In my last two columns, I endeavored to alienate as many readers as possible. (They say that this is a good thing to do when you’ve just published a book, as I have.) I wrote about various vices that I think mainline Christians are not quite censorious enough about. Some are things that people broadly agree to be bad but that for various reasons we don’t want to nag each other about. Others are of the sort where the space between evil and good is often a hairsbreadth in width, hard to see, and apt to move around.
Gossip falls into this second category. What is it? When are we doing it? Is it just a hostile description of ordinary conversation?
I think of gossip as what happens when ego or the will to power shapes ordinary conversation in cruel ways. One moment we’re having a healthy conversation with Friend 1 about Friend 3, whom we both love, and suddenly we find ourselves joining together to tear apart a straw version of Friend 3, whom we both also hate a little bit, as we often do those we’ve loved long enough. Often I realize that I’ve been guilty of gossip only after the fact. Starting from a sense of legitimate concern about this or that person, I launch into careless speculation about their motives, creating a version of them that is flawed in ways that prop up my ego. Or I reveal something about this person that I know to be true but that the person wouldn’t want known and my interlocutor doesn’t need to know, because I want to feel important and interesting.
