Gaslighting And Verbal Judo

Wormtongue In Action

Fans of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings will recognize Wormtongue as a Middle Earth spin doctor, bamboozling King Theoden of Rohan into acting against the interests of his land at the behest of the evil Sauron.

The world seems to be full of wormtongues these days, no more are the days of journalism, if such days ever were, now it's all wormtongue all the time.

“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." ~ Joseph Pulitzer

Is that still a thing? Was it ever?

For example, we are told that we can't legislate morality, but is that just a bit of verbal sleight of hand? For instance, we have laws against robbing banks, but we don't have laws against wanting to rob banks. Wanting to rob banks may be taken as immoral, and it's correct that we can't legislate against wanting to rob banks. Laws in general seek to legislate morality, or more properly moral conduct. Since we can't of course make laws concerning what people think and want, although hate crime laws seek to, we can only legislate behavior, but I think that those who use the phrase “you can't legislate morality” are using the confusion elucidated in the first paragraph to justify bad behavior. One must separate the desires of a possible miscreant from his acts. We are cornered into agreeing that, of course, we cannot legislate his desires, and therefore we cannot legislate his actual activity.

Gaslighting is a word in use now with the meaning of perpetuating a false narrative, and I remember the word being used in the 1960s. It's origin is a 1944 film starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten, in which a man undermines his wife’s belief in her own sanity by making her think she doesn't remember doing things, such as changing the brightness of the gaslights, hence the title. Many other mind games were played on the wife for the husband's nefarious purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

From the Wikipedia article:

Gaslighting is the manipulation of someone into questioning their own perception of reality.[2][3] The expression, which derives from the title of the 1944 film Gaslight, became popular in the mid-2010s.[4]

Some mental health experts have expressed concern that the term has been used too broadly. In 2022, The Washington Post described it as a notable example of therapyspeak, arguing it had become a buzzword improperly used to describe ordinary disagreements.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." ~ Malcolm X

https://www.ananiasfoundation.org/gaslighting/?gad_source=1

Gaslighting isn't just promulgating falsehoods, it's performing acts intended to give veracity to a narrative. We are told to believe something even it doesn't seem reasonable or factual. The narrative will have elements of truth, half truths and full lies. It may happen in marriages and domestic violence for instance, and is a thing one must not do, but here I'm more concerned with current events and politics. The idea is to cause someone to not trust their own judgment.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." ~ George Orwell

We've had a lot of gaslighting recent years, In the linked video Victor Davis Hanson talks about the one of the past few years; We were all expected to believe that President Biden was in full control of his faculties, That Covid came from animals even though the cases started next door to a bio-lab studying how to make diseases worse, and despite geneticists stating that it appeared man made. We were told that Trump was colluding with Russia, that Hunter Biden's laptop was a fake, and that the border simply could not be secured. What made it gaslighting was the extent to which these things were reported with a straight face, and and all who disagreed were called kooks and conspiracy theorists, so now there is little faith in government or journalism. (If you don’t think that the powerful will conspire with each other to their own benefit you are a little short of a full load.)

False flag attacks are part of gaslighting, meant to blame one's enemies, and may be military operations in which the identity of the perpetrators is hidden, and maybe shown to be that of ones enemies or some other group. These are as old as warfare, and the purpose is to narrative control.

Be alert for gaslighting and deception in the public sphere; it's everywhere these days.

"The journalists in America are no longer covering critical stories. Investigative journalism is gone. Foreign-news coverage is gone. The press is owned by five giant corporations." ~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Stay Brave, Stay Free