WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 Hello and welcome back to the deep dive. Today 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:06.219 we are tackling a subject that is well it's essentially 00:00:06.219 --> 00:00:09.019 the guilty pleasure of the human race. That's 00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:11.179 a good way to put it. I say guilty because almost 00:00:11.179 --> 00:00:13.759 every single one of us does it. And I mean let's 00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:15.699 be honest almost every single one of us feels 00:00:15.699 --> 00:00:18.100 a little bit slimy immediately after. It's the 00:00:18.100 --> 00:00:21.179 universal social lubricant. Yeah. And maybe the 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:24.179 universal social irritant too. It is. We are 00:00:24.179 --> 00:00:27.300 talking about gossip. And look, before you check 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:28.699 out, because you think this is going to be an 00:00:28.699 --> 00:00:31.399 hour of us discussing celebrity breakups or, 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:33.619 you know, who said what in the break room. Let 00:00:33.619 --> 00:00:35.780 me just stop you. Please do. Because the stack 00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:38.600 of research we have today is, and I don't use 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:41.179 this word lightly, it's mind bending. We're looking 00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:44.600 at this comprehensive overview that pulls from 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:48.500 evolutionary psychology, medieval history, complex 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:51.719 sociology, and some extremely heavy religious 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:53.700 ethics. It really runs the gamut. And I think 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:56.200 the goal here, our mission, is to completely 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:59.119 reframe how we see this behavior. Because we 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:01.780 usually just dismiss gossip as idle trash talk. 00:01:01.979 --> 00:01:04.299 Right. It's what you do when you're bored. Exactly. 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:06.260 It's what you do when you have nothing better 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:10.439 to do. But the research suggests it is actually 00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:13.780 a highly sophisticated mechanism. It's a tool 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:17.140 for survival. A weapon for power. And in a very, 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:20.099 very literal sense, the glue that holds human 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:22.840 society together. Which is a massive claim. A 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:24.859 massive claim for something that my mother explicitly 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:29.120 told me was rude and low class. Well, your mother 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:31.719 wasn't wrong about the rude part, socially speaking. 00:01:32.019 --> 00:01:34.659 But she was, let's say, missing the biological 00:01:34.659 --> 00:01:37.939 and anthropological utility of it. I mean, the 00:01:37.939 --> 00:01:39.959 argument is if we didn't gossip, we might not 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:42.159 even be here as a species. OK, now that is the 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:44.239 headline I want to explore. Gossip, the reason 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.099 we aren't extinct. So the mission for this deep 00:01:47.099 --> 00:01:49.420 dive is to move past the guilt, past the shame 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:51.400 and really look at the mechanics. Why are we 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:53.640 wired to do it? How did the word evolve from 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:56.140 something holy? And that's a spoiler alert to 00:01:56.140 --> 00:01:58.400 something petty. And can we actually function 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:00.920 without it? It's a heavy question. And honestly, 00:02:01.019 --> 00:02:03.040 it challenges a lot of our basic moral assumptions. 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:04.819 It really does. But I have to be honest with 00:02:04.819 --> 00:02:07.379 you before we even start. I love a little tea. 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:11.039 Spilling the tea. Exactly. I try to be high minded. 00:02:11.080 --> 00:02:13.979 I really, really do. But if someone leans in 00:02:13.979 --> 00:02:16.360 and lowers their voice and says, you will not 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:19.819 believe what happened to Dave. My pulse spikes. 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:24.479 I lean in. It's purely instinctual. And that 00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:26.740 pulse spike, that little jolt of excitement, 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.240 that's pure biology. That isn't a character flaw. 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:32.360 That's an evolutionary trigger firing in your 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:34.280 brain. We're going to find out that your brain 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:37.139 is actually hardwired to enjoy that moment. In 00:02:37.139 --> 00:02:40.460 fact, it prioritizes it. OK, I'm not a bad person. 00:02:40.539 --> 00:02:42.599 I'm just a successful primate. I will take that. 00:02:42.659 --> 00:02:44.699 I can live with that. You are a very successful 00:02:44.699 --> 00:02:46.360 primate. But let's start at the beginning or 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:48.819 actually way, way back in the dictionary, because 00:02:48.819 --> 00:02:50.740 I was reading through the source material on 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:53.400 the etymology of the word gossip. And I genuinely 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:55.580 thought there was a typo in our notes. I thought 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:57.759 someone had made a mistake. It's one of the most 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:00.280 surprising origin stories in the entire English 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:02.759 language. It's a total head turner. The word 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:04.960 God is in there. It is. It's right there at the 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:07.500 start. If you go back to old English, the root 00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:11.219 word is God Sib. God -sib. Okay, break that down 00:03:11.219 --> 00:03:13.719 for me. Right. So let's break that down philologically. 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:16.599 You have God, obviously the deity, and then you 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:18.800 have sib. Sib is an old English word meaning 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:22.800 kin or relative or relationship. It's actually 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:25.419 where we get our modern word sibling. No way. 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:27.599 So if I'm translating this literally, gossip 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:30.580 means God -sibling or like a God -relative. Precisely. 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.719 That's exactly what I meant. Originally, a godsend 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:36.300 had absolutely nothing to do with spreading rumors 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:40.000 or idle talk. It was a noun, not a verb. It referred 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.400 to a specific person. And what person was that? 00:03:42.539 --> 00:03:45.439 A sponsor at a baptism. A godparent. A godparent. 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:48.819 So this was a title of incredible honor. Of the 00:03:48.819 --> 00:03:51.659 highest honor. It designated a spiritual kinship. 00:03:51.979 --> 00:03:54.020 If you are my God, Seb, you are my spiritual 00:03:54.020 --> 00:03:56.159 family. You are the person I trusted with my 00:03:56.159 --> 00:03:58.780 child's soul. And by extension, the word came 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:01.580 to mean a very, very close friend, someone you 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:04.060 trusted with your soul, essentially. So how on 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:07.319 earth do we get from person I trust with my soul 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:10.580 to person who talks trash behind my back? I mean, 00:04:10.599 --> 00:04:12.680 that is a tragic fall from grace for a word. