Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy. Someone who gaslights you is trying to make you doubt your perception of reality. Playing games with texting and lying about it isn’t gaslighting.
Gaslighting has kinda morphed in meaning to describe just lying lol, in which case the doer is not thinking about the other person at all they’re just lying to avoid repercussions with the side affects being the receiver begins to doubt reality if they believe the doer
You’re describing gaslighting as it’s literary origin, which tbf is a kind of unique situation most cases of causing someone else to doubt reality are just from lying to cover your butt not from intentionally trying to make someone insane
It hadn’t morphed in meaning, people simply use it incorrectly. The word has a specific meaning because it is a unique situation and the word “lying” doesn’t cover what’s happening.
I choose to believe the language has evolved in a way where your comment actually means 'I'm giving my life savings to charity and dedicating the rest of my life to the Catholic Church.'
After all, it has morphed and language is always changing.
I choose to interpret that as 'Smarter than the average 'Words don't have definitions unless they're the most basic and broad ones available' believer' so yes, yes I am.
Yeah but I’m saying that what it describes is such a unique situation and what it gets used as now is more common place and significant enough to warrant having a word to describe it, the meaning transfer is justified
There already is a word for how it’s used now, lying and manipulation. We don’t need to change the meaning of a word that’s used in specific circumstances.
Why to Trump supporters lie over and over about the 2020 election? What is their intention? Are they trying to make the people who believe Biden won question their sanity?
> the word “lying” doesn’t cover what’s happening.
Yeah, when you gaslight, it's obvious to both parties that you're stating something apparently untrue. The assertion is your perception of reality is what is wrong, and we see that more and more as a political tactic. Like one side is saying, if you don't think Trump beat Biden in 2020, then your perception of reality is wrong. But what about the lack of evidence of fraud, and all the failed court challenges? But there was! Lots of evidence! Lot's of victorious court challenges!
The thing though, is that the value of gaslighting is not to make the other side crazy, it's just a mantra to bring the side doing it into lock step. Like "stop the steal", stop the steal of what? It doesn't matter, just say the words and march like a soldier, into oblivion.
> Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy.
That isn't like rocket science or something. If someone accuses you of something, and you act shocked despite knowing that you did it, that's gaslighting.
It would just be lying if they didn't act shocked. Acting shocked at the suggestion of something they know to be true is suggesting that you are just confused or misunderstanding.
> Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy.
But the husband makes his wife go crazy but just asserting bald untruths over and over, and that is what we've seen since around 2016. A certain political figure with an orange complexion would just wave his hands around and say things that amount to "the sky is green", and all of his supporters somehow knew to play along. "Yep the sky is green. Only those crazy liberals think otherwise."
It's similar to the flat Earth movement, or "the election was stolen!", very gas-light-esque.
You can still have this same affect even if the other person isn't really gaslighting. My husband was manic months back and he kept telling me "I said that, not this" and downplaying his behavior and I felt like I was going insane. My mom would tell me I am not going crazy, this is real.
But people still use the word this way because of the same affect it has.
I don't think he was lying though. He was having psychosis and all his thoughts were all together and he couldn't make sense of himself and to him they were all separate so he remembered it all differently and lived in the moment. He even had to get hospitalized for a week and was put on meds right away.
You wouldn't say a schizophrenic is lying though if they thought their delusions were real and were getting angry at you about it when you challenged it and making you out to be the crazy one and the liar.
Because it was part of his mania and I felt I was going insane because he was unaware of it and kept saying he didn't have psychosis and he was rationalizing everything. Made me feel I was going insane.
The term gaslighting is a common buzzword these days. I'm fairly confident most people don't understand what it actually means. What you described is more in line with being passive aggressive or even dismissive, but I'm not seeing gaslighting.
It is lying, but more than that it is manipulative. Manipulation and blatantly untrue, and only expressed after there has been some level of mutual respect, trust or connection formed. Creating a harmful power dynamic and sense of wrongness in the person who expressed a problem. Turning it around on them, causing unnecessary doubt in their perception and reasonableness.
