Ohio Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance published a 1203-word diatribe Monday night filled with falsehoods and feeble hypocrisies, demanding that Democrats "tone down the rhetoric" while insisting he opposes "censorship." Critics are accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee of hypocrisy and gaslig...
Not arguing, but is gaslighting really the right word?
No, not at all. It’s one of the most incorrectly used words, usually just as a synonym for lying. This is especially egregious as it’s being used as a synonym for hypocrisy.
I just feel when words change to mean different things very rapidly in society, words no longer have meaning and communication is shut down.
This word isn’t even 100 years old, and its origin is quite documented. In fact, it’s a literal reference to the title of a play/movie.
Imagine changing the term “stepford wife” to mean something like powerful married woman who takes charge of her life.
It doesn’t bother me so much because I am pretty good at figuring out what people mean from context.
But, and this is quite judgey, it does lead me to believe the person is not much of a thinker and almost certainly not much concerned with researching to make sure what they’ve heard is actually the truth.
Think of it as the society being the victim. The clearest example is when Trump started talking about Fake News. The goal is to devoid words of meaning, to reason based only on emotional attachment, to eliminate critical thinking. This guy follows the same strategy.
Below a definition of gaslighting, I think it applies pretty well to the kind of society these people are leaving behind:
I think if people actually watched the movie they’d understand what it really is.
yes. that definition is great for folks that knows that something which is not true is true and therefor x is gaslighting them.
Have you seen the movie for which this phrase is named?
yes but I was refering to the definition of the commentator that you commented to. I mean in the movie he was actually taking her stuff and saying she lost it and such.
There is only one definition.
The term “gaslight” comes from the 1944 film Gaslight, which was based on the 1938 play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton. In the movie, a husband manipulates his wife into doubting her own sanity by dimming the gas lights in their home and then denying that the lights are changing. The term “gaslighting” now refers to a form of psychological manipulation where someone makes another person question their reality.
I get that and I was refer to what cuerdo had as not true he had as part " denying something the other person knows is true" which is what I see people doing. I feel something you say is against what I know is true and so your gaslighting. Its actually sorta turned around because its about someone lying about things they know are not true and manipulating things to make their lies seem truthful.
The only way it would be gaslighting is if the dems were questioning their own comments.
And they aren’t.
He’s just being a hypocritical lying dick. Not the same thing.
I thought the same thing. People are obsessed with the word gaslighting.
This seems more like textbook hypocrisy. Person doing thing talks about the harms of others doing that thing.
People love to use it because it makes them the victim.
… What?
Is this some weird “victim mentality” thing?
People love to use it because it got popular and grew to mean more than the original definition to the point where it just got generic to encompass a wide range of things. It’s the same as cringe.
It didn’t grow. People misuse it. Dumb people
By this metric, one can argue that we currently “misuse” a lot of words in the English language, but the reality is language evolves. Think about how the definition of “nice” has evolved from meaning “ignorant or stupid” in the 1300s to it’s current meaning.
So gaslighting should change to what? Telling someone they are doing something that they feel they aren’t?
You’re nice.
I’ve noticed this a lot the last 5-10 years. Nobody uses words wrong anymore it’s all “language evolves” and “language is descriptive not prescriptive.”
People are just using the word wrong.
It’s just crappy education mixed with “don’t tell me what to do” mentality. A lot of it is probably social media, where a popular person starts using a word wrong and that quickly spreads and is often used assuming the listener knows about the inside joke.
I was talking with someone IRL who was a very big Twitter and TikTok user. They are also (diagnosed) autistic. It was difficult to follow them because most of what they would say sounded almost meme-like, very accusatory, and rude. I would ask them not to talk to me like that and it was dismissed a “obviously a joke” or “sarcasm” or “deadpan.”
Is this irony? Being gaslit about the word “gaslight”?
No