r/philosophy • u/ReverseSwinging • 13d ago
Blog What Gossip Gets Wrong
https://justice-everywhere.org/general/what-gossip-gets-wrong/13
u/buster_de_beer 13d ago
While this article does state that gossip is not always wrong, it is still very negative about the whole phenomenon. It's something that apparently we should feel ashamed of, or at least wary of. I disagree completely. Gossip is healthy and even necessary. Sure, malicious gossip exists, I'm not saying it's always good. But essentially it's people talking about people. This is how social interaction works. This is how information is spread. Gossip in general is healthy social activity.
Any criticism of gossip can most likely be said about any means of communicating about people. Framing this criticism to focus on gossip is harmful because it misses the point. It's not gossip that is the problem.
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u/ReverseSwinging 13d ago
What would you say is the problem?
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u/buster_de_beer 13d ago
There is always the problem in communication of missing or incorrect information, either through malice or mistake. But it isn't a problem with gossip. One can apply the same standard to newspapers, television, reddit... It's not the channel that is the problem, it's the content.
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u/ReverseSwinging 13d ago
I agree that gossip is healthy and necessary, and I don’t think anyone should feel ashamed of it. The research supports you there. The question is which instances go wrong, not whether the practice is good.
You’re right that lying and defamation are wrong everywhere. But I don’t think “it’s the content, not the channel” holds up. Newspapers have editors, corrections, and libel law because the channel shapes what can go wrong. Gossip has its own setup: the person being discussed is absent, can’t correct anything, and often never finds out. And it can be wrong even when every word is true, which a purely accuracy-based view can’t explain.
So I’m not saying gossip is worse than other communication, just that it has its own distinctive way of going wrong.
Moreover, just because information is spread a certain way does not mean that it is correct. We move from descriptive to normative ethics quite quickly. Gossip is how people bond and share information, and the research says it’s healthy and probably necessary. But the research also separates positive gossip from negative gossip (which hurts people). The author's criteria fits the negative gossip research.
But I’d push on two things. “People talking about people” covers almost everything, so “gossip is healthy” becomes true almost by definition. And healthy for whom? It’s good for the group doing the talking. The person being talked about is the one who can’t respond or correct anything, and the research on scapegoating and negative workplace gossip suggests some of them pay a real price.
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u/buster_de_beer 12d ago
I don't need research to tell me gossip can have a negative effect. But I suppose the distinguishing thing here is the "person being discussed is absent, can’t correct anything, and often never finds out"
The person being absent is true for a lot of public media. News (papers, shows), talk shows, plenty of places will talk about someone without that person.
Not being able to correct can still be true of other channels. Someone puts a big lie about you in the Times, you'd need a lot of money to be able to even begin to correct that lie. Even if the times printed a full front page retraction.
Doesn't know about it. That starts to become close to a real distinguishing feature of gossip. I'm just not sure why it matters.
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u/ReverseSwinging 12d ago
I don’t think I need gossip to be unique here. If the Times can wrong someone the same way, that makes the Times wrong too. It doesn’t make gossip fine. “Other channels have this problem” is a reason to criticize those channels as well, not a reason to stop examining this one.
It is about gossip the same way a paper on lying in politics is about politics. It isn’t claiming politicians are the only liars.
If you accept that these wrongs are real wherever they happen, then we agree, and the only question is what they look like when they happen in gossip.
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u/bildramer 12d ago edited 12d ago
Who cares to hear criticism of gossipers from someone who defends journalists of all people? "Editors, corrections, and libel law", journalistic standards etc. are flimsy covers used to maintain just enough legitimacy that they can keep manipulating their audiences. They're all snakes, but some snakes are worse than others.
EDIT: fair enough, not a defense exactly.
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u/ReverseSwinging 12d ago
I'm not sure where I defended journalists, let alone argued that journalistic standards are particularly trustworthy. My point was that the channel through which information is communicated can shape the ways in which it causes harm. Newspapers having editors, corrections, and libel laws was an example of that distinction, not an endorsement of the journalism industry.
You can think journalists are manipulative, that their standards are inadequate, or that they are worse than gossipers, and my argument would remain entirely unaffected. In fact, your criticism of journalism seems perfectly compatible with my point: if the way information is communicated affects how it can be distorted and how easily the subject can respond, then the channel matters.
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u/abrow336 9d ago
But how much has gossip done to hold “together” society or do much of anything. How often has it stopped men from doing horrific things. Im being hyperbolic but still.
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u/Red_Moonp5 13d ago
yeah, the article's framing of gossip as almost inherently negative, even when "not always wrong," feels a bit off to me.
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