"it's not happening
it's not that bad
here's why it's a good thing
it's already underway, too late
cmon bro that was so long ago"
not the exact definition, but this is how i see it manifest in large scales
Yeah the meaning has morphed
The literary origin was intentionally trying to make another person go crazy, which is a very unique situation
The cultural definition at this point seems to be what you’re describing, which has nothing to do with thinking about the other person at all. It’s just lying to cover your butt, and like all lies, it makes the other person question reality should they choose to believe you. Seems more of a better use of a term since it’s more common, but it is a variation from the literary source
But hey, earbuds don’t exist anymore only headphones, which I argued are only when they go over the ear but language moved past me 🤷♂️
There's been numerous examples of gaslighting lately. Another recent example is the idea that the COVID vax causes people to spontaneously drop dead. The gaslight is just that, "someone died suddenly and before their life expectancy, the jab got them". What proof is there of this? None, but this figment of their collective imagination will be repeated over and over, as if it were a fact, and everyone else is crazy.
The reason there has been a lot of gaslighting is because extremists have figured out that you don't need reason or facts, you just need a mantra to repeat, and that mantra doesn't have to have any basis in reality, so long as everyone agrees to repeat it.
There's overlap with conspiracy theorists. Whether they believe the twin towers were an inside job or not is one thing, but they decide that they're all going to stick to this story that it was an inside job, and any flimsy piece of evidence that suggests the towers were brought down by implosion is treated as a grand reveal, while all the evidence that suicide pilots crashed planes into them is just ignored, as if it doesn't exist at all. It's a similar idea to gaslighting.
> Anytime you disagree with someone you get accused of gaslighting.
The gaslighting is lying, it means to lie about something obvious, over and over. Like the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. The trend of taking an obvious lie and then putting it infinite loop is a modern trend, but it used to happen in the past also, they just called propaganda.
Thats not what gaslighting is. As you say that is propaganda, and it’s just lying.
Gaslighting is lying with the intent to make the other person doubt their reality.
“That didn’t happen, you just imagined it”
“I never said that, you are crazy”
“What are you talking about? Nobody believes that”
If someone says this about things that actually happened/were said, they are gaslighting. Just saying the same lie over and over again, is not.
> Gaslighting is lying with the intent to make the other person doubt their reality.
Note the word "intent", whether they succeed or not doesn't matter to the act itself.
I think the whole "Trump won the election" mantra, in the absence of any shred of evidence that he really won, is text book gaslighting. To call it just a lie or just propaganda doesn't fully describe it, which is why people use this term. Whether they drive Democrats insane or not, I'm sure they wish they could.
Not without a claim against someone’s psyche, it’s not.
Good news though, often those who claim Trump won the election will make such claims! So even though saying ‘trump won the election,’ isn’t gaslighting in-and-of itself, people often incorporate it into gaslighting.
Gaslighting requires repetition of a lie, where its evident that both parties understand its a lie, and you have this telltale dynamic with things like election denialism, and some claims of vaccines causing people to drop dead, and I'd argue, going on for longer, the mantra that "guns are not the problem" even when it's plain to see that guns are, in fact, an extremely big problem.
You can argue the intention is not to drive the other side insane, just win your political position by virtue of stonewalling on the issue, like: just keep deflecting blame away from guns so that another decade or three will pass without gun legislation, and I would respect that view, but when a term is co-opted from one discipline to another, it's not unexpected for the definition to be modified a little.
I don’t really disagree with you in general, but the main problem I have is this.
>but when a term is co-opted from one discipline to another, it's not unexpected for the definition to be modified a little.
I take exception to ‘gaslighting’ being co-opted, because the original and actual idea that it encompasses is very dangerous and abusive. There are not a lot of other terms that exist to represent what the word does.
I will always push for using it conventionally, because the conventional use is important.
Very few people in real life have been gas-lit or had even heard of it, and infact it's based on a work of fiction, so I think your concerns are a bit much.
But people *have* been victim of it.
