By DOUG SHAVER
March 22, 2021
So, the shooting war has been postponed for nobody knows how long. I'm not ready to concede yet that I've been overreacting, but I seem to have missed a historical analogy. I can't remember who it was, but somebody in the commentariat recently suggested that we're in a new cold war—a cold civil war. That gave me a Huxley moment, wondering how I managed not to think of it myself. I lived through the original cold war, having been born around the time it was starting.
We can only hope that this one ends as peacefully as the first one did, but let's not forget that although we avoided World War III, a gawdawful lot of people died in warfare and other violence provoked by the superpowers' competition for world dominance. Or that nobody ever admitted to seeking dominance over anyone. Every shot fired, no matter by whom, was said to be either an act of self-defense or in defense of other people's freedom from oppression. We said the other side was trying to oppress everyone, they said the same about us.
That cold war ended 30 years ago, but not the rhetoric.
Among the rhetorical tricks I see mentioned once in a while is gaslighting. It refers to efforts by an oppressor to make their victim question their own perception of reality. The original instance was a work of fiction about an abusive husband trying to get his wife committed to a mental institution. The term was adopted by some people who think something like it often happens in real life.
In a way, sort of, we're all trying to do this. We all think other people are mistaken about some part of reality. Christians think I misperceive reality if I think it doesn't include the God they worship. But I don't accuse them of trying to gaslight me, and one reason is that they actually believe I'm deluded, or at least mistaken. In the original stage play Gas Light, the husband knew perfectly well that there was nothing wrong with his wife's perceptions. He was, with malicious intent, trying to deceive her.
In the modern socio-political lexicon, people said to be members of an oppressor class (that would include me) are accused of gaslighting when they deny that they are oppressing anyone. Given that some people of another class say we are indeed oppressing them, we are questioning their perception of their reality, which is what gaslighting is all about.
But that argument assumes its conclusion. If I say "I'm not oppressing anyone, and anyone who says I am is just deluded," I'm not gaslighting them unless I really am oppressing them.
Ah, but my accusers aren't done with me yet. "Maybe you really think you're not oppressing anyone," they will say, "but the reality is: You are an oppressor, even if you don't realize it."
Well, maybe—but now, who is gaslighting whom?
I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it, because I'm not accusing all who disagree with me of being deluded. I think they're mistaken, but I don't believe anyone has to be crazy to make a mistake. A delusion is a pathology, but we all make mistakes, and we're not all suffering from a pathology.
Pathological reasoning, though, is something to which we are all susceptible. We succumb to it whenever we accept a belief system with the supposition that (a) it cannot be in error and (b) there is something very wrong with anyone who thinks it can be. This isn't the only pathology out there, but it's the one that most threatens us at the moment. It was the reason for our first civil war, it's the reason we're now in a cold civil war, and it will be the reason the war turns hot, if that happens.
I would not say that everyone who accuses me of being an oppressor is exhibiting pathological reasoning. I would ask anyone who makes the accusation: Do you think it possible that you could be mistaken? If the response is negative or evasive—anything but affirmative—then we're seeing a pathology of some sort.
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(This page last updated on December 31, 2021.)