“You Should Trust The Experts!” How gas lighting became the norm in Western society

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“You should trust the experts.”

“You’re not a scientist.”  

“I knew you’d resort to conspiracy theories.”

“Stay home, save lives!”

“It’s just a mask!”

Throughout the pandemic, there have been incredibly pervasive and destructive tactics used in Western politics that filtered into society, and became prevalent in discussions happening in: homes, workplaces, between friends, and between family members. Phrases like the ones shared above have two purposes: silencing you, and controlling the competing narrative.

For the last two and a half years, we have been living in a perpetual state of gas lighting. There were those individuals who looked at the propagated ‘Reality’ that the media reported, which was at complete odds with what many of us were experiencing. It has come to the point that anyone who questions the reality that mainstream media, and our global governments present, are vilified as dissenters, conspiracy theorists, or just plain crazy.

Thankfully, there were independent media outlets and some truly independent experts that questioned the validity of the underlying evidence. In swift fashion, their voices got suppressed. Then came the rise of the dubious “fact checkers” organizations who eagerly enforced official guidelines and throttled or censored anyone who was not parroting the information that was so readily found on all sources of media.

Gas lighting has become the norm in Western societies. It is meant to make you doubt yourself, doubt your sensibility; at the centre of it is psychological coercion, not the truth, or intellectual discourse.

It is highly desirable and crucial to question motives, critique experts, and think for yourself; this is the very basis of critical thinking. When critical thinking does not happen, the force of the crowd prevails, and disastrous actions can occur. We have been told to blindly trust our experts, without the ability to substantively test their recommendations.

What is gaslighting?

The story behind this word is interesting, and when you take in the story, a lot of what many of you have felt is going to make complete sense. The term originates from the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light (film adaptations released in 1940 & 1944).

In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she’s insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting she’s remembering things incorrectly or delusional when she points out the changes.

The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home but pretends nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimmed lights, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting the lights are the same – and that she is going insane.

It is important to innerstand what you have been feeling, and please, don’t be too hard on people who have made you feel like this. They have clouded minds, which have clouded their judgment.

I say, “Trust yourself!” Trust your eyes over what you’re told.