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.639 It's a huge slide. And it's a slide that takes 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:17.759 a few hundred years. And it takes a very fascinating 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:21.040 detour through a very specific room in the house. 00:04:21.139 --> 00:04:23.620 Let me guess. The bedroom. The birthing room, 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:25.759 specifically. You have to contextualize this 00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:28.879 historically. For a massive chunk of human history, 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:31.540 before modern medicine, before sterile hospitals, 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:34.279 childbirth was an event that was exclusively 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:36.680 attended by women. Right. Men were not allowed. 00:04:36.899 --> 00:04:39.089 Absolutely not. Fathers were pacing outside, 00:04:39.329 --> 00:04:41.649 wringing their hands. But inside that room, it 00:04:41.649 --> 00:04:45.129 was a totally female domain. Okay. So a woman 00:04:45.129 --> 00:04:46.990 goes into labor. Who does she call? She doesn't 00:04:46.990 --> 00:04:49.550 call a doctor. She calls her godsibs. Her female 00:04:49.550 --> 00:04:51.850 relatives, her neighbors, her closest friends, 00:04:51.970 --> 00:04:53.850 these were the women who had gathered to help 00:04:53.850 --> 00:04:55.829 her deliver the baby. It's her support network. 00:04:55.970 --> 00:04:58.990 Her literal support network. But as anyone who 00:04:58.990 --> 00:05:00.970 has been through labor or been close to it knows, 00:05:01.189 --> 00:05:04.250 it is not a quick process. It can be days, long, 00:05:04.370 --> 00:05:07.170 agonizing, terrifying hours. Exactly. So you 00:05:07.170 --> 00:05:09.509 have a room full of close female friends locked 00:05:09.509 --> 00:05:12.589 away from the men for hours or even days on end. 00:05:12.810 --> 00:05:15.189 What do they do while they wait for nature to 00:05:15.189 --> 00:05:18.269 take its course? They talk. They talk. They share 00:05:18.269 --> 00:05:20.329 news. They talk about their husbands, their children, 00:05:20.389 --> 00:05:23.009 the community. They advise. They comfort. They 00:05:23.009 --> 00:05:25.920 bond. This environment, this gathering of the 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:29.199 gossips, was a support system. In the Middle 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:31.540 Ages, calling a woman a gossip was actually a 00:05:31.540 --> 00:05:33.860 term of endearment. It was what you called your 00:05:33.860 --> 00:05:36.779 close female friend. It meant warmth, support, 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:40.160 solidarity. That actually sounds beautiful. It 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:42.920 sounds like a sisterhood. Here come the gossips 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:44.540 to help me through the hardest, most dangerous 00:05:44.540 --> 00:05:47.759 thing I'll ever do. It was a sisterhood, a powerful 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.370 one. But this is where the sociology and the 00:05:50.370 --> 00:05:52.730 power dynamics come in. Because whenever you 00:05:52.730 --> 00:05:55.069 have a marginalized group, in this case women 00:05:55.069 --> 00:05:57.589 in a patriarchal society gathering in private, 00:05:57.689 --> 00:06:01.029 sharing information that the dominant group men 00:06:01.029 --> 00:06:03.550 cannot hear. It makes the dominant group nervous. 00:06:03.810 --> 00:06:06.029 It creates intense anxiety in the dominant group. 00:06:06.269 --> 00:06:08.930 So the men casing outside aren't just worried 00:06:08.930 --> 00:06:11.250 about the baby. They're worried about what is 00:06:11.250 --> 00:06:13.790 being said about them inside that locked room. 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:15.889 Exactly. They're thinking, what are they plotting 00:06:15.889 --> 00:06:18.480 in there? What secrets are they sharing? Language 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:21.079 evolves to reflect social power dynamics. And 00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:23.860 around the 16th century, we see the meaning of 00:06:23.860 --> 00:06:27.459 gossip start to shift. So the 1500s, the Tudor 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:30.040 era. Yes. The word shifts from describing the 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:31.920 person, the supportive friend, the godparent, 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:35.740 to describing a type of person. And the connotation 00:06:35.740 --> 00:06:38.759 just curdles. It starts to mean someone who delights 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:42.500 in idle talk, a newsmonger, a tattler, a woman 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:44.860 who talks too much. And it becomes gender coded. 00:06:44.920 --> 00:06:47.910 It becomes a female trait. Heavily. almost exclusively. 00:06:48.129 --> 00:06:50.730 By the 16th century, gossip is almost always 00:06:50.730 --> 00:06:53.110 applied to women. It becomes a caricature. You 00:06:53.110 --> 00:06:55.790 have the scold, the fish wife, the gossip. It 00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:58.430 was a way of demonizing female solidarity by 00:06:58.430 --> 00:07:00.149 framing their private supportive conversations 00:07:00.149 --> 00:07:03.939 as something trivial or worse. malicious. That 00:07:03.939 --> 00:07:06.220 is such a crucial reframe. It didn't start negative. 00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:09.800 It went from spiritual kin to annoying blabbermouth 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:12.100 almost entirely because men were nervous about 00:07:12.100 --> 00:07:13.519 what women were saying when they weren't around. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.519 That is the prevailing linguistic and sociological 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:19.639 theory. Yes. And then as we get into the 19th 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:23.120 century, the term extends even further. It stops 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.720 being just about the person and starts referring 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:28.509 to the conversation itself. the act of gossiping. 00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:30.230 And didn't Shakespeare have a hand in this? I 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:32.189 feel like he's always involved when words change 00:07:32.189 --> 00:07:34.889 meaning in English. He's always in the mix. The 00:07:34.889 --> 00:07:37.550 verb to gossip first appears in Shakespeare's 00:07:37.550 --> 00:07:40.230 work. He helps cement that transition from a 00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:43.769 noun, a person, to an action. But the key insight 00:07:43.769 --> 00:07:45.829 here, the thing to really hold on to, is that 00:07:45.829 --> 00:07:48.110 the history of the word gossip is in many ways 00:07:48.110 --> 00:07:50.670 the history of female friendship being rebranded 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:53.250 as a social vice. That puts a whole different 00:07:53.250 --> 00:07:55.889 spin on it. It really does. But, okay, even if 00:07:55.889 --> 00:07:57.810 the word itself was weaponized against women, 00:07:57.910 --> 00:08:00.629 the actual behavior of talking about people who 00:08:00.629 --> 00:08:02.589 aren't there, that's something everyone does. 00:08:02.649 --> 00:08:05.250 Men, women, everyone. Absolutely. Men gossip 00:08:05.250 --> 00:08:08.529 just as much, if not more, than women. The studies 00:08:08.529 --> 00:08:10.769 are very clear on that. The style might be different, 00:08:10.829 --> 00:08:12.850 but the frequency is there. So that brings us 00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:15.949 to the why. Why do we all do it? Because if it 00:08:15.949 --> 00:08:18.769 was just idle talk, if it had no real purpose, 00:08:18.829 --> 00:08:20.430 we would have stopped doing it a long, long time 00:08:20.430 --> 00:08:24.829 ago. Evolution is ruthlessly efficient. It doesn't 00:08:24.829 --> 00:08:27.009 keep behaviors that waste energy unless they 00:08:27.009 --> 00:08:29.949 serve a vital purpose. And that purpose is survival, 00:08:30.129 --> 00:08:33.350 which leads us directly to Robin Dunbar. Yes, 00:08:33.490 --> 00:08:35.929 the Dunbar number. And I love this theory because 00:08:35.929 --> 00:08:38.330 it involves monkeys and hygiene, which is always 00:08:38.330 --> 00:08:40.230 a great combination. It's the grooming theory 00:08:40.230 --> 00:08:43.269 of language. Robin Dunbar is a British anthropologist 00:08:43.269 --> 00:08:45.850 and evolutionary psychologist, and he was looking 00:08:45.850 --> 00:08:49.019 at our primate relatives. If you look at chimps 00:08:49.019 --> 00:08:52.340 or bonobos or baboons, how do they form and maintain 00:08:52.340 --> 00:08:54.679 social bonds? They pick lice off each other. 