November 29, 2004
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It Takes Two to Gossip
Maybe I should have been a lawyer. I tend to think of wrongdoing in a systematic manner and assign measurable degrees of blame. Criminal punishment theory. For example, the severity of a crime might be modulated by intent, premeditation, accomplices and objects used, and the victim. That’s why premeditated murder is more severe than accidental manslaughter. The whole thing about MADD a few decades ago was to make drunk driving a worse offense. Their argument was that if you choose to drink and drive (increasing the risk to yourself, your passengers, and other motorists), you’ve made a premeditated decision. Welcome to your new jail cell.
I’ve always thought of gossip in the same way. The seriousness of the crime depends on various factors:
- Damage - Example: telling your parents about a fellow churchgoer’s past drug addiction vs. telling his fiancee’s parents.
- Intent - Example: telling his fiancee’s parents because of jealousy vs. concern for the fiancee. (Yeah, that’s arguable.)
- Premeditation - Example: rehearsing the story to make him look as bad as possible. “He borrowed money from me, spent it on drugs, and never paid me back!”
- Victim - Example: he never had the drug habit; you were making up the whole thing.
So let’s say I was jealous of him and wanted to screw up his relationship by carrying out this nefarious plan. After I tell the parents, they are predictably upset and run off to lecture the daughter, resulting in a big fight. Who’s to blame?
Naturally, I am. But some of the blame rests with the listener! In the example above, the parents should have stopped me during my story and asked if I’d tried to resolve it with him or brought him up before a pastor. If I said no, they should have refused to listen. It would have saved them a lot of grief. Instead, their blind acceptance of an unsubstantiated accusation validated my approach and rewarded my crime.
We are too quick to believe and too slow to confront each other to stop gossip at its root. I’ve been guilty of that many times myself; my approach to conflict resolution has been to hear out the two sides separately and then negotiate an agreement or compromise. Now I believe that only allows people to vent without encouraging them to do the real work of resolving the dispute themselves. You can’t help people by doing their homework.
Comments (8)
Interesting thoughts, Ed… I wonder too, if a person went and started INVESTIGATING the boy for drug addictions… would you feel obligated to speak out? Hmmmm….
I’m gonna put a post up…
Hey Shoe, I’m not sure what the situation is that you’re describing… Person A is jealous of B and decides to start investigating his past, and then A confides in C? Then is C obligated to speak out?
So, for a normal “venting” case, would you stop them in the middle of their vent? Or let them finish, and suggest that it might be more productive to see the person they’re actually venting about?
Great post! I’ve become aware of myself complaining about someone, even “venting”, with the intention of just releasing my frustration about someone. But this ended up becoming gossip because I wasn’t considering my brother/sister in love and the listener was also participating in the gossip by just listening passively instead of stopping my negative commenting and/or trying to move it towards a more loving perspective.
Hm…. but even the best of intentions can still have the same detrimental effects of non-trooper gossip. As a talkative female, I’m naturally inclined to gossip but I’m trying to train myself to keep my mouth shut! Like seonghuhn, I’m totally guilty of venting all the time. I think I should find a better outlet.
I’m suggesting we don’t let people vent without restraint, especially if everyone involved is in the same community. Because that allows them to feel justified in their (probably skewed) perspective on the situation. By making the complainer take it up with the complainee, there’s a better chance both sides will see the others’ perspective. Having a mediator is ok if both parties are present.
Good points. I like the part about making the complainer take it up with the complainee directly — complainers need to be forced to take responsibility, and even offering to help by talking to the complainee on the complainer’s behalf is (I think) bad in principle.
Hm, isn’t it even worse if the person being maligned is not in the same community? In that case, the person will have a bad rep with people who don’t even know him/her.
I think this is a tricky issue — if a friend is upset and complaining about their treatment, and you don’t handle it in a gentle/sympathetic way, you’ll seem disloyal or unloving. On the other hand, turning your critical thinking off to be unconditionally affirming will perpetuate their hangups and possibly give them the moral support to vent indiscriminately without a second thought. (And the more they repeat their side of the story, the more they’ll believe it.)
It seems like the best thing is to be very discriminating about who you vent to (only very close friends who you trust to be both discreet and forthright, not just yes-men), and to hear people out with a mind to steer them towards resolving the issue directly with the other party.
Beata, those are some great points.
If the person is not in the same community, then it’s both worse and better. Worse because the person cannot defend himself and doesn’t have the benefit of a good reputation to balance against the bad accusation. Better because most listeners will not associate the accusation with the person and thus forgetting about the whole matter entirely.
And about being choosy about who you vent to — ideally you’d choose friends who would hear you out, but challenge (force) you to confront the other person directly. That’s hard! (Both to find such people and to be such a person.) Instead of being choosy that way, most complainers will actually shy away from such truth-tellers and instead complain to soft-hearted sympathetic listeners. So this whole approach only works if there is a high proportion of truth-tellers to yes-men.