Gaslighting is Word of the Year 2022

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year

by clairegiordano • 4 years ago

113 150 4 years ago

merriam-webster.com

orthoxerox• 4 years ago

No it isn't, you're imagining things.

Apofis• 4 years ago

Stop being so dramatic.

bergenty• 4 years ago

It’s never your fault, you’re always the gaslit victim

hnarn2• 4 years ago

Since gaslighting by definition means that you’re invalidating someone’s view of reality and basically calling them insane, I have a hard time seeing how it could be the victims fault.

You can disagree with people, and you can say that you don’t agree with their description of reality, but neither of those things are gaslighting.

throw3108224• 4 years ago

Sometimes when trying to convince someone that they're wrong, you need to point out that there is a bias in their vision of reality. A bias is not a wrong logical step that can be fixed simply by pointing it out: it affects the ability itself to follow a different argument, and the entire view of reality.

Think for example of someone who is in a cult or deep into a religious belief; or think about those who believe in conspiracy theories of all kinds. They're basically called insane every day even in the media. Would you call that gaslighting?

rocketbop• 4 years ago

I had to look this up last year, and was surprised that it's not a new term. It does seem to have risen in usage in the last 5 years, I never heard or read it growing up.

Borrible2• 4 years ago

https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/01/12/how-...

gsatic• 4 years ago

People are just a bit more conscious of the various ways they can be manipulated.

It's such a large and ever evolving set of patterns, that everyone is seeing them everywhere and in everything.

The options to change/break the patterns isn't evolving at the same rate.

yieldcrv• 4 years ago

People only look it up because they have to second guess the meaning of it when someone else uses it improperly or in a dilutive way

Borrible2• 4 years ago

Your obsession with recently invented pseudoscientific psychological constructs is worrisome, dear.

endgame• 4 years ago

Ironic choice, coming from a dictionary that regularly redefines words in service of political aims.

becquerel• 4 years ago

Horrifying, that language may evolve and change as time progresses

concordDance2• 4 years ago

Some evolution is natural (e.g. a majority using it in X way) and some is the result of political fights.

rsynnott3• 4 years ago

Dictionaries do not redefine words; they describe how words are used (at least in English; there are a couple of languages where someone seriously attempts top-down control, but English isn’t one of them).

theodric2• 4 years ago

Bakers do not bake bread, they merely construct a gel from precursor ingredients. The oven bakes the bread.

vintermann2• 4 years ago

Maybe you mean, dictionaries aren't supposed to redefine words. Officially, everyone working on a dictionary is a good honest little descriptivist.

But it's not like you can replace a lexicographer with a transparent mathematical algorithm. There's plenty of room for judgement calls, and very little room for correction, since dictionaries have a self-reinforcing effect. People certainly use dictionaries prescriptively, so there's always some (petty) power at stake in getting to say what the right meaning is.

kortilla4• 4 years ago

If dictionaries just “described how words are used”, they would be filled with thousands of definitions for every word.

They implicitly define them by choosing which definitions are to be trusted and which are “wrong”.

dandanua2• 4 years ago

The article should better explain what gaslighting is not. It's misleading to use the word "gaslighting" as a synonym to "lie", "deceit" or "fraud". Lies in general are used to gain unfair advantage, but in most situations we can think of it as a stealing. Gaslighting is much more than that. It's a psychological murder.

automatic6131• 4 years ago

It's misleading to use the word "gaslighting" as a synonym to "lie", "deceit" or "fraud".

It would be nice if that was as far as it drifted. I've seen it used as a synonym for "disagreeing [with me]" and "mistaken".

a4a4a4a43• 4 years ago

Well, if you're disagreeing with someone who cannot conceive that they _might_ be wrong, then to them you _are_ gaslighting them. Even though they're just wrong and refusing to engage.

dandanua2• 4 years ago

Funny thing. I've upvoted two comments in a row (and it was visible in UI), but found out later that the second vote didn't pass. For a moment I thought HN is gaslighting me - it's a vivid example of it. Apparently, there is a minimum delay between upvotes on the backend.

jasonhansel• 4 years ago

The article says:

But in recent years, we have seen the meaning of gaslighting refer also to something simpler and broader: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for a personal advantage.”

