New Strategies: Facing Gaslighting and Facing Ignorance

The following is written in a positive and literal style. If it seems otherwise, it’s because of driver interference. Watch out for valence and tone!

Hi everybody!

I hope you’re all well as the new week begins. Part three of the Strategies of Overt Resistance is underway and should be ready for release on Wednesday, unless there are any unexpected delays. I’ll let you know!

I’ve amended the Standing up to Authority section by adding brief additions to Tactical Language and Counteracting Bad Faith, and expanded some of the processes by including the new strategies Facing Gaslighting and Facing False Ignorance. The new strategies are included below.

The rest of the strategies will continue to roll out this week, with more appearing on Wednesday, Saturday, and the final section next week. Please do everything you can to let me know your thoughts!

Last week we set the date for the next Masks-Off Day for the 23^rd of August. With the Strategies of Overt Resistance still on their way, I’m concerned that perhaps we might be better putting that date forward for another week.

That would give anybody considering making a move over the line a lot more time to build familiarity and confidence with the strategies—which will be a major support for anybody who’s deciding to fully and openly renounce the project for good.

I think moving the next Masks-Off Day to Saturday the 30^th of August would be in everybody’s best interest, so let me know what you think when I’m around town later and perhaps we’ll bump it forward.

Either way, we’ll make as good a day of it as we can!

I’m quite busy working on the strategies this week, so my schedule for the coming week 11^th – 17^th August is as follows:

Monday: Morning update; 2pm – 3pm at the Square.

Tuesday: Morning update.

Wednesday: Morning update; The Strategies of Overt Resistance Part Three; 2pm – 3pm at the Square.

Thursday: Afternoon update; 2pm – 3pm at the Square.

Friday: Morning update.

Saturday: Morning update; The Strategies of Overt Resistance Part Four.

That’s all for now folks! The new strategies are below and I hope to see you in town later. Stay strong and look after yourselves!

Standing up to Authority: New Strategies

Facing Gaslighting

Gaslighting is one of the most challenging bad faith tactics that you are likely to face.

Generally speaking, gaslighting means accusing somebody of being mentally ill for calling out actual abuses in reality, or claiming that their valid perception of the truth has been entirely imagined.

Gaslighting can also refer to blaming project abuses on personal failings or character flaws, instead of correctly appropriating the blame.

In other words, gaslighting says “it’s all in your head” and “you’re the one to blame” when you’re standing up against abuses that are happening in actual reality.

Gaslighting is a standard project-taught technique to shoot down free speech and open protest. It is one of the reasons so many people have been afraid of speaking out against project abuses in more open and literal ways.

You may think gaslighting is a harmless technique—something you just have to engage in to cover yourself with the project and get by—but it, and other comparative bad faith styles, are among the main communicative techniques the project has used to oppress, disempower, and subjugate you and those around you.

Gaslighting creates an atmosphere of repression, distrust, and intimidation—an environment where many people can’t even trust their own friends or family when they want to speak out about the abuses in their lives.

Even in its lesser forms, gaslighting is a poisonous and extremely psychologically abusive technique.

You must draw a hard ethical boundary against ever engaging in gaslighting.

When facing gaslighting from a project authority figure:

