Letters to the Editor
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Oh god...
I only skimmed this story but I still feel dirty...
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Very cute!
I loved this piece. Imagine saying anything at all honest about yourself in Salon, knowing that every response is going to be sneering and superior. Imagine confessing to a good intention in Salon, and having almost every reader trash it. Sure does make me want to write for Salon. NOT! Mmm. The whole letters column here does the very thing that these letter writers consider themselves too smart to engage in. Ha. Thanks, Lucy S. for your good intentions.
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Boring or Catty?
Catty is the greater of the two sins, but it's even worse to be both. And you are.
I don't care for gossip, but I don't lack for topics for conversation. Ever. Maybe it's just that your life is devoid of ideas and significant meaningful event. Sorry sound harsh, but if the shoe fits, wear it. And by the way, this is the worst article I've ever read in Salon.
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Baby with the bathwater
I agree that discussing other people can help us feel connected with others. It can also serve as a vital way of checking our own perceptions about the world. Not only that, it can have benefits similar to those of discussing a rather abstruse poem in a classroom setting -- chewing over the behavior and motivations of other people with trusted friends often yields rich insights we might otherwise never have come by. As a result, we often understand ourselves better, and can connect to the people we are discussing more easily.
Gossip, however, is very different. It's about closing yourself off to others, rather than connecting with them. You might argue that you bond with other people through gossip ... but how often do you then turn around and gossip about those very people? It's a way to make yourself an island, an island of superiority. It's a way of closing yourself off to humanity by refusing to see others as human beings, each with their own unique combination of life experiences, strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and ways of inhabiting and perceiving the world around them. You reject anything that doesn't fit into your own predetermined notions of what's acceptable and what is not. Instead of expanding your worldview, you're deliberately narrowing it.
Yes, it's okay to be fascinated by human behavior. It's okay to be frustrated with people, and it can be very important to vent to those we trust. It's even okay to engage in a little vindictive schadenfreude from time to time. It reaches a point of not-okayness when you cease to treat the people about whom you're speaking as anything but fodder for your own amusement - when you strip them of their humanity. Case in point: Larry Craig. Many of us are finding this whole affair to be rather ... satisfying. Because he hurt people, and symbolizes a large segment of society that continues to hurt people. But we don't have to be complete and utter assholes about it. We can recognize the agony that his family must be going through. We can try and understand the fractured psyche that does these sorts of things to itself. And we can understand that there but for the grace of God go we. Always.
There's a difference between curiosity (or even anger) and viciousness. That difference consists of one thing, present in the former but absent in the latter: respect.
Everybody deserves respect. Everybody deserves to be treated with dignity. We're opposed to physical torture because it robs others of these things. But all too often, the way we talk about others reduces people to meaningless pieces of matter who happen to amuse us, just as torture does. That it's happening in our minds and not to those people's bodies is immaterial -- it still speaks volumes about how we perceive other people. You're still demonstrating the same basic lack of respect for humanity that torturers do.
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Come on
(1) "Which is worse? To be boring or to be catty?" Neither. What's worst is to create false dichotomies and then fret over them as if they're real.
(2) This article needs more examples. What made the author decide she was gossiping too much? What was the negative consequence of her gossip? How does she define gossip? "Talking about other people"? That's a pretty slim definition.
(3) Does the author have any hobbies or interests? You wouldn't think it to read this article. If you're so bored you have to turn to gossip for entertainment, this might be a sign you need to expand your interests and get more involved in the world (by "involved," I don't mean talking about stuff).
(4) Is "gossip" really a problem? Isn't the problem when you're spreading information that others might not want spread, or assuming the worst about people, or getting a vindictive thrill from discussing the misfortunes of other people? Isn't the problem when you assume too much, play armchair psychoanalyst, or become overbearingly nosy? If so, why would you want to go back to any of those behaviors?
(5) Ummmmm.....are "books and ideas" really the only alternative conversational topics you can think of?
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There are people who gobble up Chick Lit like candy; I'm not one of them.
