{"id":2593,"date":"2025-08-30T17:34:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2593"},"modified":"2025-08-30T20:53:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T19:53:35","slug":"they-have-fangs-they-have-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2593","title":{"rendered":"They have fangs, they have teeth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An interesting blog comment appeared on our earlier posting A Sum of Adders<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers may recall this fable provided a graphic example of DARVO<\/a>. This stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender and is a standard response of Human Resources departments when someone senior is accused of misconduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I was shocked to stumble across this piece of \u2018fable\u2019, and even more surprised that it is published and endorsed by a supposedly reputable professor. He cannot have been unaware of the various well-documented racist tropes, particularly those relating to animalization and serpentine metaphor, deployed here in ways that have a long and ignominious history in Western literature and discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animalization is a classic strategy for dehumanization, frequently used as a rhetorical device to suggest that particular groups or individuals are less rational, trustworthy, or moral than \u201chuman\u201d actors. Animal metaphors are not neutral: they operate, often unconsciously, to signal difference and inferiority, with a substantial literature cataloguing the pernicious effects of this trope across race, class, and gender lines (see Goff et al., 2008; Smith, 2011). The \u201cAdder\u201d as antagonist in the fable is depicted as not only threatening but inherently duplicitous and malicious, echoing centuries-old representations of marginalized groups \u2014 especially in Western writings about Jews, Africans, and others \u2014 as serpentine or reptilian (Gilman, 1991).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trope of the serpent as a symbol of duplicitous evil and dangerous cunning, generally applied to Jewish people in a vicious twist to the Garden of Eden story, has been repeated for centuries in racist colonial and antisemitic literature, used to associate targeted groups with inherent treachery and poison within a community (Hoermann, 2017; Gilman, 1991). The snake\u2019s capability to \u201cstrike unseen\u201d and provoke \u201csudden sickness\u201d operates as a metaphor for perceived insidious harm wrought by racially or ethnically othered \u201coutsiders\u201d, projecting fears of infiltration and contamination (Dyer, 1997). It is not coincidental that this imagery is marshalled at precisely the point where the narrative pivots to depict the Adder, initially cast as accused, as deftly re-inscribing himself as victim \u2013 a classic DARVO trope used to invalidate the testimonies of actual victims and redirect blame (Russell, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this is \u201cjust a fable\u201d and I am sure \u201cThe Researcher\u201d will protest that his racism is inoffensive as it only attacks \u201cfictional\u201d people. Still, I thought it worth sharing the academic literature as it casts a different light on his supposed naive innocence and the claimed irrationality of those who object to such treatment. Subtle violence is still violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yours, a dog who can hear the whistle.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

An extraordinary comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several citations look plausible but questionable: Goff et al., 2008 is real (\u201cNot Yet Human<\/em>,\u201d on the dehumanization of Africans via ape associations). However, Russell (2011) on DARVO is already suspicious. The classical DARVO reference is work by Jennifer Freyd (1997)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoermann (2017) and Dyer (1997) don\u2019t clearly match known scholarship on serpent metaphors. These plausible but untraceable references are a signature AI pattern, where the Large Language Model (LLM) invents or misattributes sources. A human expert would give precise, checkable citations or fewer references overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The text is analytical and academic in tone. It unpacks the fable thematically (animalization \u2192 serpent tropes \u2192 antisemitism \u2192 DARVO). This is exactly the sort of structured progression that ChatGPT produces when asked to critique or \u201cexplain why something is problematic”.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phrases like \u201cclassic strategy for dehumanization<\/em>,\u201d \u201cnot neutral<\/em>,\u201d \u201cpernicious effects<\/em>,\u201d \u201cechoing centuries-old representations<\/em>\u201d are highly generalized academic phrasing typical of AI output. The flow is polished and smooth, with minimal hedging which is another common LLM hallmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final illogicality is that the poster, having railed against animalization as symbolic of dehumanization & racism, then signs off the comment as \u201ca dog\u201d<\/em>.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now ingest the original text of ‘A Sum of Adders<\/em>‘ into Chat GPT & ask how it can be framed as a form of racism and violence, and you will be surprised with what you get! A very similar narrative to the comment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, the job of malefactors is now simplified. All they need to do is feed any email message or text into ChatGPT and ask it to frame a narrative that the text is problematic, or capable of being misinterpreted as a micro-aggression or inappropriate or racist. It is a great tool for those wanting to smear, distort, lie and defame.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our conclusion is that the comment was generated using AI by a malefactor … with fangs and teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21 Group emphasises that the animals in the fables are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real animals, people or events is coincidental.  Image credit to Annavou, licensed under Creative Commons here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting blog comment appeared on our earlier posting A Sum of Adders. Readers may recall this fable provided a graphic example of DARVO. This stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender and is a standard response of Human Resources departments when someone senior is accused of misconduct. “I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2605,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}