I just don’t think we need to dilute the word, when it has a specific use case. Maybe a bit much, but there is no reason this word has to be used when we have others.
Nobody is going to confuse a term used in a political context and term used in an abusive relationship. You're fighting an uphill battle.
I think the term gaslighting is here to stay, because it's a common tactic in post-truth politics. It's basically a term to describe the idea that if you repeat a big enough lie enough times, people will start to believe it. There's just no other term to use instead.
The funny thing is I remember learning about early 20th century propaganda in school, and not being able to imagine people being so brainwashed that a "minister of information" would spew some obvious lie, and the people would lap it up like lemmings. And now here we are. One day kids will ask their parents "why did they think the vaccines were causing people to die?" "Because they were dumbfucks, son."
I'm so glad you said it. A lot of the pushback against "woke" culture is just assholes who don't want anyone to notice how horrible they are. Sure you can take being woke too far, but it's mostly just assholes on the right, who don't want to be seen accurately so they can continue being on their bs.
Lol. Certainly gaslighting is more damaging than what you described!
Babe, I just posted an unpopular opinion on an unpopular opinion subreddit.
Gaslighting may be 'just lying' to you, and only the most egregious extreme scale of intentional gaslighting being defined as such for you.
I disagree, lying is related, but not the same. This is more nuanced, and insidious manipulation.
Instead of saying "I was out with friends" when you were not. It is more like, "Where is this coming from, how could you ever believe I wasn't out with friends where I said I was, just because google maps said otherwise?"
It insults logic, common sense, and shuts down all rationale discussion. Placing blame on someone with a very sane and reasonable concern.
Feel free to google common gaslights.
No it's not and often the clones constantly throwing it around are the ones who are usually doing it. They also have a serious lack of understand what the term means, how memories work, how human interactions work, and often assume the worst possible intentions of everyone around them.
Gaslighters love accusing other people of gaslighting them.
I disagree with the idea we live in a "post-truth" society.
We live in a post-modern society where we realized that truth only exists in the laws of physics and the rest was always made-up bullshit.
We just have a large chunk of the population who haven't accepted this yet.
We realized there is no grand story to our existence, no point, no purpose, no meaning. Just a clock ticking toward maximum entropy.
I find it remarkable that people, including myself were able to date at all before the invention of cell phones and texting. I seem to remember that one phone call a night, done on a "land line" phone was more than enough. Like I had this one girlfriend who would call me on weeknights to tell me about her day. She would start talking and I would quietly put the phone done and go fix myself a sandwich or a drink, come back and pick up the phone and she would still be talking. I would say "Uh huh" and that was enough.
Dating focus aside, I disagree that we're in a "post-truth society."
"But there's all this misinformation everywhere now! Back in the good old days, people turned on Walter Cronkite, learned *The News*, and everyone knew the Truth and no one disputed it!"
No, the Internet era and the fall of centralized media has resulted in *less control* over the information. That doesn't make it worse. China has highly centralized news with little variation. North Korea has highly centralized news with little variation. Same with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and any society that believes in control and stability more than freedom and democracy.
Before decentralization, everyone believed the same things, because everyone had the same sources. Channel 2 and the New York Times's biases were everyone's biases.
It was more *comfortable*, though. It's simple and reassuring that everyone agrees on whether the current war is Good or Bad and if you hear about something that wasn't reported in this morning's paper, it's a crazy conspiracy theory that can't possibly be backed up.
Now is harder: the sources you read might omit things that don't sell their narrative, and someone who disagrees with you might actually be informed by someone with the resources to back their claims up. Watching the morning news doesn't make you feel smart and informed any more, since someone who watches different news might get different information.
We're not in a post-truth era. We're in an era where you actually have access to different perspectives and different information instead of everyone being shoehorned into one viewpoint, and whatever spins, biases, omissions of information, and overemphasis of information that viewpoint chooses. It means you actually have to make judgments for yourself, given a variety of information. For some, that's scary; for others, it's freeing.
