This is the action of making someone or something into a god. It is also the action of considering someone or something to be so important that they are almost like a god (Cambridge Dictionary).
This usually begins as being a celebrity’s (idol) fan and then escalates into full-blown deification where your idol is never wrong.
People get so excited to meet their idols in person that they faint. Some have become obsessed with designing shrines, and others have sold their autonomy for fandoms.
This is not a bad thing, as people become popular based on others buying into their vision and passion. The media and arts will not be easy to trade in without the fans and fandoms.
Over the last few decades, this has spilt into other industries and has multiplied the scale of abuse we experience as a global society.
When a person is a fan, they have a perception of the leader that they are likely to guide jealously (that’s why we lambast people on social media who disrespect our idols). This guided perception might make them look at their idols through frames.
Frame Theory
We do not necessarily see things and people as they are but see them through the lens of our previous knowledge and exposure. The frame theory opines that we interpret new knowledge through generalization, distortion and deletion.
Generalization
This occurs when previous intel is applied as a blanket for all similar situations.
For example, you do not learn to drive from scratch every time you get a new automobile. You could go from a manual car to an automatic, then to a truck and back — you will still find your first driving experience useful on all these occasions.
This shows that generalization is not always a terrible thing.
With deification, we generalize that the way a person does one thing is the way they do everything.
This assumption blinds us to their flaws in other areas and prevents us from being picky about how much access they have to our minds and bodies.
Distortion
This is when we edit what is in front of us to fit what we used to know.
For example, if you have physical access to one of your leaders and your relationship with them is that of a parent-child relationship, you are likely never to reconcile them as a pedophile — it contradicts what you know.
Distortion is a good thing because it does not allow your worldview to change based on hypotheses but on facts. However, it can be a terrible thing for the same reason — you could deny the present facts based on personal experiences.
Deletion
This is when we delete the information provided because it is considered irrelevant when compared to the things we believe or aim for.
For example, you will not remember every social media trend that runs this week by next week because they do not all impact your life the same way. You will only remember those that count.
Your eyes saw them and your mind processed them. You will likely remember them if someone brought them up in a conversation but you will delete them again because they are irrelevant.
Deletion is how your mind gets you to focus and not get distracted by all the chaos going on around you.
Yet, deletion is how we treat abuse where our leaders are concerned — we file the stories under rumours and gossip and automatically delete them.
- A person can be a charismatic leader and still lack emotional intelligence.
- A person can be passionate and be wrong in their cause.
- A person can be a great artist and be a molester
- A person can be a prominent religious leader and be a sexual abuser.
A person’s professional portfolio is never a substitute for their personal integrity.
The downsides of our frames
We gaslight ourselves: we tell ourselves that we are wrong and just assuming things. This self-doubt has put a lot of people in abusive situations they had the opportunity to get out of.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it likely is a duck they say. If it makes you afraid, tingle, feel unsafe, watch your back, lose your sleep and leave questions, it likely is what you think.
You are not crazy — it is better to discover you are wrong while researching an environment than to experientially discover it is a toxic environment like you suspected.
We enable abuse: we do not believe alternate reports about them because we cannot reconcile their portfolio with that accusation. There is a place to stand up for your person but due diligence is also owed to society.
Every behaviour that is endorsed will repeat itself. Endorsement is sometimes a quiet support that will not call out what is wrong.
When we do not do due diligence in research because we fear what we will find, we make room for this person to become a serial abuser. One victim will soon become ten.
We amplify the silence culture and victim shaming: as we uphold the position of our idols, we invalidate everything contrary to what we believe. This puts victims in the natural position of liars and outcasts.
Since humans are wired for connection, this ostracism is a more intense punishment which makes victims choose to be internally battered rather than confront an entire community that does not mind ruining them.
We feel shame: the realization that our sense of judgment is flawed is so embarrassing that we might never trust ourselves with other people and might not recover quickly from this sense of failure.
