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

Conflict Is Not Abuse: A book on the cultural phenomenon of blame, cruelty, and scapegoating as a power tactic in a range of relationships, from the most intimate (partners, friends) to the broadest (cultural groups, nations). It discusses how those in power positions exacerbate and manipulate fear of the other to achieve their aims.

The book also looks at its subject through the lens of technology, and how social media and email have made our interactions with one another more impersonal and thus more subject to misunderstanding and abuse. (It’s so easy to shun or block an intimate on Facebook who is thought to have made a transgression, rather than discussing the subject openly - part of the new mob mentality to scapegoat.)

This book takes a highly personal approach to what on the surface is a complex subject, but at its heart it is about how we as a culture need to treat each other - partners, family members, communities, nations - with respect and dignity.