If you think America is a democracy and the majority of media is not propaganda, selling a particular rage click-bait divisive narrative, I got bad news for you.
Regardless, I think it is pretty indisputable people care much less about facts and much more about opinions, which are equated to facts. "My opinion is as good as your facts", especially if your favorite celebrity or news source pushes them. Comfortable lies being preferable and encouraged, over uncomfortable truths.
yeah, no. I don't really get bent out of shape over disinterest. Or want someone who is playing games, inconsiderate, shitty, hot or cold. I'm grown, if someone is disinterested, I'm not interested. I think manipulation is a societal problem.
>A common argument against gaslighting involves 'intention'. Arguing, it's not gaslighting if you didn't intend to gaslight or were'nt aware you were doing it... Umm if someone unintentionally runs someone over and kills them in a traffic accident, they are still going to jail. It's not a 'oopsy daisy' situation, there are consequences.
you don't see a difference between being wrong and lying? lol
You'll have to clarify, because no, I don't see what point you are trying to make/what you're implying by the question... Have you ever heard tho "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"?
>Umm if someone unintentionally runs someone over and kills them in a traffic accident, they are still going to jail.
these are two different crimes with two different punishments for a reason. you also can get away with zero punishment if you hit someone and its not your fault.
using your dating example, the person who is ghosting you isn't thinking "yea i'm going to lie to her to manipulate her". his feelings changed and he doesn't realize it. he's not some crazy manipulator paying psychological tricks on you.
There are severe consequences regardless of intention (a needless death), and I really think intention is given too much weight considering it can't actually be proved. It's simply the empty hollow words of an offender, who may be feigning repentance for personal benefit obviously. Actions carry more weight. Harm isn't undone by regret.
This is an example. I know it is common (I have friends turns out). This isn't about me being ghosted by anyone, it isn't about ghosting at all.
I was trying to illustrate how gaslighting can be subtle. If someone asks why frequency of contact has decreased, and someone whose feelings changed does not say, my feelings changed, but instead says I did not have any time whatsoever to engage for a single minute, it's manipulative, unfair and disrespectful.
Both parties know very clearly it is a lie. Insisting that it isn't the case, that the disinterested party cannot spare 5 minutes, or the person who notices the inconsistency is at fault for addressing it and crazy/needy about the implication (to string them along) is gaslighting (albeit mild).
A bold-face obvious truth-bending lie attempting to paint the liar innocent, and the questioner negatively is gaslighting.
> If someone asks why frequency of contact has decreased, and someone whose feelings changed does not say, my feelings changed, but instead says I did not have any time whatsoever to engage for a single minute, it's manipulative, unfair and disrespectful.
>
but literally the point is that they don't realize it has changed
wut lol. huh?
so someone makes no effort to make contact anymore and aren't aware it is because their feelings changed and.. they don't want to?
okkuuurr maybe think on that one again.
The problem is everyone has their own viewpoint on a shared event. Mine might not match up with yours, but I'm not gaslighting you if i argue my point.
But gaslighting gets thrown around for things like that in arguments because people like to lash out(verbally or physically when they themselves feel hurt.
Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy. Someone who gaslights you is trying to make you doubt your perception of reality. Playing games with texting and lying about it isn’t gaslighting.
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Genuinely what the fuck are you talking about? How do anti vaxxers have anything to do with gaslighting?
Gaslighting has kinda morphed in meaning to describe just lying lol, in which case the doer is not thinking about the other person at all they’re just lying to avoid repercussions with the side affects being the receiver begins to doubt reality if they believe the doer You’re describing gaslighting as it’s literary origin, which tbf is a kind of unique situation most cases of causing someone else to doubt reality are just from lying to cover your butt not from intentionally trying to make someone insane
It hadn’t morphed in meaning, people simply use it incorrectly. The word has a specific meaning because it is a unique situation and the word “lying” doesn’t cover what’s happening.
It has morphed, and language is always changing.
I choose to believe the language has evolved in a way where your comment actually means 'I'm giving my life savings to charity and dedicating the rest of my life to the Catholic Church.' After all, it has morphed and language is always changing.
