Confronting Woke: Emotional Blackmail
I'm going to hold my hand over this candle unless you share this post!
There are many ways in which humans can be manipulated to conform with toxic and destructive patterns, and be bent to the wills of predatory forces, and one of the cheapest and most insidious is emotional blackmail.
It’s a form of bullying and toxic abuse that follows patterns. It has certain players common to all abuse and bullying dynamics. There is a bully and a target central to the dynamic, but most often there are also collateral players. There may be the enablers who make excuses for the bully and justify their behavior; there are proxy-bullies (flying monkeys); there are bystanders who see what’s happening but who, often out of fear, don’t want to get involved.
Human beings are social creatures and we evolved in collaboration with others in small communities over most of human history. The threat from bullies of being cut off from our communities, or having our social relationships threatened and destabilized triggers responses so primal it can throw us into instinctual flight, fight or freeze and we don’t know what to do. Certainly when we feel that our reputation could be damaged or destroyed, the first inclination many of us have (especially Canadians for some reason) is apologize and conform.
Emotional Blackmail is a complex equivalence: “If you don’t do what I/we want then you’re a bad person.” It contains an explicit or an implied social and reputational threat. It’s a tool of children and teenage girls and back when I was a teen, when kids socialized IRL, and the gossip sphere was limited to school circles, we called these girls “high maintenance b-tches.”
When failing to cave to emotional blackmail, the bully can then use the classic abuser line (blaming the victim): “Look what you made me do?!”
Today, the most egregious and obvious public users of emotional blackmail are woke “Anti-Racists” and Trans Rights Activists (TRAs) who make the wild claims that questioning anything that they say is actual violence; or that “Silence is violence” or that not joining their woke parade is white supremacy; or that raising legitimate concerns about the medicalization of children is making kids commit suicide; and that not reciting the magical incantation “Trans Women are Women!” is killing trans people.
Perhaps the teens who used these mean-girl tactics when I was in Jr. High had parents who caved to their public tantrums in grocery stores over candy or toys when they were children; or perhaps they learned from inconsistent parents that they could play one parent against the other; or they could turn the waterworks on for daddy to get what they wanted. In any case, they learned that this tactic was effective when trotted it out to extract resources and energy from others at their whims, or just simply for the sick gratification of schadenfreude.
Typically when teen boys seek to influence and bully others, they’re more overt and physical and tend to use direct intimidation - but young women are more insidious, manipulative and cunning. For many, these tactics may have worked on some levels in younger life, but as we continue to develop, we often grow out of these strategies as we learn new tools and enter the larger world as adults - and on the other side of this equation, as we grow into healthy mature adulthood, we start to recognize these kinds of games and we avoid people who play them.
Back when we were in school (I’m such a dad), we had curriculum-related moral lessons about bullying both physical and social and about resisting the toxicity of physical intimidation, rumors, peer pressure and emotional manipulations.
Sadly online these days, and in the rapidly spreading phenomenon of wokeness, emotional blackmail is one of the central tools used to coerce conformity - and its not coming from school kids, its coming from the teachers and school boards. It’s stunning that university professors and even deans of Universities. (see the Kathleen Stock affair at Sussex University) are participating in these childish tactics.
Teen girls in adult bodies widely participate in these manipulative and exploitative campaigns; and we have not only normalized this behavior, it is being celebrated by flying monkeys and collaborators every time a university professor resigns under pressure or is fired after trumped-up investigations.
So how do we resist emotional blackmail?
First of all, Keep notes and records. Screen-shot social media and mob attacks. The number one thing is to ensure you stay safe and can make a civil or criminal case if necessary.
The best advice I’ve heard, which applies to many of these types of manipulative tactics is from Jordan Peterson. “For God’s Sake, don’t apologize!”
Do not cave to obvious emotional manipulations.
Apologizing is an appeasement tactic that only empowers the manipulator and gives them a victory - as much as it seems to alleviate the stress of the moment, by caving to emotional manipulations, you are surrendering your dignity and this is a form of selling your soul. In the long run, if you apologize the outcomes will be much worse, and your apology will be weaponized against you as an admission of guilt.
Name the game: do not play it.
The best tantrum resolution I ever heard was from an NLP trainer when my two-year-old was having a meltdown. She said, “You’re having a tantrum, do you have a bad temper?”
I have no idea why it worked, but when he said “no,” in response, he calmed immediately and we almost never had another tantrum from him.
for adults try: “humph, this looks like emotional blackmail, are you aware you’re trying to bully me?”
Call the bluff.
Ever had this experience? My mom once helped me pack my bags when I threatened to run away and she walked me to the curb with my suitcase. Tell them to go ahead and hold their hand over the candle flame.
Lots of times, if given enough rope, these people will show the world what they are in the process of their manipulations. Their repeated threats when acted out will make them look terrible - either in the short-term or in the long term.
Cancel culture cuts both ways. I recently had to ask a person openly on twitter to either back up her claims (of transphobia and hate) against me, after she tagged media personalities with her accusations, suggesting that without being able to satisfy any legal definitions of transphobia and hate, she might want to consider the legal consequences. I pointed out that I make my living from my professional reputation in this small business community of Ottawa.
She stopped making her accusations.
These people act in ways that assume moral superiority. As scary as it is, stand toe to toe with the same confidence and simply say “No, I will not accept your emotional blackmail. What are you going to do about it?”
See what happens.
Most of the time, even for people like Jordan Peterson, Kathleen Stock and Peter Boghossian, life and opportunities becomes larger and more interesting instead of being relegated to social outcast.
If you are called to take a stand, have courage. You’re not alone.
Good piece, sir.