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:56.940 That's the image we all have. Right. Social grooming. 00:08:57.019 --> 00:08:59.779 They will sit there for hours, painstakingly 00:08:59.779 --> 00:09:01.639 picking through each other's fur, removing dirt, 00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:04.299 pulling out parasites. Now, it's hygienic, sure, 00:09:04.460 --> 00:09:07.879 but its primary function is social. How so? It 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:10.360 releases endorphins. It lowers the heart rate. 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:13.399 It builds trust. It's a profound act of intimacy. 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:16.200 It says, I am making myself vulnerable to you, 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:19.200 and I am caring for you. We are allies. So it's 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:21.779 the primate equivalent of a hug and a long, deep 00:09:21.779 --> 00:09:25.559 talk. Exactly. But here's the problem. Grooming 00:09:25.559 --> 00:09:28.000 is a one -on -one activity. You can only pick 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:31.230 lice off one monkey at a time. Maybe two if you're 00:09:31.230 --> 00:09:33.129 very skilled. And it takes forever. I've seen 00:09:33.129 --> 00:09:35.269 them at the zoo. It's an all -day affair. It 00:09:35.269 --> 00:09:38.769 is. So Dunbar calculated that for primates, the 00:09:38.769 --> 00:09:41.090 size of their social group is physically limited 00:09:41.090 --> 00:09:43.070 by how much time they have in the day to groom. 00:09:43.370 --> 00:09:46.029 If the group gets too big, you physically cannot 00:09:46.029 --> 00:09:48.269 groom everyone enough to maintain the bonds. 00:09:48.450 --> 00:09:51.110 The group fractures and falls apart. Okay, so 00:09:51.110 --> 00:09:54.210 enter humans. We started forming much, much bigger 00:09:54.210 --> 00:09:57.230 groups. Much bigger. Dunbar proposed that the 00:09:57.230 --> 00:09:59.809 natural human group size, the number of people 00:09:59.809 --> 00:10:02.370 we can maintain stable social relationships with, 00:10:02.470 --> 00:10:06.590 is about 150 people. This is the famous Dunbar's 00:10:06.590 --> 00:10:08.669 number. I've heard of this. It's like the size 00:10:08.669 --> 00:10:11.570 of a small village or a military company. Exactly. 00:10:12.059 --> 00:10:14.100 But then he did the math. To maintain social 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:16.580 bonds with 150 people through physical grooming, 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:19.019 the way our primate ancestors did, you would 00:10:19.019 --> 00:10:21.600 have to spend over 40 % of your waking hours 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:24.240 picking lice off people. Okay, let's just pause 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:26.980 on that number. 40%. If I'm awake for 16 hours, 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.399 that's over six and a half hours a day. Every 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:32.600 single day. Just grooming. I don't even have 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:34.580 time to go to the gym for 45 minutes. It's insane. 00:10:35.070 --> 00:10:37.610 It is metabolically and temporally impossible. 00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:39.950 We would starve to death because we'd be too 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:43.710 busy grooming to hunt or gather food. So nature 00:10:43.710 --> 00:10:46.750 had a bottleneck. We needed to maintain larger 00:10:46.750 --> 00:10:49.509 groups to survive, but our primary bonding tool 00:10:49.509 --> 00:10:52.629 was too slow. Nature had to invent a shortcut, 00:10:52.929 --> 00:10:55.870 a patch update, if you will, for the social brain. 00:10:56.090 --> 00:10:59.169 And that update was language. Specifically, language 00:10:59.169 --> 00:11:02.210 used for gossip. Gossip is, in Dunbar's framing, 00:11:02.529 --> 00:11:05.440 vocal grooming. It allows you to service your 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:07.860 social network exponentially faster and more 00:11:07.860 --> 00:11:09.960 efficiently. How is it more efficient? Well, 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:11.899 think about it. I can talk to three or four people 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:13.940 at once. I can't bring three or four people at 00:11:13.940 --> 00:11:16.539 once. You can talk while you're doing other things. 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:19.159 You can talk while you're hunting, while you're 00:11:19.159 --> 00:11:21.379 gathering food, while you're making tools. You 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:23.179 can even talk in the dark around a campfire. 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:26.139 It's an incredibly efficient bonding mechanism. 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:29.080 Instead of spending an hour picking lice to say, 00:11:29.159 --> 00:11:32.779 we are friends, I tell you a secret to say, We 00:11:32.779 --> 00:11:35.259 are friends. So when I lean in and tell you something 00:11:35.259 --> 00:11:38.620 juicy about someone else, biologically, I am 00:11:38.620 --> 00:11:40.740 metaphorically picking a bug off your shoulder. 00:11:41.379 --> 00:11:44.379 Precisely. You are signaling trust, you're signaling 00:11:44.379 --> 00:11:47.179 shared interest, and you are strengthening the 00:11:47.179 --> 00:11:50.039 social bond between the two of you at the expense 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:52.779 of a third party. And it goes even further than 00:11:52.779 --> 00:11:54.799 that. It's not just about bonding. It's about 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:57.440 data gathering. The reputation database. Yes. 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:00.299 If we could only learn about people through direct 00:12:00.299 --> 00:12:02.840 personal interaction, it would be incredibly 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:05.440 inefficient and dangerous. If I have to wait 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:07.559 until Bob the caveman steals my food to know 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:09.919 that Bob is a thief, well, I've already lost 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:11.580 my food. Right. Lesson learned the hard way. 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:14.419 But if you gossip to me around the fire and say, 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:17.179 hey, watch out for Bob, he steals food, I now 00:12:17.179 --> 00:12:20.120 have crucial survival data without taking any 00:12:20.120 --> 00:12:23.120 personal risk. I can navigate the complex social 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.460 world of our 150 -person tribe much more safely. 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.860 So gossip is basically a distributed cloud server 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:32.580 for reputation management, a way for the tribe 00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:35.019 to keep a shared spreadsheet on who's a good 00:12:35.019 --> 00:12:37.480 person and who's a jerk. That is a perfect modern 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:40.019 analogy. And Dunbar's research backs this up. 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.200 He and his teams analyzed conversations in public 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:46.019 places, and they found that even today, about 00:12:46.019 --> 00:12:49.100 65 % of all human conversation is devoted to 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:51.700 social topics. Two -thirds. Two -thirds of everything 00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:54.500 we say is about who is doing what with whom, 00:12:54.639 --> 00:12:57.039 who is trustworthy, who is not. That makes me 00:12:57.039 --> 00:12:58.919 feel like we haven't evolved as much as we think 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:01.259 we have. We're just monkeys with iPhones talking 00:13:01.259 --> 00:13:03.720 about the other monkeys. We absolutely are. But 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:06.200 there's a specific nuance to this wiring that 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:08.120 I found really, really disturbing in the research 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:11.299 notes. Anderson study oh this one really freaked 00:13:11.299 --> 00:13:12.799 me out this is the study that was published in 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:14.500 the journal science regarding something called 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:19.220 binocular rivalry yes This moves us from sociology 00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:22.779 and anthropology into hard neuroscience. This 00:13:22.779 --> 00:13:24.840 is about how your brain is physically built. 