The dictionary now lists that broader meaning in part 2 of its definition of the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaslighting

snickerbockers• 4 years ago

'Gaslighting' will always make me think of that scene from dumb & dumber where he makes a flame thrower by farting on a lighter.

fshbbdssbbgdd2• 4 years ago

I’m no prescriptivist, but can’t help but find the dilution of meaning of this term to be disappointing. There’s plenty of other words for lying, but there’s no other word for gaslighting.

I wonder if the word is by its nature particularly prone to semantic drift. If somebody’s in the state of mind where they are talking about gaslighting, they are not ready to receive the message that they are using the word wrong. Nobody wants to die on the hill of correcting the usage of this term, so there’s no natural guardrails to stabilize its meaning.

spoonjim• 4 years ago

All words with bad connotations get overused and diluted: gaslighting, racism, bigot, etc.

a4a4a4a43• 4 years ago

Found the fascist.

...

imartin2k• 4 years ago

Concept creep. Should be word of the decade or something :)

ben_w4• 4 years ago

Not only negative connotations, but also.

My grandmother (born around the time Ireland gained independence from the UK) used "Irish" to mean "stupid" shortly before her Alzheimer's diagnosis.

When my mother (born during WW2) also got an Alzheimer's diagnosis, she started using "glory hole" to refer to the kitchen cupboard. (I had to look it up, but it's apparently a legit though obsolete meaning).

"Democratise" is my personal bugbear. Doesn't have anything to do with voting or dispute resolution.

My dad had a problem with the words "millennium" not being used for the period starting Jan 1, 2001, and the word "gay" switching from the mid-20th-century meaning to the late-20th-century meaning.

matt-attack2• 4 years ago

Don't forget "sexual assault".

toyg• 4 years ago

Nobody wants to die on the hill of correcting the usage of this term.

"Correcting" language use is just not "the cool thing to do". Think of the term "grammar nazi" - how many activities do we ever associate with Nazis? Very few, but talking to people about grammar is one of them.

fshbbdssbbgdd2• 4 years ago

Granted, it can be rude to bluntly tell someone they are using a word wrong. But there are some soft ways of doing it that can be acceptable depending on the context. Eg: “did I hear that right, or did you just say [correct usage]?”

JKCalhoun2• 4 years ago

Huge grammar nazi here. Unashamed.

One of my favorites: "It's 'hanged', not 'hung'."

jimmygrapes2• 4 years ago

TBH "grammar nazi" is probably the kindest common use of "nazi" I can think of, wherein it means (in context): "one who strictly adheres to the perceived grammatical rules of the used language" or something close to that. Calling someone a "grammar nazi" is far softer in result than calling someone an "actual nazi" (usually).

jcims• 4 years ago

I’m sure this has always been the case, but I’m thinking social media has accelerated it: there seems to be a trend of bending vocabulary for effect. Add a result we lose dynamic range in language.

dvh• 4 years ago

Masses dilute true meaning of words. It happened to few words:

"hacker" - used to mean deep understanding of a system and using it in unusual or unintended way, now it means criminal

"troll" - used to mean creating specially crafted post to trigger emotional response (like a posting in star trek forum that trailer looks fake because we all know there are no shadows in space), now it means bully that wants someone to commit suicide.

"leak" used to mean data you can download, now it means someone stole the data.

kortilla4• 4 years ago

“crypto”

“literally”

sharperguy• 4 years ago

"ban" used to mean the prohibition of something, but now it's being used to mean the voluntary cessation of an action. E.g. "macdonalds bans plastic straws". No, they decided to stop using plastic straws.

ben_w4• 4 years ago

"Orange", as the name of the order of British nationalists in Northern Ireland, named after the (Dutch) Prince William of Orange, named after the Principality of Orange (French), named after the city of Orange, named after the Celtic word for forehead or temple.

