Disclaimer:
All articles published in this section of The Cor Chronicle are the opinions of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Cor Chronicle..
Humans love entertainment. We crave it so much that we will get it in whatever form and for the cheapest possible price. We need it so much that barely a day goes by that we aren’t consuming some form of entertainment, whether that be listening to music, watching TV or movies, scrolling through social media, or gossiping about others. Gossip is certainly a form of entertainment.
Some people are more drawn to it than others, but it definitely seems to have a universal appeal: People love to sit back and observe and discuss the failures and suffering of others, as if there was a fourth wall between themselves and the other person.
This is the essence of why gossip is so harmful. The word “gossip” generally means damaging someone’s reputation by telling others about their faults. It also includes two sins: slander and libel. The former unfairly damages someone’s reputation by exposing real faults or scandalous acts, while the latter exposes false faults or scandalous acts. Gossip, slander, and libel are harmful to a community because they set people against each other and do not foster a loving environment between people who should generally be friends.
Spreading gossip and “enjoying the drama” undermines the dignity of others. Every person has a right to honor, and spreading gossip, whether true or false, goes directly against that right. There is a clear difference between needlessly and unjustly exposing the faults or crimes of others and speaking up about such things when appropriate. Being in a small, close-knit community like the University of Dallas can blur this fine line. For example, our school newspaper does not have a gossip column, nor does it publish articles that directly criticize specific individuals.
Gossip may attract a lot of readers because people tend to enjoy reading about scandals and dramas. Col Chronicle Some students choose not to publish. It is not necessarily wrong to criticize the misdeeds of certain individuals to a large audience, but it ultimately causes more harm to a smaller community than to a larger one. Imagine if a dedicated student hated a professor’s lecture, a club-sponsored event, a music student’s term recital, or a main stage play so much that he felt the need to put his thoughts into writing for the entire university to read. In most cases, I would not encourage such students to publish such articles.
So how should we act when the line between slander and helpful criticism is unclear? As people who love friends and enemies, we should rejoice in the successes of others and refrain from talking about their failures for entertainment purposes. It is cheap and vulgar. Our lives are much richer when we go to the theater, watch quality films, listen to beautiful music, and read great stories.
Let us love goodness, truth, and beauty rather than rejoicing at the evil in the world. Think of the sinners in Dante’s Divine Comedy, who selfishly rejoice in the suffering of others as they see them dragged down to their own level or even lower. Let this be a model for how we should not treat one another.