00:13:25.019 --> 00:13:27.320 So help me understand the setup here, because 00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:30.360 binocular rivalry sounds like a war between my 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:32.200 eyes. That is essentially what it is. It's a 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:35.620 very clever lab technique. Usually your two eyes 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:38.480 work together perfectly to create one seamless 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:41.759 3D image of the world. But in a lab, you can 00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:43.919 rig it so that your left eye sees one image, 00:13:44.059 --> 00:13:47.000 say a picture of a house, and your right eye... 00:13:47.129 --> 00:13:49.330 at the exact same time, sees a totally different 00:13:49.330 --> 00:13:51.950 image, say, a picture of a human face. And the 00:13:51.950 --> 00:13:54.269 brain just can't handle seeing both at once. 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:56.789 It can't merge them. No, it confuses the visual 00:13:56.789 --> 00:13:59.029 cortex. So the brain does something amazing. 00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:01.610 It toddles, it suppresses one image and shows 00:14:01.610 --> 00:14:03.049 you the other. You'll see the house for a few 00:14:03.049 --> 00:14:04.850 seconds, then pop, it disappears and you see 00:14:04.850 --> 00:14:07.169 the face, then back to the house. It's a rivalry 00:14:07.169 --> 00:14:09.750 for your conscious attention. Okay, so your brain 00:14:09.750 --> 00:14:11.649 is flipping a coin. Where does the gossip come 00:14:11.649 --> 00:14:14.009 into this? This is the genius of the experiment. 00:14:14.730 --> 00:14:17.289 The researchers showed participants a series 00:14:17.289 --> 00:14:20.330 of faces. But before the experiment, they told 00:14:20.330 --> 00:14:22.350 the participants little bits of gossip about 00:14:22.350 --> 00:14:24.549 the people in the photos. Some of the gossip 00:14:24.549 --> 00:14:27.649 was neutral. This guy walked to the store. Some 00:14:27.649 --> 00:14:30.029 of it was positive. This guy helped an elderly 00:14:30.029 --> 00:14:32.629 woman carry her groceries. And some of it was 00:14:32.629 --> 00:14:35.250 negative. This guy threw a chair at his neighbor 00:14:35.250 --> 00:14:38.309 in a fit of rage. Okay. So I have these positive, 00:14:38.389 --> 00:14:40.909 negative, and neutral biases loaded into my brain. 00:14:41.029 --> 00:14:42.850 Then they put me in the machine. They put you 00:14:42.850 --> 00:14:44.590 in the machine. They show one of those faces 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:46.669 to one eye and the picture of the house to the 00:14:46.669 --> 00:14:50.370 other eye. And they measured very precisely how 00:14:50.370 --> 00:14:53.549 long the brain chose to focus on each face when 00:14:53.549 --> 00:14:55.289 it was fighting with the house image for dominance. 00:14:55.629 --> 00:14:59.269 And let me guess. The bad faces won. The chair 00:14:59.269 --> 00:15:02.039 throwers. By a landslide. The faces that had 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.240 been associated with negative gossip dominated 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:06.860 the subject's visual consciousness for a significantly 00:15:06.860 --> 00:15:09.460 longer period of time than the faces associated 00:15:09.460 --> 00:15:11.720 with positive or neutral gossip. Wait, I want 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:13.440 to really make sure I get the implication of 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.460 this. This isn't just I paid more attention to 00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:18.980 the bad guy. You're saying my eyes, my brain's 00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:22.080 actual visual processing physically held the 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:25.000 image of the bad guy longer. It refused to let 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:28.320 it go. Yes. Your brain prioritized the processing 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.309 of the negative social threat. It literally forced 00:15:31.309 --> 00:15:34.470 you to see the bad guy more than the good guy 00:15:34.470 --> 00:15:37.250 or the neutral guy. Yeah. It deemed that information 00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:40.000 more important for your survival. That is absolutely 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.679 wild. It explains so much about modern media. 00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.000 It explains why I can't look away from a Twitter 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.519 feud or a political scandal. My brain isn't being 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:49.840 petty. It thinks it's keeping me alive. Exactly. 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:52.379 In the ancestral environment, knowing who the 00:15:52.379 --> 00:15:54.720 aggressor is in the tribe keeps you safe. Knowing 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:56.860 who the nice guy is. Well, that's pleasant, but 00:15:56.860 --> 00:15:59.240 it's optional information. Knowing who the chair 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.340 thrower is is mandatory for survival. We are 00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:05.299 biologically fundamentally prioritized to seek 00:16:05.299 --> 00:16:08.039 out and focus on negative gossip. So we're hardwired 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:10.559 for negativity. That is deeply depressing, but 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:12.860 also very validating for my media habits. And 00:16:12.860 --> 00:16:15.480 it creates a powerful mechanism for social regulation. 00:16:16.259 --> 00:16:19.539 And this leads to this concept of the invisible 00:16:19.539 --> 00:16:22.340 fence. Right. Because if we are all hyper aware 00:16:22.340 --> 00:16:25.360 of who the bad guys are, that changes how everyone 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.379 behaves. Gossip enforces group morality by talking 00:16:29.379 --> 00:16:32.309 about bad behavior. The group collaboratively 00:16:32.309 --> 00:16:35.389 defines what good behavior is. If you know that 00:16:35.389 --> 00:16:37.149 everyone in the tribe is going to whisper about 00:16:37.149 --> 00:16:39.929 you for weeks, if you cheat on your taxes or 00:16:39.929 --> 00:16:42.509 cheat on your spouse, you are less likely to 00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:46.149 do it. It's a deterrent. So gossip is, it's the 00:16:46.149 --> 00:16:49.570 police, the social police. It is a low -cost, 00:16:49.590 --> 00:16:53.070 decentralized police force. Think about it. Direct 00:16:53.070 --> 00:16:55.529 confrontation is metabolically and physically 00:16:55.529 --> 00:16:58.029 expensive. Yeah. If I see you stealing and I 00:16:58.029 --> 00:17:00.090 confront you directly, you might punch me in 00:17:00.090 --> 00:17:02.110 the face. That's a high risk. I could get hurt. 00:17:02.269 --> 00:17:04.109 But if I gossip about you to the rest of the 00:17:04.109 --> 00:17:06.490 group, I can damage your reputation, get you 00:17:06.490 --> 00:17:09.029 ostracized, and correct your behavior, or at 00:17:09.029 --> 00:17:11.589 least warn everyone else, without ever risking 00:17:11.589 --> 00:17:13.869 a physical fight. It's a much safer way to enforce 00:17:13.869 --> 00:17:16.089 the rules. That makes it sound almost noble. 00:17:16.230 --> 00:17:18.910 It sounds pro -social. I'm not being mean. I'm 00:17:18.910 --> 00:17:21.460 just protecting the tribe. In a purely evolutionary 00:17:21.460 --> 00:17:24.279 context, it is pro -social. It serves the group. 00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:28.970 But, and here's the giant crucial pivot. When 00:17:28.970 --> 00:17:31.269 you take that Stone Age mechanism that was designed 00:17:31.269 --> 00:17:33.990 for a small, tight -knit tribe and you drop it 00:17:33.990 --> 00:17:36.670 into a modern, fluorescent -lit, open -plan office, 00:17:36.970 --> 00:17:40.250 it stops being noble and it starts being incredibly 00:17:40.250 --> 00:17:42.569 toxic. Let's talk about the workplace battlefield 00:17:42.569 --> 00:17:44.769 because this is where I think most of us actually 00:17:44.769 --> 00:17:47.329 encounter gossip in its most potent form. It's 00:17:47.329 --> 00:17:49.509 not about survival anymore. It's about power 00:17:49.509 --> 00:17:52.170 and politics. The modern workplace is a unique 00:17:52.170 --> 00:17:54.710 petri dish because it's a forced social group. 00:17:54.750 --> 00:17:57.799 You don't choose your coworkers. But your livelihood, 00:17:57.980 --> 00:18:00.420 your ability to pay your rent, depends entirely 00:18:00.420 --> 00:18:03.039 on navigating them successfully. And the source 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:05.420 material here uses some very, very strong language. 