Were Twain alive today, I am sure he would have something insightful to offer on "gaslighting", which is putting forth false narratives to deceive and make people doubt their own perceptions, a bright light on a topic intended to blind. It's an epidemic in our country. It's so common you likely don't realize it is operating on you.
Big tobacco wrote the book on truth denial and propaganda to block efforts to expose the hazards of smoking. Deny, deny, deny. Find (and pay) scientists to testify that smoking is not a health hazard. e.g. "Cigarettes may cause lung cancer, heart disease and other health problems, but the evidence is not conclusive." Over time big tobacco gradually confessed there might be a case for smoking causing cancer but new “low tar” products and then vaping, mitigate the hazards. It’s a pattern that other industries have copied over and over, depending on the power of a repeated lie until it becomes truth in peoples' minds.
And so, from climate change deniers we get, "Scientists of course are in disagreement about whether this is happening and whether humans have a role.”
The old style gas lighters wanted to establish a level of doubt in your mind. But the new-form gaslighting wants you to believe fantastical conspiracies - and demonizes anyone who dares call them out as false. So anti-vaxers - politicians and radio talk hosts in particular - claim that the pandemic is fake, or Bill Gates is putting nanobots in each dose, or that the jab is the Biblical “mark of the beast”. And this malarkey get accepted by millions of people. It beggars belief.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Importantly, the first 3 words of our Constitution’s Preamble are "We the People". Not we the government, not we the states, not we the political parties, not we the Facebook. We the people. We are responsible for assuring the rights of all are respected, regardless of race, color or creed, and that truth wins out. Our nation needs to remember how it felt to work toward a common - meaning for everyone - good. We need to stop shouting, start thinking and look for common ground, common good.
We could start by adopting a commitment to truth and a touch of civility.
A good start would be for us to recognize there aren’t always two sides to an argument. Sometimes there’s just one side. But that would require us all to share a common reality. In these days of QAnon, and alternate facts, that seems out of reach.
ReplyDelete