I once got into a conversation with a young woman who was proud that she was breaking some American norm. She was pleased to be a rebel against the culture. I informed her that rebelling against norms in American culture is a norm in itself.
If expressions could kill, I’d be dead. That encounter leads me to ponder about a number of American norms.
One person I know boasts that he is rigid. Rigidity is a type of norm. This person is proud of his unwillingness to bend. In his mind, there is one way to do something, and if it’s not done that way, he doesn’t like it. This decision is likely based upon a previous experience where emotion, not reason, was paramount. Even the briefest of time reflecting on his view might make him aware that his view is a construct with no real basis in logic, but trying to reason with him is a waste of time. He’s not going to change his perspective.
That brings me to politics where this same kind of thinking is prevalent on both the progressive and conservative sides. For progressives, LGBTQ+ and abortion rights are carved in stone. Bringing up opposing views causes a rise in blood pressure followed by statements that are as dogmatic as any religious adherent’s. No compromise is possible. Rights are inviolate and cannot be questioned. To do so brands that person either as woefully ignorant, a bigot, or both.
The same is true of conservatives. I recently wrote a column about a conservative political candidate where I called his views extreme. Rather than admit that I might be right, he put me in the box of needing mental health counseling for “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. This approach follows the norm for Republican campaigns. It’s called gaslighting.
This candidate said that being extreme is what his constituents want. I just finished a book called “Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People—and Break Free” by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD. It made me realize that this candidate for political office was gaslighting me and those who read his post. He was telling me that extremism is normal and moderation is abnormal. That’s the definition of gaslighting; where someone is made to feel that they are crazy to believe what they do; that black is white, and up is down.
In my conversation with this candidate, I asked three questions that dealt with whether the 2020 election had been stolen, whether the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was an insurrection and whether the House Special Committee hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection were valid. I did not discuss the issues of Second Amendment rights or about abortion, or Critical Race Theory as he intimates in his letter. This is how gaslighters can put words in the mouths of others.
I’m a moderate. Moderates have the advantage of being able to see the strengths and weaknesses of both progressive and conservative positions. Extreme progressives and extreme conservatives believe that their viewpoint is “the truth once delivered”. For those on the extreme edges of the political spectrum, there is only one view that’s right, and it’s theirs.
Most Americans, and most voters in the area where we live fall within the spectrum of moderate. The average American voter is a moderate conservative. In this age of partisanship and polarization, it’s the loud voices on the left and right that are often heard, rather than those who reside in the middle.
A friend once warned me that “Those who walk in the middle of the road get hit by traffic going in both directions.” The older I get, the more I realize the truth in his statement. Being in the middle subjects a person to criticism from those who believe with religious fervor and absolute certainly in their cause or belief. In their worlds, reason does not matter, only emotion matters.
The woman who reveled in being a rebel was unwittingly only carrying out American cultural norms, as people who gaslight others are also following cultural and human norms. To become aware of these norms is to become free of their power: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