00:18:05.740 --> 00:18:08.720 One of the experts, Peter Vajda, calls workplace 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:11.220 gossip a form of violence. Workplace violence. 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:13.500 Now, I have to push back on that a little bit. 00:18:13.619 --> 00:18:16.160 Violence, I mean, real violence involves fists 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:18.819 or weapons. Calling a whisper by the water cooler 00:18:18.819 --> 00:18:20.619 violence feels like we're diluting the word, 00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:22.819 doesn't it? I thought so, too, initially. It 00:18:22.819 --> 00:18:24.400 sounds like hyperbole. It sounds like something 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:27.009 from an HR seminar. But let's look at his argument 00:18:27.009 --> 00:18:30.670 more closely. He argues that violence is any 00:18:30.670 --> 00:18:33.789 act that violates the integrity or safety of 00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:35.869 a person. OK, that's a broad definition, but 00:18:35.869 --> 00:18:38.430 I'll go with it. If I punch you, I damage your 00:18:38.430 --> 00:18:40.450 physical safety. We all agree that's violence. 00:18:40.910 --> 00:18:44.069 But if I run a subtle six month smear campaign 00:18:44.069 --> 00:18:46.990 against you that destroys your professional reputation, 00:18:47.329 --> 00:18:49.869 gets you passed over for a promotion, gets you 00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:52.990 fired and makes you essentially unemployable 00:18:52.990 --> 00:18:56.599 in your industry. Have I not damaged your safety? 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:00.380 Have I not, in a very real way, taken food out 00:19:00.380 --> 00:19:02.200 of your mouth and your family's mouth? Wouldn't 00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:04.259 you put it that way? Yeah. If you destroy my 00:19:04.259 --> 00:19:06.640 ability to pay my mortgage, that is an attack 00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:09.740 on my fundamental security, my survival. Exactly. 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:12.980 It is a psychological and economic assault. It 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:16.019 empowers the gossiper while completely disempowering 00:19:16.019 --> 00:19:18.539 the target. It's an asymmetric attack, and that's 00:19:18.539 --> 00:19:20.359 what makes it so insidious. And it's insidious 00:19:20.359 --> 00:19:22.339 because often the target doesn't even know it's 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:25.380 happening until it's too late. That is the behind 00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:28.380 -the -back attacker concept from Turner and Weed's 00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:30.799 research. They argue it's the most dangerous 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.480 type of workplace conflict. If you scream at 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:35.579 me in a meeting, at least I know where we stand, 00:19:35.859 --> 00:19:38.460 I can see the threat. I can defend myself. Right. 00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:40.880 I can scream back. Or I can go to HR. It's out 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:44.079 in the open. But if you systematically undermine 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:47.160 me to our boss over the course of six months, 00:19:47.339 --> 00:19:50.380 smiling to my face the whole time, and I only 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:52.890 find out when I get the pink slip. I never had 00:19:52.890 --> 00:19:54.529 a chance to defend myself. I was shot in the 00:19:54.529 --> 00:19:57.869 back. That is why it feels like a profound violation. 00:19:58.250 --> 00:20:00.470 So let's break down the why in the office. Because 00:20:00.470 --> 00:20:02.269 people aren't just doing this because they're 00:20:02.269 --> 00:20:04.410 evil. They're getting something out of it. The 00:20:04.410 --> 00:20:06.529 research we looked at lists the four powers of 00:20:06.529 --> 00:20:09.509 the gossiper. I found this matrix really, really 00:20:09.509 --> 00:20:11.789 helpful to spot what's actually happening in 00:20:11.789 --> 00:20:13.750 a meeting or on a Slack channel. It helps you 00:20:13.750 --> 00:20:16.490 decode the political game being played. The first 00:20:16.490 --> 00:20:19.950 one is the most obvious. Coercive power. This 00:20:19.950 --> 00:20:22.309 is the mean girls dynamic, right? Fear -based 00:20:22.309 --> 00:20:25.609 power. Essentially. The listener hears the gossiper 00:20:25.609 --> 00:20:28.250 tearing Susan from accounting apart and thinks, 00:20:28.329 --> 00:20:30.569 if they're tearing Susan apart to me, they will 00:20:30.569 --> 00:20:32.430 tear me apart to someone else if I cross them. 00:20:33.170 --> 00:20:35.670 The gossiper holds a threat over you. You have 00:20:35.670 --> 00:20:37.509 to stay on their good side to avoid becoming 00:20:37.509 --> 00:20:39.930 the next target. It's a kind of social hostage 00:20:39.930 --> 00:20:43.589 situation. Laugh at my jokes about Susan or you're 00:20:43.589 --> 00:20:46.049 next on the chopping block. Correct. Then on 00:20:46.049 --> 00:20:48.690 the flip side, you have reward power. This is 00:20:48.690 --> 00:20:51.460 the carrot. not the stick. The listener thinks, 00:20:51.619 --> 00:20:54.099 if I'm in this person's inner circle, they can 00:20:54.099 --> 00:20:56.019 help me. They can speak well of me to the right 00:20:56.019 --> 00:20:58.940 people. Being your friend has benefits. I'll 00:20:58.940 --> 00:21:01.019 scratch your back if you scratch mine. It's about 00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:04.160 alliance building. Yes. Then there is expert 00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:06.380 power. And this is a really interesting one. 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:09.359 This is purely about information. In so many 00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:11.259 companies, the official communication channels 00:21:11.259 --> 00:21:14.019 are slow. or their sanitized corporate speak. 00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:16.140 Oh, totally. The official company email says, 00:21:16.299 --> 00:21:18.740 we're undergoing a strategic restructuring, but 00:21:18.740 --> 00:21:20.980 the gossip on the grapevine says, layoffs are 00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:23.619 starting on the third floor on Tuesday. Exactly. 00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:26.759 The person who knows the real story, who has 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:30.019 the inside scoop, has expert power. They become 00:21:30.019 --> 00:21:32.200 the go -to source for what's actually happening. 00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:34.880 They hold the keys to the truth, and that gives 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:38.099 them immense influence. And the last one. This 00:21:38.099 --> 00:21:40.960 one felt the most complex. Referent power? It's 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:43.509 the trickiest one. Because it's about status 00:21:43.509 --> 00:21:47.109 and identity. Being in the loop makes you feel 00:21:47.109 --> 00:21:50.210 special. If the CEO's executive assistant pulls 00:21:50.210 --> 00:21:52.390 you aside and whispers a secret about an upcoming 00:21:52.390 --> 00:21:55.369 merger, you feel elevated. You feel like an insider. 00:21:55.789 --> 00:21:58.170 That gives the gossiper power over your self 00:21:58.170 --> 00:22:00.430 -esteem. But there's a trap here, right? Because 00:22:00.430 --> 00:22:02.950 while I might feel special in that moment hearing 00:22:02.950 --> 00:22:05.849 the secret, do I actually trust the person telling 00:22:05.849 --> 00:22:08.750 me more or do I trust them less? That is the 00:22:08.750 --> 00:22:10.690 great paradox of the gospel, and we'll get to 00:22:10.690 --> 00:22:12.890 that later. But in the moment, yes, it feels 00:22:12.890 --> 00:22:15.349 like power. It feels like inclusion. For managers, 00:22:15.450 --> 00:22:17.529 though, this whole dynamic is a complete nightmare. 00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:19.829 And yet I was surprised to see that some middle 00:22:19.829 --> 00:22:22.349 managers actually seem to prefer the grapevine 00:22:22.349 --> 00:22:25.190 to official channels. It's the managerial dilemma. 00:22:25.799 --> 00:22:28.519 A study by Harcourt, Richardson, and Wattier 00:22:28.519 --> 00:22:31.019 found that many middle managers secretly believe 00:22:31.019 --> 00:22:33.880 the grapevine is faster, more detailed, and more 00:22:33.880 --> 00:22:36.720 honest than official reports from upstairs. If 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:39.339 you want to know if team morale is actually low, 00:22:39.579 --> 00:22:42.960 don't read the sanitized HR survey. Listen to 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:44.839 what people are saying in the lunchroom. It's 00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:47.920 a fine line they have to walk. If you, as a manager, 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.480 participate too much in the gossip, you lose 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:54.240 respect and authority. But if you ignore it completely... 