nolongerinbetween

In Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard drama we find the full range of domestic violence (physical / non-physical, verbal / non-verbal) one can expect in a tumultuous, passionate, volatile marriage like theirs. From both sides. We may never know the complete truth of the abuse they inflicted on one another, but one thing is certain: she is not the victim she portrays herself to be. Writing an article to speak up against domestic violence and turning herself into a public figure representing domestic abuse, while being an abuser as well, was a blunder and a bad move. I love Johnny Depp and he seems to be a genuine kind of guy, a real sweetheart, but I also know how easily someone can project a different edulcorated image about themselves, divorced from their real self, so in marital disputes it’s somehow wiser to sit on the fence and remain neutral, unless you are privy to everything that was going on between the two.

However, what can easily sway me against her, if I were to take sides, is one particular kind of abuse I talked about in my blog before (here and here), one that permeates any human interaction and in which she seems to be particularly masterful: inferential abuse. I described at length this kind of abuse and the people who causes it. They are epistemic walls. Bricks. Concrete. No logic and argument can permeate them. Teflon people. Nothing sticks, no matter how sound, simple and obvious your argument is. You just cannot corner them and make them concede territory, let alone admit defeat. They will dodge your questions, move the goalposts continuously, change the meaning and usage of words, take their words back, flip back and forth, deflect, lie, double down, gaslight, deny, flip-flop, project, strawman you. You cannot win and the problem you face when you come across someone so dishonest intellectually is that you are powerless and can do shit about it. It’s rage inducing and maddening. The only thing you can do is just to disengage yourself from future interactions with them or to expose them to a third party, to an audience. The latter is something that Camilla was able to do, as a lawyer, given the circumstances of a public trial. But it’s not something we can all easily pull off and I pity Johnny Depp for all these years of epistemic abuse and mental torment where she would distort reality, lie blatantly, change semantics on a whim to accommodate her views and break any rule of reasoning with impunity. Her obvious lie and unwillingness to admit such a simple truth when cornered into a tight spot (i.e. she did not donate the money she had pledged, period) is telling for what the poor guy had to go through over the years.

As base animals we act out and express our cruelty through physical violence. But as superior animals, endowed with language, we verbalise our cruelty and manifest our vile nature through language. Either overtly by verbal abusing our peers or covertly by engaging in fallacious reasoning and intellectual dishonesty. The violence that comes through language and from slaughtering truth and honesty in our mundane interactions, when our misguided pride gets in the way, is no less damaging and heart-breaking than physical violence. God knows how battered and bruised I am left after arguing with big-headed idiots. I’d rather take a punch than their doolally reasoning.