Today is Monday; a respite from news? Of course not—the news cycle always continues! ¹ However each of us as individuals can choose to focus our attention elsewhere. Today I will be discussing gossip and how oftentimes I think it is a good thing because it reminds people that the stuff they hear is often... hearsay and that the "truth" of some matter is not always what it seems.

Gossip

I'll define "gossip" as discussing hearsay; speculating on what might have happened based on reports (which may be first-hand accounts).

Why does "gossip" have negative connotations

Lots of the bad reputation of "gossip" is linked to its association with deception. Here are some Bible verses related to the topic:

Keep your tongue from evil
And your lips from speaking deceit.
Psalm 34:13

Here, "gossip" is speaking deceptively.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
Ephesians 4:29

The verse above is about building up community in a church, using your words to improve stuff rather than destroy stuff.

For lack of wood the fire goes out,
And where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down.
Proverbs 26:20

The verse above sounds kinda like Chinese social cohesion; sometimes it is prudent to hush up about stuff to allow some ship to continue sailing.

As illustrated from some verses chosen rather ad-hoc above, "gossip" is understood to be a bad thing insofar as it is used to cause conflicts and decieve. On the other hand, merely talking about other people and your experiences would not be considered bad (or "idle") talk as I interpret it if this talk is done with constructive aims in mind.

Reframing "gossip"

"Gossip" in the sense that I defined it (discussing hearsay) requires that people form networks and hence establish trust with one another. Gossip is a very useful way to maintain social cohesion and maintain healthy scepticism of unverified parties' bold claims.

Its foundation is trust; who is a trustworthy party to hear information from? Who is tends to be a "click bait" flame fanner? Who is 80% bullshit but 20% truth worth listening to? Understanding gossip is knowing how to filter information from various voices, establishing what who we think is credible and to be relied on, and who is to be listened to with general skepticism (but expecting some entertainment). Gossip is human communication that doesn't read like a technical manual.

Why listening to gossip is more helpful than "news"

Applying instincts for gossip (as old as humanity itself) to how we engage with traditional news and online media, we can get a better grip on what's really going on (as well as identify what we don't know).

Often when reading the news, people take take the trustworthiness of their source (e.g. the BBC, Voice of America) for granted rather than investigating what kinds of agendas news outlets may have.

When people gossip, they are often talking about something they've heard about on a first or second hand account. Usually, the gossiper has at least some "skin in the game" in the sense that they are talking about people/events that they are personally concerned with.

Professional Gossipers on a Global Stage

Some people are paid to gossip to large audiences. We call these people journalists, and it is not always clear where they get their "facts" as well as agendas.

The power of journalists (or at least the people giving them orders) is huge— much of "citation" that goes on these days involves trusting some news source as a primary sources and then assembling derivative opinions from what is reported as "facts/true". Something becomes "a thing" when it is baptized by XYZ News Network.

If you are very knowledgable (first-hand) of some topic—e.g. chemistry, the Portuguese language, Sichuan cooking—consider how the second-hand reporting of journalism often gets stuff wrong about what you're saying. These same people that get stuff wrong about things you are knowledgable about can surely be expected to get a lot wrong about the facts of corrent events.

Why local news is often better than national/global news

Generally speaking, local news can be expected to do a more decent job reporting on local events just as friends gossiping can be expected to do a more decent job on reporting the this-and-thats of people they are involved with everyday.

Local news may be expected to be produced by (literally) closer to the ground people with a stake in how their communities turn out. A local news outlet that is transparent about their biases (this could even be a newsletter of a religious organization, hobby-centered club) is even more trustworthy because everyone has a bias and to recognize and announce this is praiseworthy honesty.

Those that claim to "only report the facts" or something to that effect... are to be regarded with deep suspicion. Same for news providers that claim to be unbiased.

What happened to COVID-19?

Social distancing effectively ends in many urban areas as masks become a tools of anti-social rioting. The establishment (including rule of law) is under seige from many independent actors, who may or may not be getting their ideas from coordinated networks.

Grabbing my tinfoil hat

Insofar as gossip makes people do-nothing-ers, spreading destruction rather than building stuff up, gossip is no good. However, as a means of maintaining networks (which is a form of building something up), gossip is very important for maintaining a network of care. People gossip because they care.

Grand narratives about this-and-that "movement" in national news on the other hand... maybe not so easy to trust. Regarding the ongoing riots across the US, what is going on? Some ideas to consider:

• False flag operation—could be happening in many directions
• Reporting bias—could be used to present one group favorably over another, in contrast to the reality on the ground; e.g. portraying HK looters as heroic one day while demonizing looters in America the next
• "Reposting"—some ideas can just get "memed" into credibility by being repeated enough times; an example of linguists complaining about this is the "Eskimo Snow Hoax"; if some idea gets repeated enough, it must be responded to by people who want to appear "in the know" about some topic

Professional gossipers must inform people on what is not immediately to them from observation, and in doing so convince them to act according to their own grand agendas. The counter to being influenced by these narratives is to have (free) conversations with people you care about, establishing trust and building up a reputation with those around you. "Put your money where your mouth is"—tell your friend that talks about this-and-that financial deal but never actualy commits action to any of their opinions to shut up and go rake leaves or something.

no u

Personally, I don't do that much gossip and I don't think I would be particularly good at it if I tried—I'd probably end up arm-chair philosophizing and pscyhologizing rather than saying anything of substance. Nonetheless, I will typically prefer to listen to other people gossip than hear them regurgitate stories they heard from mainstream news outlets or repeat headlines of articles they browsed on the Internet.

News doesn't need to come from a "news outlet". Likewise, food doesn't need to come from a restaurant (you can get it at a market and cook, you can grow your own...). Your friends have stories—Amazon doesn't have a monopoly on story dispensing. You can organize your own personal library and bookmarks rather than trusting Google to page rank things.

In the 21st century, many people—especially urban dwellers—are conditioned to drink the Establishment Soylent day in and day out. Let us all try instead to listen to one another and heighten our powers of observation, then turn to third parties of dubious trust for additional input.