Gaslighting

Last week Merriam-Webster announced its 2022 Word of the Year: Gaslighting. It's a good pick as the term has gained widespread colloquial use over the past several years, particularly due to the prevalence with which certain political actors gaslight the public.

The term gaslighting comes from the name of a 1938 play, Gas Light. In the story a scheming man marries a wealthy woman and attempts to swindle her out of her money by convincing her she's insane. He fiddles with the gas lights in their building (the story is set in the Victorian era, before homes had electricity) causing the lights dim and flicker. When she notes the lights are dim and flickering, he sternly insists they are not— and that she must be losing her wits to think so.

With that context the definition provided for the word makes total sense:

Gas·light·ing noun:
1. 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
2. the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage

In case it's not obvious, gaslighting is a form of lying. But worse than merely telling a lie, gaslighting is a technique of convincing a person to reject reality and instead believe that what the liar says is true.

1:23:45. The Cost of Lies.

1:23:45 is not just a series of consecutive numbers. It is a time that will live in infamy. It is the hour (and minute and second) of the morning on April 26, 1986 when reactor #4 at the Chernobyl power plant in the former USSR exploded. It is also the title of episode 1 of Chernobyl, a 5-part HBO miniseries we binged last Friday.



Episode 1 begins with the main character of docudrama, scientist Valery Legasov, who had been appointed to lead scientific aspects of the cleanup and containment of the nuclear accident. It is 2 years after the explosion. Legasov is recording memoirs on audio tape about the true culprits of the disaster. "What is the cost of lies?" he asks rhetorically. He rails against the culture of lying, and knowingly repeating lies, when it's more politically expedient than acknowledging hard truths.

Though this opening scene takes place in 1988 there's an obvious parable for today, 34 years later. Lies, and whole political regimes that depend on constant lying, are very much a part of 2022, from modern day Russia with its absurd propaganda attempting to justify its invasion of Ukraine, to the US itself, where former president Donald Trump, other Republican leaders, and propagandist personalities on Fox News promote conspiracy theories daily.

Just over a week ago Merriam-Webster named gaslighting its Word of the Year. Gaslighting very much describes how Soviet officials began suppressing facts about Chernobyl beginning seconds after it occurred. It also describes what's happening politically in the US for several years. When Trump says things like, "Don't believe what the media is telling you; they're 'fake news'" that's gaslighting.

So, what is the cost of lies? As concerns Chernobyl, it was the explosion that blew up reactor #4, spewing radiation and radioactive material in greater quantities than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was an accident that killed untold thousands, injured possibly hundreds of thousands, and put literal millions at risk.

As concerns the US, one cost of lies in the insurrection on January 6, 2021. It's chilling to note, though, that the miniseries wasn't talking specifically about that. The show aired in 2019, over a year before the insurrection. The show's opening soliloquy warns us about what could happen. Now some of it already has.

Update: keep reading: 1:23:45. Lies & Heroic Sacrifice.