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:56.329 You lose touch with the reality of your own team. 00:22:56.490 --> 00:22:59.109 You become the last to know. So we've covered 00:22:59.109 --> 00:23:01.529 the deep biological wiring and the modern office 00:23:01.529 --> 00:23:04.009 politics. But I want to go deeper still. I want 00:23:04.009 --> 00:23:06.150 to talk about the morality of this. Because it 00:23:06.150 --> 00:23:08.890 feels like every major religion and ethical system 00:23:08.890 --> 00:23:11.430 on the planet has a very, very strong opinion 00:23:11.430 --> 00:23:14.650 on gossip. They do. And this is Section 4, The 00:23:14.650 --> 00:23:17.490 Ethics of the Tongue. And what I was struck by 00:23:17.490 --> 00:23:19.910 is how visceral and powerful the imagery is. 00:23:19.950 --> 00:23:21.690 We aren't just talking about bad manners here. 00:23:21.769 --> 00:23:24.529 We're talking about a kind of spiritual rot. 00:23:24.750 --> 00:23:26.710 Let's start with Judaism. I was reading about 00:23:26.710 --> 00:23:29.690 the concept of Lashon Hara. Yes, Lashon Hara, 00:23:29.809 --> 00:23:33.230 which translates to the evil tongue. Now, I always 00:23:33.230 --> 00:23:35.829 assumed that the sin of gossip was fundamentally 00:23:35.829 --> 00:23:39.049 about lying. You know, thou shalt not bear false 00:23:39.049 --> 00:23:42.009 witness, slander, spreading things that aren't 00:23:42.009 --> 00:23:44.509 true. That's the common misconception, and it's 00:23:44.509 --> 00:23:47.250 a really important distinction. Slander, which 00:23:47.250 --> 00:23:51.210 is lying, is forbidden. But Lashon Hara is distinct. 00:23:51.650 --> 00:23:55.690 It refers to speech that is derogatory or damaging 00:23:55.690 --> 00:23:58.650 to another person, even if it is 100 % true. 00:23:58.829 --> 00:24:00.960 Wait, hold on. Say that again. Even if it's true. 00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:03.579 Yes. In this ethical framework, truth is not 00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:05.740 a defense. But that goes against everything in 00:24:05.740 --> 00:24:08.019 our modern Western sense of justice. I'm just 00:24:08.019 --> 00:24:10.980 telling the truth is our go -to defense for everything. 00:24:11.420 --> 00:24:13.400 Judaism argues that the truth of the statement 00:24:13.400 --> 00:24:16.359 doesn't justify the damage it does to human dignity. 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:18.779 If I tell everyone in our community that you 00:24:18.779 --> 00:24:21.220 struggled with a gambling debt 10 years ago and 00:24:21.220 --> 00:24:23.779 it's completely true, what good purpose does 00:24:23.779 --> 00:24:25.960 that serve now? It only serves to humble you, 00:24:26.019 --> 00:24:28.019 to shame you, to damage your current standing. 00:24:28.460 --> 00:24:31.160 The fact that it's true. in a way, makes it more 00:24:31.160 --> 00:24:33.660 damaging, not less, because you can't deny it. 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.660 That is a really, really high bar. It demands 00:24:36.660 --> 00:24:40.880 that we ask not just, is this true, but is this 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:43.680 necessary? Is this helpful? Precisely. The proverb 00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:46.440 quoted in the source text is just perfect. The 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:49.099 words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They 00:24:49.099 --> 00:24:51.920 go down to a man's innermost parts. Choice morsels. 00:24:51.980 --> 00:24:54.039 That is such a perfect description of what it 00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:55.900 feels like. It feels like a delicious forbidden 00:24:55.900 --> 00:24:59.559 piece of candy. It satisfies a hunger. But the 00:24:59.559 --> 00:25:01.680 question is, what kind of hunger is it? And the 00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:03.720 text suggests it's a dirty hunger. And then we 00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:06.359 move to Islam and the imagery gets even more 00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:08.799 intense, even more graphic. It gets horrific, 00:25:08.920 --> 00:25:11.900 honestly. In the Quran, the act of backbiting. 00:25:12.140 --> 00:25:14.880 which is known as giba, is equated to, and this 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:17.059 is a direct quote, eating the flesh of one's 00:25:17.059 --> 00:25:18.839 dead brother. Okay, that just stops you in your 00:25:18.839 --> 00:25:20.619 tracks. Eating the flesh of one's dead brother. 00:25:20.700 --> 00:25:22.960 What? Dead brother. What's the significance of 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:25.140 that detail? It's a brilliant and chilling metaphor 00:25:25.140 --> 00:25:28.000 for cowardice and violation. Why a dead brother? 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:30.200 Because a dead person cannot defend themselves. 00:25:30.519 --> 00:25:34.960 They are absent. They are helpless. When you 00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.240 gossip about someone who isn't in the room, they 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:41.180 are functionally dead to that conversation. They 00:25:41.180 --> 00:25:43.700 cannot explain the context. They cannot apologize. 00:25:43.859 --> 00:25:46.220 They cannot offer their side of the story. You 00:25:46.220 --> 00:25:49.220 are tearing apart their honor, their flesh, while 00:25:49.220 --> 00:25:51.859 they lie there, absent and helpless. That really 00:25:51.859 --> 00:25:53.920 strips away any of the fun of it, doesn't it? 00:25:53.980 --> 00:25:56.980 It frames the gossiper not as a witty in -the 00:25:56.980 --> 00:26:00.359 -know observer, but as a coward who attacks a 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:03.640 corpse, a cannibal. It frames it as a profound 00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:05.839 violation of the sanctity of the human being. 00:26:06.459 --> 00:26:08.660 And then Christianity has similar prohibitions. 00:26:08.660 --> 00:26:11.740 The Apostle Paul in Romans lists whisperers and 00:26:11.740 --> 00:26:14.119 backbiters in the same list as murderers and 00:26:14.119 --> 00:26:16.339 haters of God. That's pretty serious company 00:26:16.339 --> 00:26:18.680 to be in. It is. And the Baha 'ian faith takes 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:20.660 it even further, if that's possible. What did 00:26:20.660 --> 00:26:22.940 they say? They call it the worst human quality 00:26:22.940 --> 00:26:24.839 and the most great sin. And the quote that stuck 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:27.380 with me is, backbiting quencheth the light of 00:26:27.380 --> 00:26:29.900 the heart. It suggests that when you speak ill 00:26:29.900 --> 00:26:32.160 of others, you aren't just hurting them. You 00:26:32.160 --> 00:26:34.099 are dimming your own spiritual light. You are 00:26:34.099 --> 00:26:36.920 actively damaging your own soul. So we have this 00:26:36.920 --> 00:26:39.619 near universal condemnation from the world's 00:26:39.619 --> 00:26:42.380 great ethical traditions. It's bad, it's cowardly, 00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:46.859 it's spiritual poison. But then, just as I was 00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:48.640 getting comfortable with that idea, the research 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:52.339 notes threw a massive curveball at me. The blackmail 00:26:52.339 --> 00:26:56.359 paradox. Ah, yes. Walter Block. This is the philosophical 00:26:56.359 --> 00:26:58.779 hand grenade. It really is. I had to read the 00:26:58.779 --> 00:27:00.740 section twice because my brain just rejected 00:27:00.740 --> 00:27:03.880 it at first. So Block, who is a libertarian economist 00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:06.940 and philosopher, argues that the blackmailer, 00:27:06.940 --> 00:27:09.720 a criminal, is ethically superior to the gossip. 00:27:09.940 --> 00:27:13.180 Correct. Not just not as badass, but actually. 00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:15.619 objectively superior. That makes absolutely no 00:27:15.619 --> 00:27:17.759 sense on the surface. Blackmail is illegal. I 00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:19.700 can go to jail for it. Gosping is just annoying. 00:27:20.039 --> 00:27:22.779 It's a bad habit. How can the actual criminal 00:27:22.779 --> 00:27:24.839 be the better person? It all comes down to one 00:27:24.839 --> 00:27:27.839 crucial word, agency. Oh, hey, walk me through 00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:30.569 the logic. Okay. Let's set up a scenario. Imagine 00:27:30.569 --> 00:27:33.410 I know a terrible reputation -destroying secret 00:27:33.410 --> 00:27:35.549 about you. I am the blackmailer. I come to you 00:27:35.549 --> 00:27:37.670 privately and I say, I know what you did. Pay 00:27:37.670 --> 00:27:40.549 me $5 ,000 or I will tell everyone. Okay. I hate 00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:41.930 you. You're extorting me, but I'm listening. 