Letters to the Editor
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I agree with Allie....
...that the best policy is to never say anything about anyone behind their back that I would not say to their face. I won't say that I always live up to this, but I do try. Ms. Silag wrote a piece that provoked discussion and avoided this hackneyed but really excellent rule.
A comment on the vicious swarm of letter-writers: I think writing for Salon must be a good place for writers to develop a thick skin. My friends who are trying to go from writing for their own pleasure to writing professionally have had to go through this process of workshopping their stuff, listening to the criticism of teachers and classmates, sending things fruitlessly off to agents, etc. It is a brutal exercise and I'm sure the fear of it keeps many excellent works from ever seeing the light of day. I wonder how many of the I-can-do-a-better-job-than-this-person responders are victims/perpetrators of this ritual excoriation.
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Hard for me to read objectively
It was hard for me to read this article objectively because I instinctively loathe gossip. The author says her parents instilled in her the positives of gossip. My parents didn't exactly tell me gossip was bad, but that it was boring because it was almost completely lacking in ideas. I clearly remember my mother telling me (ironically of course, gossiping) that a group of people she'd spent time with were excruciating because they never discussed an event or an idea, but talked incessantly about other people.
Since then, I've added my own layer of near-hatred for gossip because in my observation it is 90% judgemental. I'm sorry, but community-building my ass! If the only way we know of to build community is by running down people we decide don't belong, then community is vastly over-rated.
How about a compromise. Obviously, we can't talk about ideas all the time. We need to connect with our fellow human beings, after all. And some "gossip" can be caring ... though I'd actually exclude such discussions from the defninition of gossip. How about talking about people, but in terms of their ideas? I'm not talking about their habits, hypocricies and faults, but about how they think, and what they think about things. This might take philosophical discussion down out of the "ivory tower", while making gossip less parochial and trivial.
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Loved the Premise of this Article
But I would have enjoyed it more if it had made use of some (god help me) juicier examples.
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Gossip is wrong and bad for you
Gossip is discussing someone else's situation for the vicarious thrill in it. That means any sympathy is phony, and the topic is not one meant to edify those participating. What shouldn't count as gossip is when you share a story, even a very embarrassing one, that a friend happily cops to. This is the great benefit of friends, we can trade our embarrassments around. But there is no superiority or asymmetry. It's either his turn or your turn, and anyone who shares (with glee) their embarrassments has got a good sense of self anyway.
But the mean kind of gossip, like all bad behavior, is bad for participants. What happens, I'd argue, to people who enjoy putting down others, is that they get bound up in a impossible to maintain image of themselves-- as someone who could not be gossiped about. And life does not work that way, yet people spend lifetimes trying to live up to the impression they've given themselves.
And there is another tension created-- the little thrill from feeling superior, or from releasing the information someone would expect you to keep-- it leaves a hangover, doesn't it? And that is your adjustment to the image you'd like to have of yourself (fair and kind) and what the behavior implies.
It's easy to notice that the happier the person, the less gossip they engage in. You could put it the way Plato enables us to-- it can be addicted to focus on just the foibles of other people, and the way you can compare these people to you-- but if you are focussed on the foibles of people, you are limiting your perspective and will never develop properly or understand the point of being here.
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Wasn't this article originally posted in Young Miss magazine? In 1965?
Name Withheld said:
"Is it really any better to spend your time typing hateful things into a computer that you know the writer is going to read? At least Ms. Silag is trying to be honest with herself."
Then she should keep it to herself. If I wanted to read self-referential drivel, there are countless blogs I could peruse. Ms. Silag has simultaneously expanded the circle of people who find her a narcissistic bore and cemented my decision to not renew my subscription to Salon Premium.
Salon needs tougher editors. This piece was serious bullshit.
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Don't tell them you heard from me......
because I'm not one to gossip.....
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I need to go reread Hamlet or Lear now, to save what is left of my brain.
I sincerely hope that the writer of this article is not as hopelessly superficial, cruel, small-minded, under-educated, and just sad as she seems to be from this crude piece of social commentary.
Really, is she this narrow, this narcissistic and shallow?
A purging is in order...
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Teyuna,
I liked your letter. :-)
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One more thing ...
I posted a letter first, then read what others had already posted. Next time I'll try to remember to do the opposite.
I want to add a note about the tone of the letters on this article. Many of us do sound superior, since we are criticizing the author's article. Maybe the worst of it is that we're criticizing the author more than the author's ideas. More gossip, perhaps? I think so many of these letters are so strongly negative because Ms. Silag's article pushes not one, but at least three major topical buttons. At least they do for me.
First, gossip itself, by defiinition, has victims ... often more than casual, occasional victims. I'm surre we're hearing from some of them in these letters, and nobody should expect them to be entirely rational or cautious in their responses.
Second, the article indirectly (maybe unintentionally) sheds light from another angle on what many of us see as the triviality and vapidness of much of what passes for conversation these days.
Third, this looks like another example of tarting up worthless, even destructive behavior by making it a virtue. Gossip = Community. To me, this goes along with Mean = Honest and Arrogant = Confident, and frankly, I'm sick of it. I expect a lot of others are, too.
And please, spare us the excuse that women are more connective and interpersonal than men, and require gossip to nurish vital relationships. As many of these letters pointed out, taking an interest in people isn't gossip, and gossip isn't taking an interest in people.