The color of the Orange Order is named after the fruit, derived from a corruption of 13th century French or Spanish (approximately "an orange" ≈ "a norange" ~> naranja, but spellings from that era aren't consistent anyway), from Arabic, ultimately from an unknown Dravidian language.

dredmorbius• 4 years ago

Happy, awesome, enormity, sophisticated, egregious, cute, bully, girl, ...

And of course: fast, inflammable, sanction, cleave, dust, bolt, oversight, peruse, table.

diab0lic• 4 years ago

I like your explanation for why the word might be drift prone but I think the explanation is much simpler: In contemporary social and political conversations disagreement isn’t an acute occurrence. People who share even a slightly different view are not just wrong, they’re rotten to the core and consciously systemically undermining good in the world.

Words like wrong, disagree or even lying don’t express this sentiment. They give the person who disagreed with you a pass on what they really are: A manipulator who is attempting to assault your psyche and break you down.

I really hope we as a society get out of this mode of thinking soon. I’d love to be able to have rational discourse again in my lifetime outside of a very small circle of trusted people.

jfengel2• 4 years ago

The problem, as I see it, is that individuals may not be "rotten to the core", but movements can be. The most active participants are often the worst ones, and the less-awful ones will often make excuses for them. Even by saying nothing, but simply ignoring it while identifying with the group, they will be seen by both enemies and allies as approving of the worst behavior.

In my opinion, the best way to "get out of this mode of thinking" is for people to look at their allies and say, "Hey, can we tone it down a little?" As it is, right now, it's the ones who are not "rotten to the core" with the most ability to change things. And failing to do so means that they are, indeed, "systemically undermining good in the world".

Unfortunately, asking people to tone it down is a dangerous tactic. It may improve the world, but at a cost of decreasing your own power. That's why the nastiness not only persists, but expands.

mc32• 4 years ago

Could you imagine, Twitter instead of censoring things with AI, corrected people's word usage with that AI? It would be concerning but also kind of cool.

"You mean to use 'accept' rather than 'except'" "You drank an 'espresso' not an 'expresso'" And the French Academy would no longer have a reason to exist.

mrguyorama5• 4 years ago

The french academy would undoubtedly find a reason to be upset, and being unable to negotiate with a bottom of the barrel AI blackbox that only knows how to suggest different words, start WWIII in an attempt to right what they consider wrong.

cromka2• 4 years ago

There’s plenty of other words for lying

I don't think that misuse of gaslighting is not in favor of "lying", but rather the "manipulation", at least from my experience of hearing this when misused.

rkagerer• 4 years ago

I'm still not sure I properly understand what the word means.

jhanschoo• 4 years ago

As MW says, the present more expanded usage of "gaslighting" isn't synonymous with lying; it's closer to "systematically lying".

The idea of a deliberate conspiracy to mislead has made gaslighting useful in describing lies that are part of a larger plan. Unlike lying, which tends to be between individuals, and fraud, which tends to involve organizations, gaslighting applies in both personal and political contexts.

Havoc• 4 years ago

Struck me more as a 2019 word. Haven’t heard it a lot lately

lamontcg2• 4 years ago

2016/2017 was when it became popular

executesorder664• 4 years ago

You are more correct. Looking at google trends the term has been steadily rising in interest since about 2016.

I always find it interesting when people insist on a specific date for something's peak popularity, but they never say where they get that info from.

This meme was so 2013, or that was so 2004. Like why do you care so much about this one specific topic that you memorized the specific year that it's popularity was at it's peak?

nonrandomstring6• 4 years ago

Gaslighting has some quite subtle meanings that we can see in relation to tech.

It isn't merely undermining someone's sense of sanity by disagreeing, or pointing out their logical missteps or forgetfulness. Gaslighting is the deliberate manipulation of reality and expectations so as to lead a person to themselves doubt their own sanity. Like hiding someone's car keys just before they are to leave.