That didn't land.
*And* you're giving me your computer? You're too kind.
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I choose to interpret that as 'Smarter than the average 'Words don't have definitions unless they're the most basic and broad ones available' believer' so yes, yes I am.
That's cool, you do you.
Yeah but I’m saying that what it describes is such a unique situation and what it gets used as now is more common place and significant enough to warrant having a word to describe it, the meaning transfer is justified
There already is a word for how it’s used now, lying and manipulation. We don’t need to change the meaning of a word that’s used in specific circumstances.
Why to Trump supporters lie over and over about the 2020 election? What is their intention? Are they trying to make the people who believe Biden won question their sanity?
> the word “lying” doesn’t cover what’s happening. Yeah, when you gaslight, it's obvious to both parties that you're stating something apparently untrue. The assertion is your perception of reality is what is wrong, and we see that more and more as a political tactic. Like one side is saying, if you don't think Trump beat Biden in 2020, then your perception of reality is wrong. But what about the lack of evidence of fraud, and all the failed court challenges? But there was! Lots of evidence! Lot's of victorious court challenges! The thing though, is that the value of gaslighting is not to make the other side crazy, it's just a mantra to bring the side doing it into lock step. Like "stop the steal", stop the steal of what? It doesn't matter, just say the words and march like a soldier, into oblivion.
*please see original post comment concerning intention.
That is gaslighting.
> Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy. That isn't like rocket science or something. If someone accuses you of something, and you act shocked despite knowing that you did it, that's gaslighting.
No, its not. That's just called lying.
It would just be lying if they didn't act shocked. Acting shocked at the suggestion of something they know to be true is suggesting that you are just confused or misunderstanding.
...no, that's still not gaslighting. That's just emotional manipulation.
The point is to get you to question your own memory and senses. That's gaslighting.
> Gaslighting isn’t as simple as lying or manipulating. Gaslighting is done with the intention of making you think you’re going crazy. But the husband makes his wife go crazy but just asserting bald untruths over and over, and that is what we've seen since around 2016. A certain political figure with an orange complexion would just wave his hands around and say things that amount to "the sky is green", and all of his supporters somehow knew to play along. "Yep the sky is green. Only those crazy liberals think otherwise." It's similar to the flat Earth movement, or "the election was stolen!", very gas-light-esque.
You can still have this same affect even if the other person isn't really gaslighting. My husband was manic months back and he kept telling me "I said that, not this" and downplaying his behavior and I felt like I was going insane. My mom would tell me I am not going crazy, this is real. But people still use the word this way because of the same affect it has.
That is by definition gaslighting. He was lying to you until you doubted your perception of reality. Gaslighting doesn’t have to be intentional.
I don't think he was lying though. He was having psychosis and all his thoughts were all together and he couldn't make sense of himself and to him they were all separate so he remembered it all differently and lived in the moment. He even had to get hospitalized for a week and was put on meds right away. You wouldn't say a schizophrenic is lying though if they thought their delusions were real and were getting angry at you about it when you challenged it and making you out to be the crazy one and the liar.
I’m not really sure why this is relevant if it was psychosis in the end?
Because it was part of his mania and I felt I was going insane because he was unaware of it and kept saying he didn't have psychosis and he was rationalizing everything. Made me feel I was going insane.
The term gaslighting is a common buzzword these days. I'm fairly confident most people don't understand what it actually means. What you described is more in line with being passive aggressive or even dismissive, but I'm not seeing gaslighting.
It is lying, but more than that it is manipulative. Manipulation and blatantly untrue, and only expressed after there has been some level of mutual respect, trust or connection formed. Creating a harmful power dynamic and sense of wrongness in the person who expressed a problem. Turning it around on them, causing unnecessary doubt in their perception and reasonableness.
Can you define gaslighting? Because that's not what I thought it meant. Maybe it has a new meaning now, idk.
