It starts strong, but the subject matter gets muddy after chapter 5. narration is unfortunately very under stimulating.

Wow! For anyone who experiences conflict!

I found the cadence of the reading far too slow so I listened at 1.5 - 2x the speed and that worked great! Amazing book! Comprehensive content. Got far more out of it than I was expecting to. An easy 5 Star!

Great book

I believe many people will find something they like in it. I personally did not care much about political parts of this book. However, the book is full of advice on personal emotional intelligence, which I loved.

Completely enlightening

The outpouring of empathy from the words on the page is truly staggering.

Made me reconsider what it is to be progressive. And gave a profound sense of understanding to why people to bad things to others, and ways this can be stopped.

Will likely shape how I think about others and their experiences, maybe forever.

for anyone who interacts with other humans!

This author uses her decades long experience working with several types of groups and 1x1 communication - but all in serious or complex settings - to describe the levels of the cycles of projection, assumptions, trauma responses we all have. It's a learning tool for communication and conflict to see oneself through our interactions with others. For myself I used it as sort of an emotional and intellectual mirror, that I'm certain will take me calmly into work and life human interactions.