00:27:42.049 --> 00:27:45.789 In that transaction, as vile as it is, I am giving 00:27:45.789 --> 00:27:48.970 you a choice. I am giving you the option to buy 00:27:48.970 --> 00:27:51.829 my silence. You can perform a cost -benefit analysis. 00:27:52.109 --> 00:27:54.710 Is keeping this secret worth $5 ,000 to you? 00:27:55.089 --> 00:27:58.069 You have agency. You have a chance to control 00:27:58.069 --> 00:28:00.569 the outcome and stop the information from getting 00:28:00.569 --> 00:28:03.529 out. Okay. I see that. I have a choice, however 00:28:03.529 --> 00:28:07.509 terrible. Now let's reset. Imagine I am the gossip. 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:10.289 I know the exact same secret. I don't ask you 00:28:10.289 --> 00:28:11.930 for anything. I just go to the office party on 00:28:11.930 --> 00:28:14.369 Friday night and over drinks I tell everyone. 00:28:14.490 --> 00:28:17.230 For free. Just for the thrill of it. And my life 00:28:17.230 --> 00:28:19.710 and career blow up? Your life blows up. You had 00:28:19.710 --> 00:28:22.130 no warning. You had no chance to stop it. You 00:28:22.130 --> 00:28:24.170 were given zero agency in the destruction of 00:28:24.170 --> 00:28:26.759 your own reputation. The gossip unilaterally 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:28.859 decided to ruin your life without giving you 00:28:28.859 --> 00:28:31.299 a vote. So Block is saying the gossip is an ambush, 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:33.920 a unilateral attack, while the blackmailer is 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:36.940 a negotiation. Yes. He argues that the blackmailer 00:28:36.940 --> 00:28:39.299 is at least engaging in a perverse form of voluntary 00:28:39.299 --> 00:28:42.019 transaction, whereas the gossip is engaging in 00:28:42.019 --> 00:28:44.960 pure, unadulterated destruction. That is, it's 00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:48.640 logically sound, but it feels morally repulsive. 00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:51.359 I still feel like the blackmailer is worse because 00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:53.500 he's trying to profit from my pain. And that's 00:28:53.500 --> 00:28:56.259 a valid counterargument. But Bloch's point isn't 00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:58.940 necessarily to defend the blackmailer. His point 00:28:58.940 --> 00:29:02.240 is to force us to ask, why do we treat the gossip 00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:05.740 so lightly? Why is this person, who destroys 00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:08.619 lives without warning and for no reason other 00:29:08.619 --> 00:29:10.779 than their own entertainment, just dismissed 00:29:10.779 --> 00:29:13.460 with light contempt as having a bad habit? It's 00:29:13.460 --> 00:29:16.180 a challenge to our entire categorization of harmless 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:19.079 sins versus actual crimes. Precisely. It shakes 00:29:19.079 --> 00:29:21.140 things up. Okay, let's pivot again. Because we've 00:29:21.140 --> 00:29:23.779 thoroughly bashed gossip as a spiritual sin and 00:29:23.779 --> 00:29:26.519 a workplace weapon. But there is another lens 00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:29.559 here. A lens where gossip isn't a vice at all. 00:29:29.740 --> 00:29:32.440 It's actually a tool of resistance. This is section 00:29:32.440 --> 00:29:35.680 five. The feminist perspective. And this is so 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:37.579 crucial because as we discussed right at the 00:29:37.579 --> 00:29:40.059 start, gossip has been historically branded as 00:29:40.059 --> 00:29:42.279 a woman's vice. Feminist scholars like Deborah 00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:44.519 Jones come along and say, OK, let's lean into 00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:46.440 that. Let's look at why it became a female domain. 00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:49.119 If you are locked out of all the official channels 00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:51.700 of power, what do you do? Where does your power 00:29:51.700 --> 00:29:55.380 come from? Exactly. For centuries, for millennia, 00:29:55.380 --> 00:29:57.440 women were excluded from the public sphere. They 00:29:57.440 --> 00:29:59.359 couldn't be politicians. They couldn't be judges. 00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:01.819 They couldn't be priests. They had no formal 00:30:01.819 --> 00:30:04.759 institutional power. So where did they exercise 00:30:04.759 --> 00:30:09.519 influence? In the private sphere. Through talk. 00:30:09.819 --> 00:30:12.599 Through their networks. So gossip was their political 00:30:12.599 --> 00:30:15.339 channel, their news network, their judicial system. 00:30:15.539 --> 00:30:18.839 It was. Jones calls it a female cultural event. 00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:22.220 It was a way to create and enforce social norms 00:30:22.220 --> 00:30:24.019 in a world where they couldn't write the laws. 00:30:24.180 --> 00:30:26.079 It was a way to validate their own experiences. 00:30:26.539 --> 00:30:29.000 If a husband was abusive, but the law wouldn't 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.200 do anything about it, the women would talk. They 00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:33.140 would warn each other, stay away from him, make 00:30:33.140 --> 00:30:35.079 sure you're never alone with him, let's all support 00:30:35.079 --> 00:30:37.960 his wife. It was a survival network. And sometimes 00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:40.299 it was more than just talk, right? The source 00:30:40.299 --> 00:30:43.180 material mentions rough music, which sounds like 00:30:43.180 --> 00:30:45.380 a punk band from the 80s, but I gather it was 00:30:45.380 --> 00:30:47.440 something else entirely in early modern England. 00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:52.119 Rough music, or the Skimmington Ride. This is 00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:54.869 a fascinating piece of social history. This is 00:30:54.869 --> 00:30:57.029 when gossip wasn't just whispering. It could 00:30:57.029 --> 00:30:59.930 mobilize into a full -blown public ritual. A 00:30:59.930 --> 00:31:03.069 riot, basically. A riot based on gossip? Yes. 00:31:03.150 --> 00:31:05.569 If a member of the community was seen to be violating 00:31:05.569 --> 00:31:08.809 important social norms, say, a husband was known 00:31:08.809 --> 00:31:11.269 to be beating his wife, or a couple was engaged 00:31:11.269 --> 00:31:14.190 in open adultery, the community would take matters 00:31:14.190 --> 00:31:16.809 into their own hands. often led by the gossips, 00:31:16.829 --> 00:31:18.910 the women of the village. They would gather outside 00:31:18.910 --> 00:31:20.769 the offender's house at night. They'd bang pots 00:31:20.769 --> 00:31:22.549 and pans. They'd blow horns. They would sing 00:31:22.549 --> 00:31:25.329 lewd, insulting songs detailing the person's 00:31:25.329 --> 00:31:27.750 transgressions. They would parade an effigy of 00:31:27.750 --> 00:31:30.130 the person through the street. So it was weaponized 00:31:30.130 --> 00:31:32.490 public shaming orchestrated by the community. 00:31:32.730 --> 00:31:35.269 It was extrajudicial justice. The official male 00:31:35.269 --> 00:31:37.609 -dominated legal system might not punish the 00:31:37.609 --> 00:31:40.029 abuser, but the gossips would. They would use 00:31:40.029 --> 00:31:42.769 noise and shame and social pressure to make his 00:31:42.769 --> 00:31:45.150 life absolutely miserable until he changed his 00:31:45.150 --> 00:31:47.450 behavior. There's this incredible story in the 00:31:47.450 --> 00:31:49.849 notes that illustrates this perfectly. The Tale 00:31:49.849 --> 00:31:52.289 of the Walking Mort. The Tale of the Walking 00:31:52.289 --> 00:31:56.349 Mort. This is from a 1566 book by a man named 00:31:56.349 --> 00:31:58.549 Thomas Harmon. It's an amazing little snapshot. 00:31:58.849 --> 00:32:01.289 So set the scene for us. What is a walking mort? 00:32:01.430 --> 00:32:05.309 Okay. A walking mort. was 16th century slang 00:32:05.309 --> 00:32:10.289 for a female wanderer. A vagrant, a beggar woman. 