Self-Gaslighting
This 2011 book by evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers helps explain the tendency of men like Donald Trump and me to “self-gaslight,” that is, to believe our own bullshit.
HOBOKEN, FEB. 1, 2025. Several years ago, a woman I’ll call Emily, then my girlfriend, accused me of gaslighting her. Actually, I was gaslighting myself. I’m recounting the story now because it bears on current affairs.
I’m in Emily’s apartment, sipping my morning coffee and scribbling profundities in my journal, when she berates me for spilling cereal on her kitchen floor.
I reject her accusation, saying she’s probably imagining the crumbs. Emily responds that crumbs are crunching beneath her feet at this very moment!
I double down: I didn’t spill any cereal! I’m super careful when I eat at your place, because you’re so obsessively fussy about cleanliness! You probably spilled food eating dinner last night!
Emily accuses me of gaslighting her. I’m a typical white, patriarchal asshole who makes a mess, denies it’s his fault and expects a woman to clean up after him. Like Trump.
Whaaaa??!!! The Trump comparison is so ridiculous that I refuse to respond. I bury my nose in my journal, Emily snorts in disgust, we lapse into cold silence.
After I calm down a bit, I recall that before Emily got up, I finished off a box of mini-shredded-wheats. When I emptied the cereal into a bowl, a crumb or two might have ended up on the floor.
I don’t admit this to Emily—I’m not giving her the satisfaction--but I jot down notes on the incident in my journal.
Gaslighting is an especially nasty form of lying. You lie to someone and, if she doubts you, insist she’s nuts. The term dates to the 1944 flick Gaslight, in which the villain gaslights his wife to get her committed to a loony bin.
The villain knows exactly what he’s doing, his lies are intentional, premeditated. I’m not that guy. When I denied spilling cereal on Emily’s floor, I truly, sincerely believed in my innocence. That’s because I truly, sincerely believe—I know!--I am a good man. Considerate, kind, honest.
My goodness has a political dimension. I am acutely aware of, even mortified by, my status as a privileged white male, a “lucky bastard,” as I like to put it. I bend over backward to be anti-sexist, anti-racist, woke. I am Trump’s antithesis.
Emily’s accusations collided with my self-image, and my self-image stood firm. Until I remembered that I had, perhaps a bit carelessly, shaken the upside-down box while dumping the last of the mini-shredded-wheats into a bowl.
But Dear Reader, I didn’t gaslight Emily, I gaslighted (gaslit?) myself.
Reflecting further, I remember a 2011 book by evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers: The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. Trivers notes that deception is an adaptive trait seen throughout the animal kingdom. We humans are the biggest dissemblers of all, we deceive each other in ways big and small. We often pretend to be better—more selfless, brave, honest--than we are.
We also deceive ourselves, Trivers points out. Why did self-deception evolve? How is it adaptive? Because we lie more persuasively, Trivers says, if we believe our own lies.
Self-deception can have devastating consequences, from divorces to stock-market collapses to world wars. Just look at how the U.S. justifies its so-called war on terror. We slaughter Afghans and Iraqis and insist we’re doing them a favor, bringing them peace, prosperity, freedom. Because we Americans are the good guys, remember?
Trivers’s ideas dovetail with “argumentative theory,” proposed in 2011 by cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. They ask: Why do we often reason so poorly? Why do we succumb to confirmation bias and other cognitive glitches that prevent us from seeing things clearly?
The answer, Mercier and Sperber propose, is that reasoning evolved not as a means of discovering truth but as a means of winning arguments. Prevailing in an argument, especially if it is public, boosts your “fitness”--that is, your chances of getting laid and passing on your genes. That’s why we’re good at spotting flaws in rivals’ reasoning but not in our own.
Audiences also dig a guy who projects self-confidence. So when you argue you squelch self-doubt, you insist that you are right and those who disagree with you are wrong, facts be damned. Your performance will be more persuasive if you believe your own bullshit.
Argumentative theory strikes me as correct, although it seems to apply more to males than to females. When I passionately denied that I spilled cereal in Emily’s kitchen, she was unmoved. But Emily is a hardass, who trusts her own judgement far more than mine. A less self-assured woman might have doubted herself.
A few final points:
I dismissed Emily’s accusation because it conflicted with my belief that I am a good man. My dismissal reveals that I’m not so good after all. That’s what Emily would say.
I might counter, citing Trivers and Mercier/Sperber, that when I insisted on my innocence, it wasn’t really my fault, my genes made me do it. Also, my habitual self-doubt makes me a shitty gaslighter and self-gaslighter. Doesn’t that mean I’m a good person after all?
Self-gaslighting by a man, when successful, should boost his chances of having sex. My self-gaslighting denial of Emily’s accusation did not have this effect. Quite the contrary. Dear Reader, if anything, I was the victim.
At the beginning of this column, I say the story of my self-gaslighting “bears on current affairs.” It’s probably obvious what I mean, but let me spell it out: Trump excels at gaslighting us because he excels at gaslighting himself. His utter lack of self-doubt makes his capacity for self-gaslighting boundless.
During his inauguration, Trump said he was “saved by God to make America great again.” I believe he believes that, and that terrifies me.
Further Reading:
For more on my complicated relationship with “Emily,” see my lightly fictionalized memoir Pay Attention: Sex, Death and Science.
Evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers is a fascinating figure. See this profile of Trivers in my book Mind-Body Problems. See also my 2011 review of Folly of Fools for The New York Times.
And here are a few relevant columns:
I Am One of Those Evil Woke Professors
Confessions of a Woke, Antiwar, Hockey-Playing Demonic Male
Confessions of a Namedropping Humblebragger