I’m a fan of this historian, and this blog post tickled my brain. Hopefully you find it interesting.
Gossip is good when applied to rich people. British tabloids making monarchs miserable and possibly causing their fatal accidents is pretty funny
Critical support to Baron Rothermere (daily mail failson the fourth) for engaging in a bigger act of republicanism than any British org since the civil war.
Do you listen to We’re Not So Different? I can’t find the post but I’m like 90% sure one of them is on Hexbear and advertised the podcast when they were just getting it off the ground.
Sometimes yes, I find their rambles at the start a bit annoying sometimes haha. Their series on historical materialism was part of how I got sister the eldest comfortable with discussing Marxist ideas.
You might say they gossip a bit much for my taste ;)
I only skimmed this article. I think that gossip has a place in social regulation in that it allows us knowledge about who to trust and who to worry about. And also it keeps some of us from being complete dicks because the fear of everyone knowing what a shithead we are keeps us from doing shitty things.
Ya it’s worthwhile to notice which friends are doing lots of negative gossiping and to avoid getting too deep with them, otherwise we’re gonna be the next one to get dished on. My rule is to only negatively talk about someone if there’s something that others need to be wary of, which is pretty infrequent. If I feel the need to tell that funny story of what a fuckhead X is, I’ll just tell it to a totally different set of people and not mention any names.
Judaism, in text, takes up a similar position where gossip, even true gossip, is prohibited unless someone’s immediate life or livelihood are at stake.
As this article makes clear, Christianity already had the prohibition against sins of the tongue, it took the Fourth Lateran Council for the church to get serious about it. I’m curious about the comparative social/structural history of prohibitions on gossip compared between different religious communities, when and why they’re emphasized, that sort of thing — was there a specific pattern of behaviour reported to Innocent III that led him to get serious about confession, was he specifically running down gossipmongers or was it just that the list of what should be confessed comported to what’s in the text?
you seem a lot more knowledgeable than I. For the ignorant but curious: could you clarify what you’re musing about in that last part re fourth Lateran council and getting serious about sins of the tongue/gossipmongers?
I’m mostly just inferring from the article. From the fifth paragraph:
At least in Europe people started to get way more thingy about what the Church called the “sins of the tongue” in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
For the church to get thingy about sins of the tongue, the bible probably must be able to be interpreted in such a way as to prohibit them:
The north wind brings forth rain;
And a backbiting tongue, an angry countenance.
Proverbs 25:23
He who goes about as a gossip reveals secrets;
Therefore do not associate with a gossip
Proverbs 20:19
There’s also room for such interpretations in the Qur’an:
O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful.
Surah Hujurat Ayat 12
It reminds me of usury — the texts of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam can be read to prohibit it, but whether it’s read that way and whether the prohibition is enforced is a matter for religious officials.
Gossip is a moral failing. Fuck everyone who engages in it.
What did you think of Eleanor’s opinions? They (and the academic reception, at least according to her) differ quite drastically from yours.
Her opinion is that she likes gossiping, she reveals that in the first paragraphs. She also seem to make no distinction between “good and bad” gossiping and the “social grooming” aspect of it us just assumed to be good.
She seem to conflate “gossiping” with “talking” to people, witch is absurd to me. At least to me, “gossiping” have a very negative connotation and essentially means the “nasty talk” people engage in while sharing information that’s none of their business, like others sex life. It’s not “gossiping” when you’re distributing serious information about sex-pests and such. Also, “social grooming” sends chills up my spine, it’s just screams social exclusion and popular clique.
Honestly the vibe I get from the author is that she wrote this in her own defense, she wants to talk body count and misfortune. Otherwise she would have gone more into the “free speech” aspect of disseminating socially necessary information that powerful people don’t want to be shared. But again this is just people talking, not “gossiping” as I understand the word. The fact that she dosn’t seem to understand the difference is a red flag.
gossip is my own private soap opera
This is a person I don’t want at the table.
I think she’s using it in the same sense as the Oxford dictionary “conversation about other people and their private lives” which is certainly closer to how people around me use it. Like a normal greeting to my friends would be “what’s the goss?” and they would tell me how their lives are going.
Specifically my experience is gossip is when femme presenting people discuss people. Before I transitioned doing the same things in a masculine context would be “shooting the shit” or “having a yarn”. Potentially some local regional variation.
Certainly calling someone a gossip has extremely negative connotations here, more in line with your perception. A gossip would be a femme presenting person (always) who has a reputation for spreading unkind information, often fictional, about people.
Social grooming is the name of a behaviour among apes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_grooming e.g. my wife adjusting my hair is social grooming. It’s just an academic term.
I think she is a fucking lackwit. Gossip is a foundational element of bullying and has negative value. My childhood was made hell as a result,fuck everyone who defends it in any way with a bat wrapped in barbed wire. That’s my opinion.
Hmm, I can’t say I agree. As she points out historically gossip has been one of the only ways for disprivliged people to defend themselves. Certainly in my own life, gossip has been the means through which people were warned away from predators in the kink community who couldn’t safely be confronted.
It can definitely be a tool for evil, as the pain you write with highlights quite well. Although so can direct confrontations, violence, even gift giving but can also be forces for good. I think we should be cautious about universal condemnations of human social behaviours, but I do want to say that I see your hurt and you’re not wrong for feeling wary/angry.
I do find it interesting how she highlights the strongly gendered lines around gossip, even when in the case she cites men are doing the same thing the legal/religious interpretation is very different.
WDYM she seems like a lovely person…
Well guess what sweaty, you can discuss the idea of gossip and it turns out that at least in the global north people weren’t always so uptight about it.
But a lot of others wanted to talk about the sex lives of the people in their community, which, damn girl same???
To me, every bit of anonymous gossip is my own private soap opera, and I simply love to hear it.
But here’s the thing: if we can see an up-tick in the condemnation of gossip it means that there was a point in time when it was also considered both chill and also cool because, actually it does the exact opposite of pushing people out – it brings people together.
I’m assuming/hoping the preface is sarcasm.
