Where we left off: The phone call cure-all
This is part two of a two-part article series. If you haven’t read part one, I recommend doing that first.
Schulman believed that a simple phone call would have avoided all possibility of miscommunication, stating “the now ‘forbidden’ ten-to-twenty minute phone conversation could save the subsequent months or years of misplaced bad feeling”, insinuating that people never misinterpret words spoken over the phone or in person.
In advocating for due process and dialogue, Schulman declares “in-person, interactive conversation […] produces resolution”, as though face-to-face communication never devolves into a shouting match, hurled accusations, or verbal assault.
“Email creates repression and anxiety”, laments Schulman, claiming it is not possible to communicate complex and nuanced ideas through electronic communication. I would like to bring Schulman’s attention to the Deaf and non-speaking communities.
Many people have had a lifetime of practice formulating and conveying deep thoughts through writing, signing, and typing. While email and text certainly lack the visual or aural aids of body language and tone of voice, this does not mean one cannot compensate for these missing components of expression.
In signed languages, we use body language and facial expressions to convey or emphasize emotions, and in place of vocal tone. In the Autistic community, wherein many of us struggle to accurately interpret tone, facial expressions, and body language of others, we’ll often make this ambiguous information explicit. For example, we may verbally indicate our intent along with our statement.
When communicating in written form, many Autistic people (among others) use tone indicators, which are tools for understanding the intent and tone of a message. Their use has been shown to help clarify the tone or context of written text, to emphasize the emotion conveyed, and to minimize the misinterpretation of messages.
It had such potential
The idea behind Conflict is Not Abuse had great potential. In her book, Schulman makes some very important points about the dangers of weaponizing victimhood in order to avoid accountability. She discusses how people in power position themselves as victims in order to maintain their status and rank in the social hierarchy.
She touched upon an important issue within neoliberal capitalism, whereby our individualistic society requires us to compete over whose suffering is morally worthy of recognition and empathy. In her quest to disentangle the crossed wires between conflict and abuse, Schulman instead conflates a different set of concepts: individual and systemic accountability.
While pointing out real and valid systemic issues in social work, and policing, Schulman draws false comparisons between these macro-level inequities and interpersonal conflict on a micro-level.
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