DARVO (Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender) is a kind of “flipping the script.” It is an abusive practice, and a close cousin to tu quoque, moral relativism, and whataboutism.
DARVO was first identified by Jennifer Freyd in the 1997 edition of the quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal Feminism & Psychology “Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory”:
My proposal, currently very speculative, is that a frequent reaction of an abuser to being held accountable is the “DARVO” response. “DARVO” stands for “Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender”. I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed.
One encounters this tactic from the Left, but also from Hamas apologists.
- Here is the smart-alecky Bassem Yousef, the Egyptian answer to Jon Stewart, sarcastically condemning Hamas while talking with Piers Morgan. Can we just get off his back with this Hamas business? He wants to get to his gag about the rate of exchange for Palestinian lives. He says he wants to show this to Ben Shapiro, but he should take it to Hamas. He can perform for them in the underground tunnels, where he will have a captive audience, and will just kill with his material.
- Here is an example from Britain that is pure DARVO from beginning to end. So much so that his final storming out of the interview is anti-climactic, and welcome relief. He will give you a condemnation of Hamas, but within five seconds, he is talking about something else.
- When a reporter asked CAIR Florida’s Director of Communications, Wilfredo Ruiz, for a comment about Hamas, Ruiz got angry. What you are trying to do? Call him a terrorist?
- Watch Zahra Billoo become indignant and demand a screenshot of someone celebrating the loss of innocent life. “If anything was celebrated,” she claimed, “it was that people broke through a fifteen-year siege that had been suffocating them.”
But October 7 was not a breath of fresh air. The murder of innocent people was the “breakthrough.” Hamas livestreamed their atrocities, and we all saw that, including Billoo.
Again, Jennifer Freyd’s statement seems apt here:
I am innocent until proven guilty. You cannot prove I am guilty. Therefore I am technically innocent. Therefore I am actually innocent.
The recommended way to handle DARVO is to call it out by name, and not let the abuser get past the deflection step.
In this present case, keep returning to the subjects of Hamas, October 7, Hamas, human shields, misfired rockets, rape. Keep asking what would make anyone murder a baby, etc.
To paraphrase Yasser Arafat, “Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, and Hamas.”
Keep them talking about Hamas.
But remember: there is only so much one can hope to achieve when talking to a barbarian.