Back in the '10s we had a saying going around Shoreditch tech scene, "Creepy is the new cool". Suddenly finding ads on your phone for the things you were just talking about. Having gadgets "automagically" sync your documents to other devices without your say-so. That feeling of "did I really copy that to the iThing?" was simultaneously exciting and unnerving.

There is such a thing as "the warm thrill of confusion" [1].

At a certain point that becomes gaslighting. When Amazon deleted "Nineteen Eighty Four" from Kindle, that was a seminal tech gaslighting moment.

As "AI" is integrated into more services and users are robbed of agency under the auspices of "convenience", we can expect to see more people feeling "gaslighted" by tech, or by others via technology.

It is also a hallmark of narcissistic manipulators who like to cultivate dependency by undermining the agency of others, so it sits well with many present tech powers such as advertisers. Remote control amplifies this possibility. In the limit, gaslighting is a soft word for a some particular activities in psyops; demoralisation and discombobulation (which should be the all-time word of the year :)

[1] https://www.davemcnally.com/album-lyrics/the-wall/pink-floyd...

ianai2• 4 years ago

I dig “creepy is the new cool.”

I think we’ve evolved from that to “being gaslit is the wallpaper for most conversations.”

Seemingly any point will be contradicted by someone, no matter how untruthful or outright wrong to malicious the counterpoint. It’s as though people are live action role playing the worst of the internet in person at times.

Edit-source for the 1984 deletion: https://slate.com/technology/2009/07/how-amazon-s-remote-del...

siquick• 4 years ago

I think we’ve evolved from that to “being gaslit is the wallpaper for most conversations.” Seemingly any point will be contradicted by someone, no matter how untruthful or outright wrong to malicious the counterpoint. It’s as though people are live action role playing the worst of the internet in person at times.

I’d start questioning your own circles if that’s your experience of “real life”. Can’t say I’ve ever experienced anyone I consider a friend, family, or a colleague of note acting like that.

sph2• 4 years ago

Something is very wrong with the people around you.

hellfish2• 4 years ago

I think we’ve evolved from that to “being gaslit is the wallpaper for most conversations.

No, not really. Unless you're surrounded by bad people

atoav• 4 years ago

It is time we developed something like an professional ethic in the developer sector including shunning people that break it.

Sadly finding people who will actively make the world worse if it pays enough (also on this site) is not hard. What is hard, is finding people who have the guts and the self respect to say "No" when they are asked to do creepy, destructive or evil things.

And if ethics won't work, let's introduce laws and enforce them. Free speech, sure, but what about informational self-determination?

nonrandomstring6• 4 years ago

say "No" when they are asked to do creepy, destructive or evil things.

You'll be pleased there's almost a whole chapter of "Ethics for Hackers" devoted to that problem. Analysis of about 30 different psychological rationalisations, self-deceptions and logical fallacies that help people knowingly do bad things. One problem is that people in tech are mostly smart and logical, and therefore the most vulnerable to certain mind-tricks.

It's also worth remembering that what is "ethical" is more complex than bare acts. There are many hackers quite justified doing "creepy, destructive or evil things" against enemies. I've written much on defence, "lethality engineering" and cyber-offense work.

The disgusting thing about some big-tech work is that we're doing it to our own families and children.

rtpg2• 4 years ago

Amazon deleting 1984 is not gaslighting. Gaslighting has a specific meaning, and part of it is refusing to acknowledge an action.

I'm not so sure syncing is a great example, either. Not like they hide it

Though adtech tracking and topics stuff sure feels like gaslighting. They say they're not listening, and I can kind of believe a stochiastic thing of "well you're actually friends on FB with the other person and they looked at this product so...." but there's a lot of times where it really feels like the only explanation is mics everywhere listening to conversations, even though I know it's not that! But is it?

pcthrowaway• 4 years ago

Google Reads deleting 1984 might be gaslighting, if they chose to do it only for users who hadn't opened the book on any device in >6 months, and who had purchase notifications sent to a gmail address, which they could also retroactively delete or modify emails referencing their purchase from.

nonrandomstring6• 4 years ago

part of it is refusing to acknowledge an action.