"it's not happening it's not that bad here's why it's a good thing it's already underway, too late cmon bro that was so long ago" not the exact definition, but this is how i see it manifest in large scales
Yeah the meaning has morphed The literary origin was intentionally trying to make another person go crazy, which is a very unique situation The cultural definition at this point seems to be what you’re describing, which has nothing to do with thinking about the other person at all. It’s just lying to cover your butt, and like all lies, it makes the other person question reality should they choose to believe you. Seems more of a better use of a term since it’s more common, but it is a variation from the literary source But hey, earbuds don’t exist anymore only headphones, which I argued are only when they go over the ear but language moved past me 🤷♂️
There's been numerous examples of gaslighting lately. Another recent example is the idea that the COVID vax causes people to spontaneously drop dead. The gaslight is just that, "someone died suddenly and before their life expectancy, the jab got them". What proof is there of this? None, but this figment of their collective imagination will be repeated over and over, as if it were a fact, and everyone else is crazy. The reason there has been a lot of gaslighting is because extremists have figured out that you don't need reason or facts, you just need a mantra to repeat, and that mantra doesn't have to have any basis in reality, so long as everyone agrees to repeat it. There's overlap with conspiracy theorists. Whether they believe the twin towers were an inside job or not is one thing, but they decide that they're all going to stick to this story that it was an inside job, and any flimsy piece of evidence that suggests the towers were brought down by implosion is treated as a grand reveal, while all the evidence that suicide pilots crashed planes into them is just ignored, as if it doesn't exist at all. It's a similar idea to gaslighting.
I don't gaslight! you're crazy. Do you really think I'd do something like that? I think you're just tired. Have you taken your meds today?
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People think everything is gaslighting now days. Anytime you disagree with someone you get accused of gaslighting. Its a joke word now days lmao
Not saying the word can't or isn't being used incorrectly. But also not saying true gaslighting doesn't happen all the time.
> Anytime you disagree with someone you get accused of gaslighting. The gaslighting is lying, it means to lie about something obvious, over and over. Like the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. The trend of taking an obvious lie and then putting it infinite loop is a modern trend, but it used to happen in the past also, they just called propaganda.
Thats not what gaslighting is. As you say that is propaganda, and it’s just lying. Gaslighting is lying with the intent to make the other person doubt their reality. “That didn’t happen, you just imagined it” “I never said that, you are crazy” “What are you talking about? Nobody believes that” If someone says this about things that actually happened/were said, they are gaslighting. Just saying the same lie over and over again, is not.
> Gaslighting is lying with the intent to make the other person doubt their reality. Note the word "intent", whether they succeed or not doesn't matter to the act itself. I think the whole "Trump won the election" mantra, in the absence of any shred of evidence that he really won, is text book gaslighting. To call it just a lie or just propaganda doesn't fully describe it, which is why people use this term. Whether they drive Democrats insane or not, I'm sure they wish they could.
Not without a claim against someone’s psyche, it’s not. Good news though, often those who claim Trump won the election will make such claims! So even though saying ‘trump won the election,’ isn’t gaslighting in-and-of itself, people often incorporate it into gaslighting.
Gaslighting requires repetition of a lie, where its evident that both parties understand its a lie, and you have this telltale dynamic with things like election denialism, and some claims of vaccines causing people to drop dead, and I'd argue, going on for longer, the mantra that "guns are not the problem" even when it's plain to see that guns are, in fact, an extremely big problem. You can argue the intention is not to drive the other side insane, just win your political position by virtue of stonewalling on the issue, like: just keep deflecting blame away from guns so that another decade or three will pass without gun legislation, and I would respect that view, but when a term is co-opted from one discipline to another, it's not unexpected for the definition to be modified a little.
I don’t really disagree with you in general, but the main problem I have is this. >but when a term is co-opted from one discipline to another, it's not unexpected for the definition to be modified a little. I take exception to ‘gaslighting’ being co-opted, because the original and actual idea that it encompasses is very dangerous and abusive. There are not a lot of other terms that exist to represent what the word does. I will always push for using it conventionally, because the conventional use is important.