Such people would enjoy this article, and likely finish it; I didn't.
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This Article Reminds Me of Alanis Morrissette
Alanis didn't know the meaning of the word "ironic."
Similarly, it appears that Ms. Silag doesn't know the meaning of the word "gossip."
She's not very good at irony, either.
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That's it....
I'm convinced I could write for Salon. I know I could write something at least as substantive as this piece. Give me a topic, Joan. Let me at it. How do I sign up?
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As for gossip
I learned about gossip the hard way. I wanted to be liked, and better yet, to be entertaining. I also liked knowing secrets and feeling "important" by disclosing them. Basically gossip came out of too much insecurity, and too little principle. Many times I have wished I had a big brother or strong father figure to spell out some basic principles ala Ward Cleaver or Mike Brady. Instead I got to make a lot of dumb mistakes first-hand and embarrass myself in the process.
Gossip hurts people. Even innocent gossip can push an already unhappy person over the edge. It's a bad feeling to think that other people are speaking of you judgmentally, or mockingly. If you're already an alienated person, then getting a sense of being the subject of negative gossip will confirm all the worst parts of your alienation.
It took me a long time to realize that I didn't have to disclose my personal life to people who asked. If somebody asks about something sensitive, you can simply say, "I'd rather not discuss that" and nobody has a right to ask for more. This is a simple lesson....yet somebody actually had to TELL me this for me to realize it.
One negative impact of gossip is that it puts people in a position where they are then compelled to lie. For example, let's say your friend Lucretia has had a miscarriage and confided in you about it. Let's also say that you break confidence and tell your friend Cassandra about it. One day, Lucretia decides to confide in Cassandra about her miscarriage. Now Cassandra is obligated to pretend to be surprised and shocked. If Lucretia is suspicious and asks if you told Cassandra, Cassandra will have to lie to cover your ass. She might be a lousy liar. Eitehr way your weakness in telling her leads to an additional demoralizing situation in which she has to debase the integrity of her own words.....or snitch on you.
I've also found that people gossip as a way to manipulate others' opinions to suit their own biases. By gossip I mean lie, though sometimes somebody can use a small truth to create a bigger, false impression. A friend of mine in junior high school was competing with me for the attentions of a young woman. He told her all sorts of things about me that were exaggerated in order to make her like me less. I had to find out about it from a third party, and then confront people as to what was going on. It felt weird -- I couldn't believe my friend was selling me out for some girl. It was decades ago, but even now I look back and think, wow, what a snake he was.
I don't see any point in gossiping. When I think of gossip I think of Cindy Brady in the episode of "Brady Bunch" where she sees Bobby Brady have his first kiss (complete with fireworks). She runs around the Brady house saying, "I've got a secret, I've got a secret!" She's so proud of herself for having sensitive information. Information is power, and the little pipsqueak is thrilled to finally have power after feeling so powerless for so long (no doubt in part due to a chronic lisping problem).
I also think of the saying, "If you're bored, you're boring." People who are bored turn to gossip to spice up their paltry existence. It's the wrong answer. If your existence feels paltry, make it un-paltry. Like Willie Wonka sings, "There is no place I know that compares with your imagination."
The only reason I bring up the Brady Bunch and Willie Wonka in the same message is because Bobby Brady's 1973 final-season haircut and shortness reminds me of an Oompa-Loompa.
Really, you can learn a lot about life from watching the Brady Bunch. Here's another gossip problem -- do you remember when Jan and Marcia were eavesdropping on Alice's conversations and they thought that Alice was planning to get married to Sam the Butcher? That caused all sorts of problems because they gossipped and assumed too much.
Also, in "Three's Company," remember when Mr. Furley eavesdropped on Chrissy talking about getting her wart removed, but he thought she was planning to have an abortion?
See what can go wrong when you gossip?
Let's not forget all the misunderstandings that arise, like when Elizabeth assumed the wrong things about Mr. Darcy because of what's-his-face who was sleeping with her foolish sister. That was jacked up, yo.
So in conclusion, don't gossip because if you do, you are a bastard.