Algorithms are not great at acknowledging their actions, so I think that's very much part of peoples' experience with big-tech. Examples of an update breaking things, or an account getting deleted, and a responsible person quickly admitting "yes we did that, and here's why", are rare. The usual response is to deflect or stonewall. It's practically on page one of the PR playbook.

I'm not so sure syncing is a great example, either. Not like they hide it

I think you are seeing this from the developers' viewpoint. There's been plenty of examples where this stuff is on by default and users have been unaware of it.

explanation is mics everywhere listening to conversations, even though I know it's not that! But is it?

It's that doubt which is the seed of soft, pervading anxiety, that does the damage.

ben_w4• 4 years ago

I don't think deleting 1984 was a gaslighting moment, though it was an ironic act of censorship (even if there was a capitalist/corporate reason rather than a propaganda reason, the effect was the same).

Gaslighting would've been if they'd changed the text so that Big Brother had been the good guy all along, and when you looked at the text again you decided you must have just misremembered it.

0ct4via• 4 years ago

Absolutely this.

For how well OP's comment was written, they seem to have missed the point of understanding what the word 'gaslighting' actually means.

nonrandomstring6• 4 years ago

I have a completely unfalsifiable conspiracy theory, call it a "curious hand-waving intuition"... that the post-facto explanation Amazon gave about "publishing rights" is a little too clean and slippery for my linking.

Do not the choices of Ayn Rand and George Orwell, both of whom deal with themes of authoritarianism, from amongst all possible book titles and authors, seem a little interesting?

Almost as if someone, an insider perhaps, had wanted to remind the public that Amazon's capabilities were not those of your friendly local bookstore.

mrguyorama5• 4 years ago

I have regularly described the process of debugging a complicated and unforseen issue as "being gaslit by the machine". You "know" that the code is supposed to flow "this way" or that the data "should" look like "that" or your ten years of experience makes you think computers should act one way, but this code is obviously violating those assumptions. You feel like maybe you don't actually know how computers work, like they are mere magic black boxes that you've tamed occasionally. You feel like the rules of your reality don't actually exist, as the computer continues to do things that make no sense in your normal understanding.

I feel this every time my girlfriend asks me "why did <computer thing> break in <unpredictable and unexplainable> way?" and I have to answer "I have no idea how that could possibly happen but every experience I've had fixing code tells me that there's often no rhyme or reason to anything that goes on under the hood of a computer in the modern world.

GuB-42• 4 years ago

No need to go that far. Washing machines regularly gaslight people, making socks appear and disappear.

nonrandomstring6• 4 years ago

You feel like the rules of your reality don't actually exist, as the computer continues to do things that make no sense in your normal understanding.

I am tenacious and usually get my bug, eventually. What you're describing is a priceless moment pregnant with opportunity to learn. That exact moment you feel it's beyond all understanding often comes seconds before you expand the frame "out of the box" and see how you've been "so stupid all along".

With machines it's a moment of mastery. But when that realisation is about a person, or organisation that's betrayed you, or you've fundamentally misunderstood for some time, the emotional shock is flooring.

It's a stereotype to say that hackers prefer machines to debugging human psychology, because they are more predictable and less painful. But what's changed along with the complexity and uses of computers as socially manipulative tools is that the possibility that the thing might actually "be against you" is increasing, Malicious code does not have to be "malware" in the strict sense - it just needs to carry the values of a malevolent author.

paulpauper• 4 years ago

2022? about 2-4 years late on that one

metafunctor• 4 years ago

I have teenage children, and I had to explain to them what gaslighting really means.

It used to refer to subtle psychological manipulation over a long time to achieve a brainwashing effect.

For the TikTok generation, “gaslighting” is just a synonym for “misleading”.

taoufix• 4 years ago

As a non-native English speaker, I first heard of this word during the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial.

oytis• 4 years ago

Why? The word has been around for quite some years already, and 2022 had a lot of important events going on, there are much more relevant words to choose from.

cromka2• 4 years ago

I suppose Russia's and Trump's modus operandi is based exactly on gaslighting. So was Bolsonaro's. Not only pretending they weren't wrongdoing, but that the accusers are the ones who lie and are not seeing things clearly. We see it a lot in politics these days.