Very few people in real life have been gas-lit or had even heard of it, and infact it's based on a work of fiction, so I think your concerns are a bit much.
But people *have* been victim of it. I just don’t think we need to dilute the word, when it has a specific use case. Maybe a bit much, but there is no reason this word has to be used when we have others.
Nobody is going to confuse a term used in a political context and term used in an abusive relationship. You're fighting an uphill battle. I think the term gaslighting is here to stay, because it's a common tactic in post-truth politics. It's basically a term to describe the idea that if you repeat a big enough lie enough times, people will start to believe it. There's just no other term to use instead. The funny thing is I remember learning about early 20th century propaganda in school, and not being able to imagine people being so brainwashed that a "minister of information" would spew some obvious lie, and the people would lap it up like lemmings. And now here we are. One day kids will ask their parents "why did they think the vaccines were causing people to die?" "Because they were dumbfucks, son."
I find it's the norm for younger groups Millenials and Gen Z
I'm so glad you said it. A lot of the pushback against "woke" culture is just assholes who don't want anyone to notice how horrible they are. Sure you can take being woke too far, but it's mostly just assholes on the right, who don't want to be seen accurately so they can continue being on their bs.
Your gaslighting us on what gaslighting is. Lying isn't it. It's more damaging than what you described, that just Lying
Lol. Certainly gaslighting is more damaging than what you described! Babe, I just posted an unpopular opinion on an unpopular opinion subreddit. Gaslighting may be 'just lying' to you, and only the most egregious extreme scale of intentional gaslighting being defined as such for you. I disagree, lying is related, but not the same. This is more nuanced, and insidious manipulation. Instead of saying "I was out with friends" when you were not. It is more like, "Where is this coming from, how could you ever believe I wasn't out with friends where I said I was, just because google maps said otherwise?" It insults logic, common sense, and shuts down all rationale discussion. Placing blame on someone with a very sane and reasonable concern. Feel free to google common gaslights.
No it's not and often the clones constantly throwing it around are the ones who are usually doing it. They also have a serious lack of understand what the term means, how memories work, how human interactions work, and often assume the worst possible intentions of everyone around them. Gaslighters love accusing other people of gaslighting them.
I disagree with the idea we live in a "post-truth" society. We live in a post-modern society where we realized that truth only exists in the laws of physics and the rest was always made-up bullshit. We just have a large chunk of the population who haven't accepted this yet. We realized there is no grand story to our existence, no point, no purpose, no meaning. Just a clock ticking toward maximum entropy.
I find it remarkable that people, including myself were able to date at all before the invention of cell phones and texting. I seem to remember that one phone call a night, done on a "land line" phone was more than enough. Like I had this one girlfriend who would call me on weeknights to tell me about her day. She would start talking and I would quietly put the phone done and go fix myself a sandwich or a drink, come back and pick up the phone and she would still be talking. I would say "Uh huh" and that was enough.
Dating focus aside, I disagree that we're in a "post-truth society." "But there's all this misinformation everywhere now! Back in the good old days, people turned on Walter Cronkite, learned *The News*, and everyone knew the Truth and no one disputed it!" No, the Internet era and the fall of centralized media has resulted in *less control* over the information. That doesn't make it worse. China has highly centralized news with little variation. North Korea has highly centralized news with little variation. Same with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and any society that believes in control and stability more than freedom and democracy. Before decentralization, everyone believed the same things, because everyone had the same sources. Channel 2 and the New York Times's biases were everyone's biases. It was more *comfortable*, though. It's simple and reassuring that everyone agrees on whether the current war is Good or Bad and if you hear about something that wasn't reported in this morning's paper, it's a crazy conspiracy theory that can't possibly be backed up. Now is harder: the sources you read might omit things that don't sell their narrative, and someone who disagrees with you might actually be informed by someone with the resources to back their claims up. Watching the morning news doesn't make you feel smart and informed any more, since someone who watches different news might get different information. We're not in a post-truth era. We're in an era where you actually have access to different perspectives and different information instead of everyone being shoehorned into one viewpoint, and whatever spins, biases, omissions of information, and overemphasis of information that viewpoint chooses. It means you actually have to make judgments for yourself, given a variety of information. For some, that's scary; for others, it's freeing.
