Ignore This Distinction and You’re Vulnerable to Gaslighting

The walk way is the most reliable. You can tell what people really believe by how they act, though that requires watching them, which takes effort.

The squawk way is easier though far less accurate. Just listen to what they say they believe. The more passionately they squawk about it, the more they must believe it.

The squawk way makes us suckers easily played by gaslighters.

We’re often encouraged to be receptive, open-minded, trusting, taking people at their word, giving them the benefit of the doubt, assuming they mean what they say. That’s great advice when you’re dealing with some people. It’s terrible advice when you’re dealing with others.

Don’t give a psychopath, narcissist, or gaslighter the benefit of the doubt. They don’t mean their words as anything more than weaponized, pandering, seductive lip-service.

In his memoir, Michael Cohen described the state of mind he would enter as Trump’s fixer as like method acting, evoking the real emotions you’re trying to convey. Cohen said he could bristle with emotional intensity in defense of arguments he knew were false. I call it bullsh*tdozing. Bulldozing by BSing. Lying is knowing you’re not telling the truth; BSing is not caring what’s true. We can BS about our beliefs.

Any of us can fall into the habit of squawking about beliefs we don’t actually believe, saying what’s useful or comfortable regardless of whether it’s true. If it pays to pose we can. Indeed, we’re often encouraged to pose. It’s called politeness, etiquette, customer service. Set aside what you really believe; say what the job demands.

People can acquire habits of speech that have little to do with the meanings of the words they say. We can describe ourselves with positively spun words without paying attention to what they mean, calling ourselves patriots, spiritual, devout, mindful, rational, open-minded, brave, and honest without thinking about what it requires to have those traits. Those characteristics just sound good, so sure that’s what we are. If they give us power and comfort, why not say them?

We can label our rivals with negatively-spun words with equal ease: They’re traitors, Godless, heathen, not-mindful, irrational, closed-minded, weak, and dishonest, never mind what those words mean. We can say, “I’m a patriot and my rivals are traitors," just for the rhetorical advantage.

Words have meanings and spin. Rationality is an attempt to strip away the spin and focus on the meaning. Rhetoric does the opposite, strip the meaning and focus on the spin.

If we assume that we should just give everyone the benefit of the doubt, we fail to make the distinction between meaning and just spinning our beliefs.

And it’s not enough to ask the person, “Wait do you really mean that?” There are habitual spun, meaningless responses to that too: “Do I mean it? Sure! Whatevs. If it scores me points then yeah I mean it. I really really mean it.”

“Did you reason your way to that belief?”

“Again, if it scores me points to say so, then sure, I’m the best critical thinker and I’ve given this a lot of thought. How dare you question whether I did?”

I do not hold out for people only saying what they really really believe. I think that’s asking too much of humans. We are not by nature, purely rational beings. Our words are tethered to reality but tethered tighter to our heartstrings.

Still, I think it’s dangerous for us to employ the vague term “belief” for every insistence that people squawk. We shouldn’t believe them just because they say, in so many words, “No really, believe me, I believe!”

So, here I’ll propose a distinction: We believe what we act upon but we “relieve” what feels good and comforting to say.

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So for example:

“I relieve in miracles, but I believe in science.”
“I relieve in my religion’s myths, but no I don’t believe them.”
“I relieve in conversations with God but no, I don’t believe I’m really talking with Him.”
“I relieve I’m a superstar when I’m playing video games, but no, I don’t believe it.”

Shakespeare touches on this distinction in his 138th Sonnet: “When my love says she is made of truth I do believe her though I know she lies," which given my suggested terms would be “When my love relieves that she’s made of truth, I do relieve her, though I believe she lies.”

I noticed this first when lecturing in Mainland China a few years ago. My Chinese friends would say, in effect, “Of course, we’re Communists, but do we think Marxist theory has any bearing on reality? Of course not!”

They relieve in Communism and believe in more realistic approaches to politics.

We all need some comforting fictions to relieve in. Escapism is inescapable. We can’t endure reality without our reliefs. Nor can we survive without realistic beliefs.