Georgelemental2• 4 years ago

Other tribe bad my tribe good

Neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on lies and bad faith attacks, far from it. Some political movement are more guilty of it than others, but no political movement is fully innnocent, and no political movement can be defined uniquely in terms of these.

Also, "gaslighting" in its original meaning is far more specific than "lies and bad faith," it's a shame that that meaning is being diluted.

bazoom42• 4 years ago

What word(s) do you suggest?

mothsonasloth• 4 years ago

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

LAC-Tech6• 4 years ago

psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator

Weird thoughts I've been having; for social harmony it's much more important to share a perception of reality, than it is for any individual to have an accurate perception of reality. Attempting to find an objective truth that conflicts with a shared vision of reality isn't something brave or admirable, it's weird and disruptive. Polite society will cast you out.

I think this is hard wired to us. We want to be told what reality is by people or groups with clout, people who are cool and have prestige, and we're hard-wired to just believe it.

I think this is why most people outside the overton window feel inherently unpleasant. To most normal, well adjusted people, threatening to tear down the social fabric of our shared reality is just plain disgusting.

(Not to say that every (or even many!) people outside that window have an accurate perception of reality - but the veracity is almost irrelevant - what's abhorrent to us is that they're trying to destroy it in the first place. That's the real crime.)

jl62• 4 years ago

Counterpoint: “objective truth” is the mainstream viewpoint and the “reality is a shared perception” folk are the ones being weird and disruptive, gaslighting people into questioning whether a spade is really a spade.

selfhoster112• 4 years ago

This. "Reality is a shared perception" works only for as long as reality is comfortable enough to indulge your misperception. You cannot wish yourself into having more money in your bank account, or out of an energy crisis. Reality will validate your perception, and if you fail that validation, you will be the one who will have to take the consequences for it.

LAC-Tech6• 4 years ago

Here's a concrete example - if you have a cursory knowledge of history you'll inevitably encounter various little facts that contradict the main "theme" that we as a society share.

I'm not talking about revisionism. I mean stuff that's written plain as day on Wikipedia, will be mentioned in passing by any mainstream respected historian, etc etc.

You're still a fucking weirdo if you bring it up.

wongarsu• 4 years ago

So is a strawberry really a berry?

But I think more importantly there's a distinction between the objective truth about Newton's law of gravity, and the objective truth about whether $current_war is justified, or about what exactly happened on 9/11. All three have an objective truth, but for only one of them pursuing that truth is encouraged by society

james4k2• 4 years ago

edit: nevermind, i misunderstood!

coldtea3• 4 years ago

That's not what mere observation shows...

Try pushing objective truth anywhere were it disagrees with the mainstream reality, and see how far you go...

Heck, would be as smooth a ride as pushing "hey, blacks are people too, they should get all rights" in 1850 South, or "hey, this religion origin story is just fiction" in most places in history.

kortilla4• 4 years ago

Counterpoint: “objective truth” is the mainstream viewpoint

No it’s not (at least not in the US). Look at how many different religions there are with major followings based on books filled with completely farcical stories treated as truth.

Neo liberals exist in a completely different reality from AOC fans when it comes to the economy, and that’s just a split within the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is fractured between boot licking Trump and claiming he is the worst President ever.

Pick any one of these groups and have them criticize how one of the others ignores “truth”. Then have them do it to their own group and you’ll quickly see how little they actually care about “objective truth”. It’s really depressing.

hnbad3• 4 years ago

That's pretty much what MLK's famous words about the "white moderate" were about, so yes. Most people will prefer an unjust order over the chaos necessary to bring justice as long as the injustice doesn't personally affect them too much.

