Via Instapundit: “Gaslighting is the attempt of one person to overwrite another person’s reality.” – Everyday Feminism.
“Narrative : 4. a story that connects and explains a carefully selected set of supposedly true events, experiences, or the like, intended to support a particular viewpoint or thesis: ” – some random online dictionary.
Note that the first definition includes the notion that a person has their own reality. That may have been sloppiness on the part of the article writer at Everyday Feminism, or it may be an assumption of the second definition and that your reality is carefully selected to support a particular viewpoint or thesis.
The article at Everyday Feminism, shockingly, is not entirely insane. Abusers do use gaslighting. Many people, women and men, have experienced parents or partners who have insisted that what they knew to be true never happened or happened very differently. Some who were subject to this as children eventually caught their parents out in their lies and proved that what they were being accused of doing or forgetting was simply made-up to torment them.
This is nasty stuff, no matter if someone is doing it to you on purpose or if, for them, it’s simply a habit of behavior and instinctive rather than malicious.
Note that the lies were provable in those cases, or at least might have been, since they were actually lies. In the 1938 play that gave us the term, the abuser who was trying to convince his wife that she was crazy would tell her lies about small daily matters to convince her that she was unable to remember the truth.
But how does that work when we can each have our own reality?
“Narrative : 4. a story that connects and explains a carefully selected set of supposedly true events, experiences, or the like, intended to support a particular viewpoint or thesis: ” – some random online dictionary.
Note that the first definition includes the notion that a person has their own reality. That may have been sloppiness on the part of the article writer at Everyday Feminism, or it may be an assumption of the second definition and that your reality is carefully selected to support a particular viewpoint or thesis.
The article at Everyday Feminism, shockingly, is not entirely insane. Abusers do use gaslighting. Many people, women and men, have experienced parents or partners who have insisted that what they knew to be true never happened or happened very differently. Some who were subject to this as children eventually caught their parents out in their lies and proved that what they were being accused of doing or forgetting was simply made-up to torment them.
This is nasty stuff, no matter if someone is doing it to you on purpose or if, for them, it’s simply a habit of behavior and instinctive rather than malicious.
Note that the lies were provable in those cases, or at least might have been, since they were actually lies. In the 1938 play that gave us the term, the abuser who was trying to convince his wife that she was crazy would tell her lies about small daily matters to convince her that she was unable to remember the truth.
But how does that work when we can each have our own reality?
(Link to more)
10 comments:
Only if you're Ingrid Bergman.
Great post.
"My biggest question about that, though, is why? Because there is a sense in which we do create our own realities through narratives. So why pick the victim one? Particularly if you’re an American woman, which has got to be the single most objectively privileged demographic on the planet itself, why pick the victim narrative? Why pick the narrative where you’re a helpless little thing with the world against you? Is it romanticism? What is it?"
After all the gaslighting that's gone on in the dominant culture for decades, there is more money and power in being a victim than not. Plus, it's easier; go along and get along and the patriarchy (that nobody acknowledges) doles out the percentage of the due that you'll accept.
I gaslight myself all the time. It's extremely unsettling.
Similarly, I had a dream the other night where I actually controlled it. I clearly remember being conscious of the fact that I was dreaming and trying to keep it going. It was a rare sexual dream where the woman I was having sex with would keep changing in appearance. I soon noticed that I had the power to choose her hair color and other attributes, so I did. It took some effort as I seemed to have strain almost physically to change her, but it would work. I did this maybe four times: A blonde, a redhead, curvy, thin. I really enjoyed myself far too much. The future is gonna be awesome, and though I doubt I'll live to see it, I did get a preview. Now how do I do that again?
The Apple Ibang.
Coming soon.
Gaslighting - This is CNN.
Amartel - LOL.
I do wonder:
How coincidental is all of this, against the backdrop of the release of Spy magazine's co-founder Kurt Andersen's new book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire"?
My suspicion is: Not so much
Excellent, Synova. Yeah, love how the Big Dog gets overlooked when it comes to Trump's minor-by-comparison sexism.
I never overlook Bill Clinton's B.S. in all of its righteous crap, and I never have overlooked it. I knew from the day of that convention speech in '88 that I'd never vote for him, and I never did.
I have zero apology for that, and I am sure that I will have zero apology, in the future, for recognizing Donald Trump for what he is, as well. I mean, hell, I became aware of both of those guys at about the same time, a few-so years before '88, and paid attention ever since.
Also, I am completely clear with regard to the bullshit feminism that supported Bill Clinton. I rejected that then, and I reject that now. It's not the main reason, but it's an important reason, why I knew that I would never vote for Hillary Clinton (and I didn't).
That said, there's plenty of bullshit feminism from all sides. It particularly annoys me when gals write things that ain't so in the broad-brushed way they put it.
You could describe me as a never-voted for a Clinton, I suppose. You could describe me as a never-voted for Obama, I suppose. You could describe me as a didn't-vote-for Trump, I suppose.
What, exactly, gals, do you want? What, exactly, is your expectation?
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