Gaslighting - Revision history

Xzenu: /* Systemic Gaslighting intersecting with Identity fragility and with Narativism */

2020-09-29T12:44:06Z

‎Systemic Gaslighting intersecting with Identity fragility and with Narativism

Xzenu at 12:43, 29 September 2020

2020-09-29T12:43:31Z

Xzenu: Created page with "The Merriam Webster dictionary defines gaslighting as "to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experie..."

2020-09-29T12:27:33Z

Created page with "The Merriam Webster dictionary defines gaslighting as "to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experie..."

New page

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines gaslighting as "to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation)". This is based on the movie "Gaslight", where the villain is systematically trying to drive his victim insane by manipulating the environment and lying about it. The most iconic example is how he makes the light flicker, while insisting that the light is constant and that his victim is simply imagining the flickering of the light.

This, gaslighting in the traditional sense has three components to how the perpertrators are trying to trick the victims into mistaking themselves for being insane...

A.) The pertertrator is lying.
B.) The lie is systematic.
C.) The systematic lie is calculated to undermine the victim.

When people use the word "gaslighting", they tend to at least partially discard at least one of these three important critera. While this can be done in a reasonable and healthy way, it can also be done in such a way that accusations of "gaslighting" actually becomes a form of gaslighting.

Lets look a bit deeper into each criteria...

A.) The pertertrator is lying.
Something can be more or less untrue without being a lie, since our concept of truth should have three criteria. A person who makes a statement is telling the truth if this person...

1.) Honestly believes that the statement is true,
2.) Believes so for good reason, and
3.) The statement is actually correct.

Truth if all three criteria are filled, lie if none of them are, and a gray area if at least one is fulfilled and at least one isn't.

To examplify this, lets take two situations which are really very different from each others in spite of looking identical onn the surface. In both cases, a married couple goes to sleep together after a long day. Just as they are about to fall asleep, one of them hear the other give of a sarcastic laugh. Feeling upset by being laughed at, she hisses back "don't laugh at me". Next morning, they have a huge argument about what really happened.

In situation X, the partner was actually doing a sarcastic laugh which was calculated to undermine her self-esteem. In situation Y, it was actually just a half-asleep nightmare or a misinterpreted sigh.

==Identity fragility intersecting with systemic [[Gaslighting]]==

Lets take a story in three steps, with the character labels in ''italic''...

Step 1.)
Some people are doing categorist things against people who belong to a certain category of people, for example the ''local managers'' in a corporation refusing to give a certain ''employee'' a raise or promotion simply because this employee happens to be black or white or homosexual or heterosexual or Athist or Christian.

Step 2.)
Someone speaks up against the discrimination in step one, this ''speaker'' tells about how the acts of the local managers (and of those who behave in the same way) are unfair both against the ''employee'' personally and to people of the ''employee''s category in general.

Step 3.)
Some ''bystander'' hears the story, and suddenly "realizes" that ''speaker'' is lying. After all, ''speaker'' is talking about people of a certain category of people, a category which are actually the good guys which the ''bystander'' personally identifies with. The ''bystander'' geels personally accused by the ''speakers'' story, and it is indeed true that the ''bystander'' did not commit the offence which the ''speaker'' spoke of. Therefore the accusation is not true, and therefore the ''speaker'' and the ''employee'' are either lying or delusional. Having no actual knowledge of what actually happened, the ''bystander'' thus procedes to inform everyone of "the real truth", this imaginary or alternative "fact" that the ''speaker'' and the ''employee'' are either lying or delusional. Having heard and believed the "facts" presented by the ''bystander'', people now starts pestering the ''employee'' about how important it is to punlicly admit the truth that the discrimination never happened, that it was only a bad dream which got mistaken for having actually happened.

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 In the same way, gaslighting can be either systematic like in the movie Gaslight - or systemic as in the following example...
-==Systemic Gaslighting intersecting with [[Identity fragility]] and with [[Narativism]]==
+==Systemic Gaslighting intersecting with [[Identity fragility]] and with [[Narrativism]]==
 Lets take a story in three steps, with the character labels in ''italic''...

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 This, gaslighting in the traditional sense has three components to how the perpertrators are trying to trick the victims into mistaking themselves for being insane...
-A.) The pertertrator is lying.
+* A.) The pertertrator is lying.
-B.) The lie is systematic.
+* B.) The lie is systematic or systemic
-C.) The systematic lie is calculated to undermine the victim.
+* C.) The systematic lie is calculated to undermine the victim.
 When people use the word "gaslighting", they tend to at least partially discard at least one of these three important critera. While this can be done in a reasonable and healthy way, it can also be done in such a way that accusations of "gaslighting" actually becomes a form of gaslighting.
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Lets look a bit deeper into each criteria...
-A.) The pertertrator is lying.
+==A.) The pertertrator is lying.==
 Something can be more or less untrue without being a lie, since our concept of truth should have three criteria. A person who makes a statement is telling the truth if this person...
-.) Honestly believes that the statement is true,
+* 1.) Honestly believes that the statement is true,
-.) Believes so for good reason, and
+* 2.) Believes so for good reason, and
-.) The statement is actually correct.
+* 3.) The statement is actually correct.
 Truth if all three criteria are filled, lie if none of them are, and a gray area if at least one is fulfilled and at least one isn't.
@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 To examplify this, lets take two situations which are really very different from each others in spite of looking identical onn the surface. In both cases, a married couple goes to sleep together after a long day. Just as they are about to fall asleep, one of them hear the other give of a sarcastic laugh. Feeling upset by being laughed at, she hisses back "don't laugh at me". Next morning, they have a huge argument about what really happened.
-In situation X, the partner was actually doing a sarcastic laugh which was calculated to undermine her self-esteem. In situation Y, it was actually just a half-asleep nightmare or a misinterpreted sigh.
+In situation X, the partner was actually doing a sarcastic laugh which was calculated to undermine her self-esteem. The partner is gaslighting, at least if it is part of a pattern rather than a one-time act. In situation Y, it was actually just a half-asleep nightmare or a misinterpreted sigh. Yet she is convinced that she is right, and she presses on. She starts a pattern of demanding that the partner confess and repent the malicious laugh. The partner is now being subjected to a pattern of behavior which is gaslighting in every way ecxept for the perpertrator honestly mistaking herself for being right - which doesn't make the situation any less damaging for the victim.
-==Identity fragility intersecting with systemic [[Gaslighting]]==
+==B.) The lie is systematic or systemic==
 Lets take a story in three steps, with the character labels in ''italic''...