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Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
4
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Articles In This Section:
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
1
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
2
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
3
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
4
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
5
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
6
· Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part
7
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Still another danger is that certain scandals take on a kind of glamour. Certain sins found in successful people, such as movie stars for example, when talked about very much, tend to decline rather than to wax in heinousness. Rather than be deterred by the scandal, some will rather begin to think, "If everybody's doing it, why might not I? If such a star can get away with it, except for a little talk which does not make him poorer, then why might not I?" As the poet Pope truly and beautifully says,
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
For all these reasons, while one recognizes a certain moral function in
scandal, a good conversationalist will analyze it carefully before joining
with it, and in any case will not dwell upon it. He will express his rebuke
and condemnation, shortly and definitely, and then pass on to something
else. But we are not yet done with gossip. We quoted an aesthetician above
as saying that much of it is the "real prose literature of daily life." When
is gossip harmless? It seems to me the standard should be: "Would I
seriously object to being talked about the way I am talking to someone about
our absent neighbors?" Dean Swift, in a sentence that bears repeating,
admirably said, "Surely one of the best rules of conversation is, never to
say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid." This should be supplemented by the further notion that we ought never to say anything which anyone being talked about can reasonably wish had not been said of him. If a person applies this criterion honestly and determinedly, and if he is clever enough and willing to discourage others from violating it, too, then he may safely assume that the so-called gossip is harmless. Such talk of one's acquaintances, while it is not a high form of conversation, is yet a warm and natural one. It can well indicate a charitable and kindly interest in one's neighbors and fellow men.
In the above criterion I very consciously used the expression, can reasonably wish. With that phrase I reserve the right to twit a friend a bit behind his back, as I do it to his face. How much? Only to the extent that I do not seriously mind being so twitted myself. I know many people will protest that of absent friends one must never speak except in compliments. Nevertheless, I don't think charity demands that one must always and everywhere go around solemnly eulogizing one's friends, in the manner of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, of the dead nothing but compliments. I actually fear that sort of mealy-mouthed approach to friendship. I cannot but feel like Mr. Bennett in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. He said, "For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors, and to laugh at them in our turn."
Related terms include improve management and good speaking.
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