This shame might make us angry people who campaign against abuse so vehemently that we would not even recognize healing if it stood in our faces. Shame, doubt and fear thus become our motivation.
We become numb: when we see these abuses for too long, they become normal. Every new abuse case sounds like the old one we saw and heard of. communally, we stop feeling the urge to confront it because it always happens.
We erase the lines of justice: with our idols, we rarely think of them concerning laws — their personalities fill spaces and we never imagine it. We are likely to deny the crime on their behalf and claim their reputations are just getting ruined.
The downside of not delivering justice is that we teach society to be numb or we produce angry people who cannot differentiate justice from revenge. Either way, our denial of what is in front of us sets the ball rolling.
Signs you practice deification
Deification has more hold on us when we have access to these individuals directly because we are then easily the fan and the victim in one.
Their opinion outranks yours even to you: this is not because their opinion is wiser, had more chances of success, came with lesser consequences or any of that good stuff — it is their opinion.
There are a myriad of reasons why this happens but the summary is that you have traded your autonomy (consciously or not).
This can go from tiny things like wanting their approval to full-blown stagnancy if you do not get their consent — their opinions are your laws.
Their experiences determine your response: it is foolishness to want to experience terrible things firsthand to learn but it is also foolishness not to confirm if this account you are hearing is the fact (unfiltered and unadulterated).
If their experiences with a person, place or thing, determines how you interact, then you practice deification.
They cannot be questioned: their suggestions and opinions are so highly upheld that you cannot ask the WH questions without coming off as rude to them and those in the circle.
This is more intense when you are the one ensuring they are unquestionable before others and before the law.
You will doubt yourself before doubting them: everyone is encouraged to be introspective, not self-gaslighting. When you doubt yourself every time you see evidence that says they are not fully who you thought them to be, it could mean two things:
- You do not trust yourself: this can be because of an old trauma or past failure based on your judgment.
- You overly trust them: this can be because you think them infallible or because you know you will find no evidence.
They are the only voice of reason: this means no one else but them has access to everything you do meaning you have no external exposure for balance, comparison and new perspective.
This monotony can result in a lack of autonomy you will not realize until you give someone else that privilege.
How deification plays out in our relationships
Deification happens in relationships consciously and unconsciously. Even parents have been known to deify their children.
We deify when:
- They supply needs we are thirsty for.
- They meet standards we have never seen before
- They blow our minds with their intensity or results (even if we have seen them before)
- We fear disrespecting the access we have
- Deification is the standard for respect in our community
We get deified when:
- We are the only one in a certain category
- We meet people’s needs regularly
- People want to be more visible and gain access to us
- People are obsessed with our lives (the details)
- We are profitable for them.
Disadvantages of living deified
Most celebrities and leaders in authority (whatever level) experience deification to a level and it is their duty to humanize themself to stay grounded.
No one watches out for your humanity: people do not call out your wrongs nor do they hold you accountable. It looks like unlimited power until you ruin yourself and people take away the god-like status as the evidence is too much to overlook.
No one meets your needs: because they do not look at you with the eyes of a human, they do not watch out for the areas where you are starved. This can play out as people selectively loving you or even never attempting to love you.
You are a target: association with you is an immediate elevation in status which means people will scheme to get to you but it also means people will attempt to manipulate you to prove you can fail.
You fall heavy: you have so much control and power that your flaws do not show on time for you to fix them until things are irreparably ruined.
You do not evolve a lot: people like you because you function a certain way which makes it difficult for you to evolve. Some people will consciously enable your habits just so they can keep you the way you are.
Humanizing yourself
- Speak about your humanity often.
- Speak about your failures in your inner circle and speak about surpassing those failures in public.
- Know your flaws and work on them
- Be picky about who enters your inner circle
- Recognize that you need love
- Know the area of your thirst
- Choose personal integrity.
- Get friends who will fight you if you go insane.
- Get professional help.