• Keep your cool. Correctly recognise the situation for what it is—a bad faith tactic designed to shut you up and keep you down. Recalibrate your strategies towards defusing the challenge.
• Patiently listen to the other party’s position. Never accuse them of bad faith or they’d try to use it against you. Pretend that you believe they’re coming from a place of valid concern and wait for the chance to strike down their approach.
• Remember that even though they may be attacking you on the surface, underneath they are probably on your side and going through a bad time themselves. While you may be on your own for now, consider the bad faith tactics the enemy and not the people using them.
• Adopt a friendly but resilient attitude on the surface, even if you feel tense, but keep yourself cool and determined on the inside. Choose a “we’re all friends here” communication style and get ready to outmanoeuvre their tactics.
• Project well-meaning intentions onto the opponent. Act as though you believe they really are only trying to help and they will be forced to live up to that expectation in their communication style.
• Patiently address any accusations or concerns expressed about your sanity, your emotional well-being, or other criticisms directed at your behaviour. Calmly and good-humouredly explain that their concerns are mistaken and their accusations unfounded. Actually you’re doing fine.
• Maintain a strong boundary around any aspects of yourself that are being called into question. Never let their accusations have an effect on your actual mental or emotional state. stay cool and determined on the inside, even as you play nice on the surface.
• Refuse to get roped in to going along to any hospital or doctor appointments, or into taking any medications that you don’t need. Drivers have used placebo medication as an excuse to inflict diminished states of mental functioning on their victims.
• If you can’t speak literally, consider using code to build common cause with those using the bad faith tactics. But be careful, drivers can easily mix up the message when it comes to code, in an attempt to stir even more tensions between the human beings. Use literal language to defuse the gaslighting as much as possible.
• Remember that outmanoeuvring gaslighting can sometimes take a while. No matter how persistent the opposition, you must hold the line and maintain your position for the long haul. As long as you refuse to give in to their false version of reality, eventually they will have to back down.
• Never give in. Do not play along or concede to any aspects of their false accusations. Never admit to wrongful guilt of anything, including being mentally unwell. Put all of your efforts into using tactical communication and healthy emotional energy to force the other party to accept that their accusations are unfounded.
• As soon as the gaslighting has been neutralised, set your sights on returning to your main argument and remounting your campaign. Never let bad faith tactics get in the way of what really matters.

The surest way to neutralise gaslighting in our society is for those who’ve engaged in it to refuse to participate in gaslighting in the first place.

The more people who conscientiously object to engaging in these oppressive and socially dangerous tactics, the less people will live in fear of them and the less we will all have to tolerate them.

As that happens, the easier and safer it will become for more and more people to voice their opposition to abusive project practises, right out in the open.

Facing False Ignorance

Most people who claim they don’t know what you’re talking about when you openly address reality are only doing so to protect themselves.

As such, unlike gaslighting, false ignorance is less of a bad faith tactic and more of a secondary symptom of the project’s oppressive and repressive structures against free speech and open communication.

As you become more comfortable and confident using the strategies of overt resistance to support yourself in speaking more openly, you will regularly find yourself communicating with people who pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about.

Since you have no choice but to take their word for it on the surface, it can sometimes feel like you’re being pushed back into playing along with a false reality.

Actually, you can use the challenge of facing false ignorance as a launchpad to guide the conversation on to actual reality—and to the issues that you really want to address in detail.

When facing false ignorance in regards to you chosen issue:

• Tell them for the first time. If the other party claims they don’t know what you’re talking about, explain the issue to them as if you were telling somebody for the first time. Take time to briefly and simplistically explain any background information that they might also claim false ignorance of to build a baseline for discussing your position. Now they know exactly what you’re talking about!
• Use tactical language to get around anything controversial. Look for the most neutral and acceptable way to explain anything that others may not consider safe to speak about.
• When speaking in Mandatory Reality, talk about “the project in town” to create a baseline for discussing project issues. Explain that there’s a project in town based on running simulated routines and getting people in disguises to act them out—though it’s actually torture and everyone hates it! If the other party claims they haven’t heard of it, just shrug it off and persist. After all, what you’re talking about is actual reality, even if the other party claims they haven’t been aware.
• If the other party tries to gaslight you or interrogate your position, stand firm and refuse to back down. They will just have to accept that what you are saying is true and that you have personal experience of it, even if they claim it sounds crazy. If they say they don’t believe you, calmly assure them that it’s the truth, whether they accept it or not.
• Use your background explanation as a transition into speaking more authentically, literally, and in more detail about your true position. Let it be the lead-in to addressing the project issues you are really standing up against.
• Tweak the above example about the project to make it fit the context of your own chosen issue. Use a similar approach to discuss sensitive project matters behind-the-scenes, by replacing “the project” with anything else that hasn’t yet been openly acknowledged. Depend on building a background explanation to circumvent the wall of silence and then use it as your launchpad for speaking more openly and authentically about your true position.

The main challenge of facing false ignorance is that it can make it difficult to speak at length and in sufficient detail about what you need to.

Rather than giving up—or allowing yourself to get dragged into playing along with the other party’s act—tactically guide the communication to a place where you can more fully and openly express your actual beliefs.

The Strategies of Overt Resistance Part One

The Strategies of Overt Resistance Part Two

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