Grace A. Bickers

Technically, my dissertation is a sort of epistemology of Islamic evidence law. Actually, it’s an exploration of the ways we do or could navigate conflict. How do we know what really happened in order to make it right? Is there some objectively true version of events we’re trying to discover, or are there many ways to tell the same story? As any decent trial lawyer would agree, even the truth won’t get you very far if you can’t explain and justify the facts better than the other team.

I’ve written about narrative and accountability before, but as someone who works on religion and history, my thinking was drawn from a whole set of literature on tradition and ethics. As I was happy to discover, many scholars of Anglo-American law also understand evidentiary procedure and judicial decision making as forms of storytelling, that the way we make sense of information is by constructing causal relationships between events — she had the victim’s blood in her apartment because she was involved in his murder, etc.^* Competing narratives attempt to offer the best, most coherent explanation of the evidence in its entirety, and judges or juries are charged with deciding which version they find most reasonable and compelling.

There’s some debate (they are lawyers, after all) over whether or not we can assume a universal standard of what reasonable actually means, or if not universal, at least if a culturally contextual idea of reasonableness exists. In academic work, this is where I have some things to say about Islamic legal epistemology and the conceptualization of certain knowledge and the importance of procedure and consensus. Personally, the thought that what I find to be reasonable or unreasonable action is totally incomprehensible to another person terrifies me. On what grounds could I ever express hurt? How could I ever expect anyone to care? If it’s impossible to be on the same page, how can I make my case?

Part of the realization that the dissertation is really just an excuse to understand interpersonal conflict came from trying to make sense of what feels like a truly insurmountable rupture in a relationship I care about quite deeply. A lot of old wounds have been torn open, as only those who know us the best can do, and I’ve felt like my entire reality has become something that must be proved and justified or else it cannot be believed. I lived with emotional abuse for a long time, and though many good years have faded those memories, the feeling never entirely goes away. Therapy has taught me that because of my past experiences, I process inconsistency as particularly threatening. It’s also assured me that it is perfectly normal to be confused and anxious when words and actions don’t line up or when actions are unpredictable, when the person you know doesn’t treat you in a way consistent with the expectations you have formed over time. People who love you aren’t supposed to leave without warning. They aren’t supposed to promise to protect you and then get angry when you’re hurt. They aren’t supposed to tell you they miss you and then pretend you aren’t there.

Just like a good juror, I have tried to make sense of these competing facts by constructing coherent, causal narratives. This person I know to be good and kind wouldn’t tell me they care about me but also lie to me if they didn’t have some plausible reason, right? It must be me! I am the reason; I have hurt them in some unspeakable way that caused them to treat me so poorly. It’s simple, really. Even simpler when they offer the explanation themselves. I should have known better, been more considerate, been more patient, given them the benefit of the doubt, loved them more. The silver lining of living through such things is that you learn to read people well and can quickly become attuned to the slightest shifts in mood and energy. In a good situation, that can lead to a lot of intimacy and closeness; in a bad one, it’s a recipe for codependence or abuse. Inconsistency is best survived by developing strategies to predict whatever might be coming and avert the worst of it, even if it means losing yourself to try and better understand another. Preferable to the shame of failing to prevent disaster, of letting down someone you love and confirming that you are intrinsically the problem.

It’s one story offered by the evidence. However, let the prosecution rest. Perhaps the defense can tell a better one.

If inconsistency produces anxiety, control sure does feel comfortable for the brief moments we're able to grasp it. Trying to manage chaos is itself a form of manipulation, even if it’s done out of protection. Worst of all, when it’s familiar, it’s a pattern we may fall into even when no danger is present. If you can always find the right balance, say the right things, be the right person, no conflict will ever arise, and no need to apologize will ever serve as proof of your inferiority. Better yet, avoid vulnerability entirely so that if you fail at outrunning rejection, it won’t even sting that bad. At no point has the feeling of having to prove myself, my desirability, or my worth ever led to a positive relationship of any form. Certainly it has never inspired what I would consider love, despite, at times, the presence of genuine affection. A wound can never serve as a foundation and still heal.

I come with some scars, as I think most people do. I don’t think I’m embarrassed by them anymore, at least not deeply. I know they don’t define me, and I hope they can serve as a reminder and motivation to break old patterns and be more compassionate to myself and others. Still, it is frustrating when they show unintentionally, despite my best efforts. Still, it hurts worst of all when someone who has seen them isn’t gentle with their delicacy. I can appreciate, though, how difficult it is to mind another’s soft spots when you are bruised and bloody yourself.

The thing that has made me feel the most consistently whole and present during these periods of conflict is to try and accept the multiplicity of truth, however messy it is. My defenders have been quick to affirm my hurt feelings as proof of the way someone really is, but accepting that explanation feels like denying my own experiences that led trust to form in the first place. Just because someone acts badly doesn’t make them a bad person, and they are just as capable of the kindness and care I witnessed as the pain they’ve caused. I was the victim of abuse, and I put myself in that situation and continuously made excuses, and it wasn’t my fault — the honest story incorporates all of it, even the facts that aren’t flattering. To tell a story that fits all the evidence is often to recognize the limitations of our own frameworks, the ways in which we may be trying to control the narrative, whether to escape or assign guilt. Sometimes people just don’t act reasonably. It doesn’t always make sense, and blaming myself doesn’t make it hurt any less. Blaming them doesn’t really make it hurt any less either. Thankfully, we’re usually not actually on trial.

Sustained conflict without repair is so acutely disruptive and distressing, l hope it means I’m doing a bit better that I find it inconceivable I used to live in this state perpetually. Maybe someday I’ll be confident and secure and healed enough that another’s denial of my feelings and our shared experiences won’t feel like such an erasure, as if a crack in the earth might form at any moment and swallow me whole. Maybe I’ll finally stop opening my heart to people who make me feel this way in the first place. I have my own answers to whether or not reasonableness is universal, but what I really think matters isn’t the existence of an objective standard, but the standards to which we choose to hold ourselves. Of course we’re going to let each other down. The challenge is whether we can live with that truth without gaslighting ourselves or another. It took me far, far too long to learn that it was so much easier to just give in and accept myself than to keep trying to prove I deserved it.