Whispers With Claws

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Imagine yourself as a defendant in a courtroom.

The judge selects the jury. The prosecution presents its case against you for some heinous but undefined crime, calling to the stand its witnesses, none of whom go unchallenged. When it’s time to present your case, your attorney rises and says, “The defense rests, your honor.”

Sounds horrible, right? Like an episode from that old television show, “The Twilight Zone.”

Yet trials just like this one take place countless times a day all across America and around the world, not in a courtroom but in a kitchen, a bar, the workplace, or in a hundred other settings. It’s called trial by gossip, and participants often act as judge, prosecutor, and jury all rolled into one.

Not all gossip is so ill-intentioned. In “You’re Thinking About Gossip All Wrong,” Nandini Maharaj reminds us that gossip is a broad term, that it simply means talking about another person who isn’t present for the conversation. As she rightly points out, there’s positive gossip, like praising a friend who’s just landed a major business deal or commenting on a niece who’s made her school’s honor role.

There’s also neutral gossip, which is mainly informational. Your sister wants to lose weight, and you mention some dietary tactics used by a friend. An employee wants to read more books, and you tell her about your spouse, who rises before dawn to snag some time with a book before the kids roll out of bed.

And then there’s negative gossip.

Toxic Talk

In Act I of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the ghost of Hamlet’s father reveals that his brother Claudius murdered him in his sleep by pouring a deadly poison into his ear.

Negative gossip is poison poured into the ear of the listener with the intent of wounding or killing the reputation of another. There are exceptions. On some occasions, for instance, an acquaintance may dish the dirt on someone to warn us away from a bad business deal or to steer us clear of an untrustworthy mentor. Here, the motivation is not to spread scandal, but to protect us.

Sometimes, however, the taleteller is cruel, out to draw blood, even to the point of taking a secret delight in being the bearer of ugly news. This is not uncommon. At some point, most people have probably experienced this pleasure of shocking their listeners with news of an impending divorce of a mutual friend or of the kid whose mother is always bragging on him getting suspended from school.

And some gossips freely admit the thrill they get from hearing and repeating tales of impropriety and immorality. Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice was notorious around Washington, D.C. for her sharp tongue and love of scandal. Embroidered on a pillow in her sitting room were the words, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”

We may chuckle at that tart invitation, but it begs a question: What damage is done not to the subject of slander and hearsay, but to those who participate in rumor-mongering?

Self-Inflicted Wounds

Let’s face it, a good bit of scandal—this man’s bankruptcy, this woman’s infidelity, this couple’s divorce—can be as juicy and enticing as a slice of prime rib. We get the scoop about some mess, either shocked or pretending shock, ask questions, and at the least, we walk away thinking, ‘Well, at least I’ve never done that.”

Our involvement seems harmless enough, but if we search online for effects of negative gossip, we find article after article focused on the harmful impact of gossip in schools and the workplace. Besides ruining someone’s reputation, malicious gossip damages cohesion in the classroom and in the office, and creates an atmosphere of suspicion and anxiety—“I wonder what they’re saying about me?” At its worst, it can turn a victim’s pain into suicide.

Injunctions against the most negative side of this tale-telling, which consist of slander and lies, are ancient. After all, one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and in many ways we live more than ever in an age of false witness, in large part because of our technology. Social media in particular mass-manufactures this malevolent gossip, not only about politicians, celebrities, and other public figures, but about ordinary people as well.

To listen eagerly, then, or just willingly, to bad news about someone we know negatively impacts our souls, however you want to define that word.

The Ghost at the Gabfest

And what about the invisible person we cut and slash with words?

You who at one time or another have grievously offended the sensibilities or morals of others—I am one of you—often recognize the signs given off by acquaintances who have visited the courtroom of gossip where you are the defendant. One friend begins treating you with a certain reserve. Another doesn’t phone as often. A couple throws their annual Christmas party, but this year you’re conspicuously missing from the guest list.

And you change as well. Once you’re aware that others are whispering about you, you silently ask questions about everyone you meet, “Do they know? And what do they think?” You become suspicious, sometimes to the point of paranoia.

Depending on the wrongs, if any, they have committed and on their personalities, defendants in the courtroom of gossip cope in different ways. On woman I know felt so ashamed of what she’d done that she retreated into a shell, rarely mixing with friends and even planning trips to the grocery store at hours when she was least likely to meet anyone she knew. Others go in the opposite direction, confronting those who are maligning them. Many people put on the stone-face bravery of Hester Prynne in “The Scarlet Letter,” when pregnancy outside of wedlock made her an outcast in her community. The boldest live by Rhett Butler’s “Gone with the Wind” line, “With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.”

What you’ve done can’t be changed, but how you face your shame and the wagging tongues of others is up to you.

Regardless of our intentions, gossiping—positive, neutral, or negative—seems an unavoidable part of our human nature. Most of us indulge in chitchat gossip without even thinking about it, commenting with a laugh on some friend’s clumsiness or on a relative’s kindness.

But we can consciously avoid sharing truly malicious gossip, the kind that inflicts real harm on another. We can ignore it if circumstances force us to hear it, throwing it aside when we walk away like a priest leaving a confessional. We can also take that admonition to heart delivered by so many mothers to their children, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all.”