Since gaslighting by definition means that you’re invalidating someone’s view of reality and basically calling them insane, I have a hard time seeing how it could be the victims fault.
You can disagree with people, and you can say that you don’t agree with their description of reality, but neither of those things are gaslighting.
Sometimes when trying to convince someone that they're wrong, you need to point out that there is a bias in their vision of reality. A bias is not a wrong logical step that can be fixed simply by pointing it out: it affects the ability itself to follow a different argument, and the entire view of reality.
Think for example of someone who is in a cult or deep into a religious belief; or think about those who believe in conspiracy theories of all kinds. They're basically called insane every day even in the media. Would you call that gaslighting?
Gaslighting is not an objective term so it makes no sense to try to cast it as such. What constitutes gaslighting depends on terms like "abuser" and "victim" and since these terms are subjective, it follows that the term gaslighting must be as well.
Still, I think it's worth involving personal morals when arguing for or against when a term like this can be used, because if we don't we can't really use subjective terms to describe anything.
Consider for example that other charged terms involving an "abuser" and a "victim" would be open for the same argument, but arguing that this means that no moral opinion can be made in any of these cases would (in my opinion) not be intellectually honest but simply nihilistic.
I don't think that it's very productive to say that any term open for subjectivity in this manner should either be hardened into an objective criteria or discarded, because morality has never and never will be something that can be proven scientifically, it has to come from subjective values.
> "abuser" and "victim" and since these terms are subjective
I'm not sure that "abuser" and "victim" are that subjective. I can imagine a lot of situations in which the roles of abuser and victim are pretty objective.
The problem with a term like gaslighting is that allows anyone who is in a strong disagreement with anyone else to 1) claim a victim role and paint their opponents as abusers; 2) by doing so, protect their own belief from being questioned. It becomes a tool of a "closed belief system" where attempts to question the belief are taken as proofs of its correctness, which is in general a hallmark of cults.
Yes, generally abusers like to paint themselves as victims, these kinds of inversions are quite common.
If limited to the perspective of debate, gaslighting is just a variation of an ad hominem attack, which is easily recognized and not subjective at all.
Telling somebody they are wrong is never gaslighting, but suggesting they can't be right due to some personal flaw often is.
I would call that gaslighting yes. Basically you're declaring their judgement incapacitated in some way and try to convince them to abandon their views or change their behavior by distrusting their own sanity.
You may think you are right in this, but it is still gaslighting.
An alternative approach would be to just point out the facts and use arguments, and counter their falsehoods, which implicitly recognizes their ability for sound reasoning. That is not gaslighting, but merely debate.
I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone.
> I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone.
"gaslighting" is defined as a form of manipulation that an abuser uses to sow self-doubt in a victim. But telling someone that they're dead wrong- while it might not the most effective way of convincing- is not necessarily a form of manipulation, nor the person on the receiving end must be considered a victim.
If you're trying to convince someone to leave a cult, or to abandon conspiratorial thinking, or to reject the propaganda that they've heard all their life, or to stop blaming their parents or partners for everything that's wrong in their lives.. you might face a point in which you have to tell that person that they're wrong and their biases are corrupting their vision of reality. The attempt however is not manipulative nor the person on the other end is a victim- quite the contrary.
> "gaslighting" is defined as a form of manipulation that an abuser uses to sow self-doubt in a victim. But telling someone that they're dead wrong- while it might not the most effective way of convincing- is not necessarily a form of manipulation, nor the person on the receiving end must be considered a victim.
Well put and this is exactly my point
> ... you might face a point in which you have to tell that person that they're wrong and their biases are corrupting their vision of reality.
I think you make a mistake here by conflating two different things. This is what I reacted to:
> they're basically called insane every day even in the media. Would you call that gaslighting?
There's a big difference between telling someone they are wrong and telling them they are insane. Or making them doubt about their capacity for judgement by convincing them their biases are corrupting their vision of reality, thus losing confidence in not only their views, but their ability for independent thinking, and yielding to your relentless argumentation.
The first one is not gaslighting but the second one does kinda fit your definition. It needs an intent to change something in their behavior (manipulation), which I assume exists here. In reality, gaslighting is often sufficiently subtle to disempower otherwise intelligent people.
The fact that you think you are doing something noble and true by attempting to get someone out of a cult does not alter the equation. It can even end up being abusive. For example, fundamentalist christians trying to 'heal' people from their homosexuality. They think they are dispelling the corruptive influence of sin, and the people who enter therapy are often convinced of this as well. But, in fact, these christians are widely recognized as abusive and the people they target as victims.
I think I understand your point. Telling someone that they have a distorted view or reality can definitely be manipulative and abusive- no question about it. The problem though is that being told that your view of reality is distorted doesn't per se constitute an attempt at manipulation or abuse; framing all such interactions as manipulative is wrong. It ends up being used to affirm the consequent: that someone who is told that their vision of reality is wrong is victim of some abuse.
> I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone.
Manipulating others is pretty much the activity most highly rewarded by our economy. It's deeply immoral but someone with no morals clearly does have very good reason to engage in gaslighting or other forms of manipulation.
So it's a good thing if there's a growing awareness on the part of victims.
You can disagree with people, and you can say that you don’t agree with their description of reality, but neither of those things are gaslighting.