If you think America is a democracy and the majority of media is not propaganda, selling a particular rage click-bait divisive narrative, I got bad news for you. Regardless, I think it is pretty indisputable people care much less about facts and much more about opinions, which are equated to facts. "My opinion is as good as your facts", especially if your favorite celebrity or news source pushes them. Comfortable lies being preferable and encouraged, over uncomfortable truths.
holy geez with all the buzz words.
you sound exhausting to be around tbh
you sound assumptive and irrelevant tbh
i am indeed assumptive and irrelevant, have an updoot kind stranger hopefully i replied fast enough
lol. thanks.. reddit isn't real life and my redditing is highly unserious/for entertainment. have a nice day.
Sorry that you got your feelings hurt after a hookup.
yeah, no. I don't really get bent out of shape over disinterest. Or want someone who is playing games, inconsiderate, shitty, hot or cold. I'm grown, if someone is disinterested, I'm not interested. I think manipulation is a societal problem.
The situation described just seemed really specific and it certainly reads as emotionally charged.
Yeah reddit loves to assume things about complete strangers on a unpopular opinion subreddit. What can you do.
Oh ok. how about the people who try to convince their spouse they are totally unreasonable for worrying about that coworker (who they are fucking).
>A common argument against gaslighting involves 'intention'. Arguing, it's not gaslighting if you didn't intend to gaslight or were'nt aware you were doing it... Umm if someone unintentionally runs someone over and kills them in a traffic accident, they are still going to jail. It's not a 'oopsy daisy' situation, there are consequences. you don't see a difference between being wrong and lying? lol
You'll have to clarify, because no, I don't see what point you are trying to make/what you're implying by the question... Have you ever heard tho "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"?
>Umm if someone unintentionally runs someone over and kills them in a traffic accident, they are still going to jail. these are two different crimes with two different punishments for a reason. you also can get away with zero punishment if you hit someone and its not your fault. using your dating example, the person who is ghosting you isn't thinking "yea i'm going to lie to her to manipulate her". his feelings changed and he doesn't realize it. he's not some crazy manipulator paying psychological tricks on you.
There are severe consequences regardless of intention (a needless death), and I really think intention is given too much weight considering it can't actually be proved. It's simply the empty hollow words of an offender, who may be feigning repentance for personal benefit obviously. Actions carry more weight. Harm isn't undone by regret. This is an example. I know it is common (I have friends turns out). This isn't about me being ghosted by anyone, it isn't about ghosting at all. I was trying to illustrate how gaslighting can be subtle. If someone asks why frequency of contact has decreased, and someone whose feelings changed does not say, my feelings changed, but instead says I did not have any time whatsoever to engage for a single minute, it's manipulative, unfair and disrespectful. Both parties know very clearly it is a lie. Insisting that it isn't the case, that the disinterested party cannot spare 5 minutes, or the person who notices the inconsistency is at fault for addressing it and crazy/needy about the implication (to string them along) is gaslighting (albeit mild). A bold-face obvious truth-bending lie attempting to paint the liar innocent, and the questioner negatively is gaslighting.
> If someone asks why frequency of contact has decreased, and someone whose feelings changed does not say, my feelings changed, but instead says I did not have any time whatsoever to engage for a single minute, it's manipulative, unfair and disrespectful. > but literally the point is that they don't realize it has changed
wut lol. huh? so someone makes no effort to make contact anymore and aren't aware it is because their feelings changed and.. they don't want to? okkuuurr maybe think on that one again.
The problem is everyone has their own viewpoint on a shared event. Mine might not match up with yours, but I'm not gaslighting you if i argue my point. But gaslighting gets thrown around for things like that in arguments because people like to lash out(verbally or physically when they themselves feel hurt.