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Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk - part 1

A woman wrote to a daily paper from a very lonely spot: "My sister and I aren't exactly lonely out here. We have got each other to speak to, but we need another woman to talk about."

This brings up the whole troublesome matter of gossip. Etymologically gossip meant related through God, namely godparents; then it came to mean cronies, and thereafter newsmongering or idle tattling. Essentially it is the category of conversation which concentrates on mutual friends and acquaintances. It falls between talk of one's self, the lowliest form of conversation, and discussion of ideas, the most ex­alted form. On the face of it, therefore, it is not intrinsically a bad thing. But because under the impact of original sin people who talk about their absent neighbors too easily stress their neighbors' weaknesses, gossip is in somewhat ill repute. As a cartoon in Collier's expressed it: "Of course, there's a lot to be said in her favor, but it's not nearly so interesting."

There speaks the Old Adam in us. Coping daily with the weaknesses of our own flesh, with temptations and sins, we get a curious moral satisfaction from learning and dwelling upon the foibles and sins of others. Our morale seems to be enhanced when we discover instances where others proved themselves weaker than we, or where those reputed to be particularly strong characters have shown symptoms of weak­ness like our own.

This urge to discuss the lapses of others is a sort of left-handed tribute to man's moral nature. It is evidence of his constant sub-surface concern with good and bad, right and wrong. Gossip is the daily expression of interest we feel in our neighbors. It is lip service to the injunction to be our brothers' keeper. But this expression of brotherly interest can be employed so as to increase charity and brotherhood in the world, or so as to promote discord and dissension. It may well serve as capillaries in the Mystical Body of Christ, or as pawns in the armories of Satan. One aesthetician writes,

There is malice enough in gossip, but most of it is the purest kind of mental and emotional satisfaction. . . . The stories which we tell about ourselves and our friends make up the ephemeral, yet real prose literature of daily life (DeWitt H. Parker, Principles of Aesthetics [1946, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.], p. 231).

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