Gaslighting Government
Gaslighting Government is based on the concept of gaslighting in psychoanalysis, but refers to governments that use gaslighting methods in a broader sense.
Description
Leading members of the government use their power and position to distract from their own mistakes in order to enrich themselves personally, or they pursue goals that create a considerable financial disadvantage for society or cause psychological harm to society in the Long term. The actions are consciously or unconsciously directed against the well-being and/or integrity of one's own citizens. It is crucial, that the government applies one or more of the following manipulative methods:
- Propaganda
- Media control or superior control of media
- Minimising citizens' well-founded concerns and facts
Gaslighting governments cannot actually occur in real democracies and therefore presupposes a dysfunctional democracy or dictatorship, plutocracy or oligarchy. The dysfunction of a democracy can have different reasons. Typical signs of dysfunction are the following points:
- The partial failure of the rule of law, without a state of emergency (e.g. war) prevails
- Corruption at government level
- The security of citizens can no longer be guaranteed
- Government formation is limited or incomplete
- Government infiltration by politicians acting for other powers
- Infiltration of the executive or judiciary
- Early recognition of problems is very limited
- A nation is strongly divided (e. g. left / right)
Causes
Some of the causes that can lead to a gaslighting government are listed here:
- Political and personal evaluation errors (e.g. due to lack of training of politicians)
- Gross negligence (e.g. risking old-age pensions due to expenditure)
- Allow (or not PReVENT) naivety and manipulation from the outside
- Failure to interpret or misinterpret geopolitical and strategic information from intelligence sources
- Psychologically unfavourable personalities (See Personality disorder)
- Acting as a Manchurian candidate; a pretended politician who operates for other powers and/or conspires to carry out foreign missions
- Allow negative social engineering (e.g. by foreign NGOs that manipulate citizens' attitudes to their own/external advantage, resulting in psychological or economic damage in the longer term)
- Division of society through internal or external as well as discernible and unrecognizable influences, which can lead to a reduced ability of judgement
- Omission of education in the population that allows critical thinking
Weblinks
- Gaslighting in Governments - Professors David Domke (communications) and Christopher Sebastian Parker (political science) along with mental health professional R. Keith Myers enlighten the concept of Gaslighting Governments
- Washington Post article
- Guardian article
- Daily Kos article 2012
- CNN editorial
- WJLA explanation of how gas lighting works