You call it reality, I call it the systems that define our society. Factual claims only serve to justify those systems. Someone who believes that homosexuality is inherently sinful and sinful behavior stains the character and thus leads to other sinful behaviors, will not become a gay rights activist if you can find a study to debunk their factual claims about how homosexuality is detrimental in this or that scenario.

In other words, I think what you call "perception of reality" is really just another way to say a word that has long fallen out of use in polite conversation because the end of history was supposed to have overcome it: ideology.

selfhoster112• 4 years ago

To most normal, well adjusted people, threatening to tear down the social fabric of our shared reality is just plain disgusting.

There are multiple crises beating down at our door that threaten to change the status quo forever for everyone (inside the US and outside). I suppose they are disgusting, but they ARE coming.

coldtea3• 4 years ago

Yeah, but you can suffer a crisis and still not acknowledge the reality of it or its causes just fine...

eevilspock• 4 years ago

I don't think it's about "social harmony", nor is it controlled by "people or groups with clout, people who are cool and have prestige".

It's a very self-serving. We tell ourselves pretty lies and avoid inconvenient truths constantly. Because doing otherwise has huge costs in terms of personal comfort, convenience, wealth, security and social standing. This becomes a group dynamic when we join social circles that maintain the same pretty lies and avoid the same inconvenient truths. And of course for this to work it has to be an unwritten, almost subconscious rule: Never express a thought or question a choice that will disturb the material and moral comfort of yourself or your social groups.

Here's a way to observe/test this (two parts): The next time you have moral doubt (e.g. Why do I feel uncomfortable that all of the people serving us are brown people?), listen to your conscience rather than silencing it. (If you never have moral doubts I'd say it's because you've become very good at silencing it.) The more you listen, the more you follow through with honesty and integrity, the more you'll find that you'll have to give up something comfortable or nice in your lifestyle.

Part two: Express moral questions about something your group does that, when examined honestly, actually goes against the groups purported values. Be prepared to lose friends.

throwaway4aday• 4 years ago

I think you've got it somewhat wrong. People need to agree on something foundational but they don't need to share all of the same views. Basically all that is needed is a starting point from which you can build. I disagree that most people want to be told what to think by authority, the number of people I've met where this is true after further probing is quite small and they generally have other problems that make them averse to educating themselves.

I think the mistake here is that we (as in everyone broadly) have a perception problem. We don't actually know what other people are thinking, we can only judge by the face they present to the world. So there is a public presentation and then private thoughts behind that. This results in a prisoner's dilemma situation where the safest option is to defect to the side of whoever the perceived authority is since that is the only obvious signal. That defection is not a change of heart though, it's just going along to get along. Once a better option presents itself that aligns with the internal beliefs that are still held firmly, the individual will switch.

From the outside this looks like a strongly imposed shared narrative is being effective at uniting people but what's actually happening is that you're simply cowing everyone into keeping their head down while resentment and discontent simmer under the surface. Just look at what's happening in China right now or Iran, seemingly out of no where you have protests and civil unrest. It's the same for any tightly controlled society, things appear ok until suddenly they aren't. Widespread disagreement and argument are actually signs of a healthy society where people feel free to speak their minds.

hellfish2• 4 years ago

I think this is hard wired to us. We want to be told what reality is by people or groups with clout, people who are cool and have prestige, and we're hard-wired to just believe it.

I don't buy this. It isn't something that comes from a small group of people "with status" but is a collective tradition. The idea that a small group of people "with status" can just willy nilly describe what's "real" and what isn't is a fundamentally undemocratic way of seeing society

The idea that some people have a right to manufacture "reality" out of thin air comes from the same set of lies that propped up the Catholic church. Compare this the idea that each person has a unique relationship with God and doesn't need a priestly class to "mediate" the relationship

If the "social harmony" can't handle the light of day, then it is the one that will need to adjust

RHSman2• 4 years ago

No it isn’t.

incomingpain• 4 years ago

Do you know the joke about gaslighting? Oh sure you do, I don't need to tell you again.

JaceLightning• 4 years ago

We should try to convince people that "mood-lighting" is the word of the year.

Gaslighting is Word of the Year 2022

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