Gaslighting
Dec. 6th, 2022 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerLast 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:
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.
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
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.
