The Gathering of Hens
Aug 30th, 2007 by Amanda
Why do people feel the need to gossip? I don’t mean to exclude men by the title of this post–they gossip too–but the event that triggered this post was a pair of hens cackling.
I can’t claim to be blame-free when it comes to gossip. Sometimes I do it because it just feels good to make yourself feel as if you’re better than someone else. It’s just as wrong as anyone else that I’m about to rant about here, and I acknowledge that.
Gossip serves no beneficial purpose. It hurts people. It tears people down. And in reality, it makes the person who is doing the gossip look worse.
I read this the other day, and it’s good:
In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”
“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything I’d like you to pass a little test. It”s called the Three Filters Test.”
“Three Filters?”
“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the Three Filters Test.
The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it”s true or not. Now let”s try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”
“No, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it”s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really.”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”
If everyone worked to apply the three filters to their speech, I wouldn’t have to walk up on two ladies shamelessly gossiping about a third (one whom I know is supposed to be good friends with them).
[…] Gossip at Imago Dei. […]
This is terrific, but I’m afraid that the answer to your question is not that complex.
People (both men and women– men are the “closet” gossipers) have the tendency to gossip because:
1. We like to build our reputation as “the one in the know”
2. We’re no more than grown up children– who have to build ourselves up by taking others down.
I definitely have a problem with #1– I like to know things before others do.