A friend wrote about gossip and her sin of complicity in propagating it. I wanted to respond ~ even wrote a long comment which serendipitiously disappeared when I hit the wrong key ~ which is never an accident, by the way ~ and now it is in my head until I post about it. I wanted to tell her how wrong she is about herself, and how difficult it is for all of us to keep ourselves free of it.
This is what I know about Gossip: it takes down more than the person du jour. It is a leaky can of paint, where people stand around thinking it is all about somebody else, maybe thinking how lucky they are for not being caught, and that's when they notice it's leaked all over the floor. They get a rag and try to clean it up but it makes more of a mess. Now it is on their hands and jacket and shoes. And so they must go through the day like that, with others seeing the paint and knowing them for the untrustworthy person they are. How does the little watercooler gab session look now after not only impugning someone else's character, but casting a shadow on their own?
That's pretty much how it is, sans paint. The definition of Gossip is potentially any discussion about someone who is not present. I say 'potentially' because that's too broad a description ~ but not really. It should include parents discussing their kids over a dinner out, or a boss and supervisor contemplating an employee's promotion. It should be about family meetings and intimate discussions about difficult situations and relationships which are part of living and intimacy ... because what we are talking about is sharing the content of those confidences without permission at a later time.
Let's ask Wikipedia: "Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted."
We've all played the game when you form a line and the first person silently reads a sentence and whispers it to the person next to them, and so on down the line until the last person speaks aloud the sentence. Does it ever turn out to even remotely resemble the original sentence? It makes us laugh to be that far off!
Obviously gossip-in-action is not funny at all. It breaks people's hearts. Our media engages in it all the time, just giving a whiff of impropriety rather than prove it is true. And they never publicize a retraction. No matter: the damage is already done. The problem is, Gossip at first appears to be information - and there is a moment when you realize you have jumped the fence, that the conversational motivations have changed.
We are a social species and so naturally know things about each other. Are we invested in the relationship that would encourage keeping those confidences? If we are savoring the juicy tidbits to share with others and not called to action to reach out and help, we're in gossip mode. Compassion is the antidote to gossip.
Wikipedia continues: "With the advent of the internet gossip is now widespread on an instant basis, from one place in the world is now instant."
When people are ensnared, I play red light/green light:
If the topic is not derogatory or self promoting, green light.
If it's about someone I do not know or will ever know, red light.
If I disapprove generally of that person, triple red.
If it's a happy ending, or just a great moral, triple green.
If it is a historical moment, it belongs to all of us, green go.
If it is super funny and goofy, green all the way.
Let them say what they want: you won't hear it from me. Where gossip is concerned, what goes around comes around.
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