00:32:10.470 --> 00:32:12.910 So this woman, let's just call her the mort, 00:32:13.130 --> 00:32:16.930 is propositioned by a local farmer. He asks her 00:32:16.930 --> 00:32:19.349 to meet him in his barn later that night. For 00:32:19.349 --> 00:32:21.970 an illicit date. A very illicit date. The farmer 00:32:21.970 --> 00:32:24.329 thinks he's getting lucky. He sneaks out of his 00:32:24.329 --> 00:32:26.809 house, away from his wife, and heads to the barn, 00:32:26.930 --> 00:32:29.230 probably feeling very pleased with himself. But 00:32:29.230 --> 00:32:31.589 the mort has a conscience. Or maybe a better 00:32:31.589 --> 00:32:34.009 plan. She has a much better plan. She doesn't 00:32:34.009 --> 00:32:35.869 go to the barn. She goes straight to the farmer's 00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:37.450 wife. She tells her everything. Your husband 00:32:37.450 --> 00:32:38.970 asked me to meet him in the barn at this time? 00:32:39.049 --> 00:32:41.589 She gossips. So the wife decides to rally the 00:32:41.589 --> 00:32:43.809 troops. She rallies the gossips. The text says 00:32:43.809 --> 00:32:46.990 she gathers five furious, sturdy, muffled gossips. 00:32:47.130 --> 00:32:49.630 I just love the word sturdy. These aren't fragile 00:32:49.630 --> 00:32:52.069 flowers. These are strong, capable women. And 00:32:52.069 --> 00:32:54.509 muffled, so they're in disguise. Or just being 00:32:54.509 --> 00:32:58.450 quiet. Likely. They're on a covert mission. So 00:32:58.450 --> 00:33:01.240 the farmer walks into the dark barn. He sees 00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:03.619 a figure he thinks is the mort. He drops his 00:33:03.619 --> 00:33:07.240 trousers. The text says his hosen. Oh, no. This 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.779 is not going to end well for him. And suddenly, 00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:12.640 the trap is sprung. He is jumped by six angry 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:16.059 women, his wife and her five sturdy gossips. 00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:18.579 And they proceed to give him a severe beating 00:33:18.579 --> 00:33:21.819 while his pants are literally down around his 00:33:21.819 --> 00:33:25.400 ankles. Justice is served. Cold, hard justice. 00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:28.599 But look at the function of the story. The gossips 00:33:28.599 --> 00:33:31.220 here are the heroes. They aren't malicious troublemakers. 00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:33.759 They are the upholders of the sanctity of marriage. 00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:36.259 They are the community's police force, correcting 00:33:36.259 --> 00:33:38.720 the bad behavior of the errant husband when no 00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:41.019 one else would. It completely flips the script. 00:33:41.279 --> 00:33:42.980 We usually think of gossip as something that 00:33:42.980 --> 00:33:45.500 breaks up homes, but here, the network of women's 00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:47.559 gossip actually protected the home from an internal 00:33:47.559 --> 00:33:50.039 threat. It shows that gossip can be a powerful 00:33:50.039 --> 00:33:52.920 check on power, especially on patriarchal power. 00:33:53.140 --> 00:33:55.039 It keeps people honest when they think no one 00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:57.460 is watching. It reminds me so much of the whisper 00:33:57.460 --> 00:33:59.259 networks we heard about during the height of 00:33:59.259 --> 00:34:02.339 the hashtag MeToo movement. Women in Hollywood 00:34:02.339 --> 00:34:05.480 or in tech or in publishing quietly warning other 00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:07.900 women about dangerous, powerful men in their 00:34:07.900 --> 00:34:10.880 industry because HR and the legal system wouldn't 00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:13.780 do anything. That is the exact modern equivalent 00:34:13.780 --> 00:34:16.599 of the God -civ network. When the formal system 00:34:16.599 --> 00:34:19.280 fails you, you turn to the informal whisper network 00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:22.059 for safety and for justice. So we've arrived 00:34:22.059 --> 00:34:24.400 at the end of this journey. We've seen gossip 00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:27.500 as a biological necessity, as a workplace weapon, 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:31.039 as a profound spiritual sin, and as a tool of 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:33.340 feminist resistance. But I want to talk about 00:34:33.340 --> 00:34:36.119 the personal cost. Because despite all this utility, 00:34:36.539 --> 00:34:39.820 nobody actually likes a gossip. This is the likability 00:34:39.820 --> 00:34:42.820 paradox. It is the final cruel trap of gossip. 00:34:43.059 --> 00:34:44.739 There was a study by Turner and his colleagues 00:34:44.739 --> 00:34:47.260 in 2003 regarding trust that really stood out. 00:34:47.380 --> 00:34:50.050 Yes. This is so counterintuitive. We all want 00:34:50.050 --> 00:34:51.769 to hear the gossip. If I lean in and say I have 00:34:51.769 --> 00:34:53.349 a secret about the boss, you want to know it, 00:34:53.389 --> 00:34:55.409 your brain lights up. But the study found that 00:34:55.409 --> 00:34:57.730 after you hear me tell the gossip, your trust 00:34:57.730 --> 00:35:00.070 in me goes down. Even if we are close friends. 00:35:00.389 --> 00:35:03.750 Even if we are close friends. The prior relationship 00:35:03.750 --> 00:35:07.110 does not protect the gossiper's reputation. Because 00:35:07.110 --> 00:35:10.030 logically, your brain makes a very simple calculation. 00:35:10.989 --> 00:35:14.289 If he is talking this way about Dave to me, how 00:35:14.289 --> 00:35:16.769 does he talk about me when I'm not here? So the 00:35:16.769 --> 00:35:19.590 very act of trying to bond with you by sharing 00:35:19.590 --> 00:35:22.610 a secret actually erodes the bond in the long 00:35:22.610 --> 00:35:25.250 run. It's a classic double -edged sword. You 00:35:25.250 --> 00:35:28.050 gain short -term attention and maybe some of 00:35:28.050 --> 00:35:30.429 that referent power, but you lose long -term 00:35:30.429 --> 00:35:33.369 respect and trust. The research is clear. People 00:35:33.369 --> 00:35:36.090 who are perceived as gossiping frequently are 00:35:36.090 --> 00:35:38.329 also perceived as having less social power and 00:35:38.329 --> 00:35:41.050 are less liked by their peers. So we are evolutionarily 00:35:41.050 --> 00:35:43.550 hardwired to do it. But we are socially punished 00:35:43.550 --> 00:35:45.530 if we do it too much. We're trapped in the middle. 00:35:45.550 --> 00:35:47.409 We have to do it to maintain our social world. 00:35:47.730 --> 00:35:51.389 But if we do it badly or too often, we get ejected 00:35:51.389 --> 00:35:53.469 from that same social world. So let's try to 00:35:53.469 --> 00:35:55.590 wrap this up. What is the grand takeaway here? 00:35:55.710 --> 00:35:58.469 Because I feel like I can't just stop gossiping. 00:35:58.469 --> 00:36:00.730 My brain literally won't let me. But I also feel 00:36:00.730 --> 00:36:02.409 like I need to be much more careful about how 00:36:02.409 --> 00:36:05.429 I do it. I think the takeaway is awareness. It's 00:36:05.429 --> 00:36:08.280 about intention. Gossip isn't just one thing. 00:36:08.380 --> 00:36:11.300 It's a spectrum of behaviors. On one end of that 00:36:11.300 --> 00:36:15.079 spectrum, you have vocal grooming, you have bonding, 00:36:15.219 --> 00:36:18.340 sharing information for group cohesion, saying, 00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:20.840 I care about you, so I'm telling you this. And 00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:23.800 on the other, far darker end, you have eating 00:36:23.800 --> 00:36:26.659 dead flesh. You have cowardly, selfish destruction 00:36:26.659 --> 00:36:29.059 for entertainment. And somewhere in the middle, 00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:31.920 you have the invisible fence. You have the necessary, 00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:35.000 if sometimes unpleasant, act of regulating society 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.739 and keeping people in line. The goal, I think, 00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:40.000 is to become a conscious consumer and producer 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.420 of gossip. To ask yourself before you speak, 00:36:42.599 --> 00:36:45.559 which one am I doing right now? Am I warning 00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:48.119 a friend about a real danger? Am I strengthening 00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:51.219 a bond? Or am I just getting a cheap thrill by 00:36:51.219 --> 00:36:54.019 destroying someone for sport? Here is a final 00:36:54.019 --> 00:36:56.099 thought to chew on, a provocative question for 00:36:56.099 --> 00:36:57.800 you, the listener, to take with you. Go for it. 00:36:57.880 --> 00:37:00.400 If we actually succeeded in our moral quest to 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:03.420 eliminate gossip, if we could wave a magic wand 00:37:03.420 --> 00:37:05.300 and make it impossible to talk about people who 00:37:05.300 --> 00:37:08.239 aren't present, would society even work? It is 00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:11.480 a fascinating and slightly terrifying dystopian 00:37:11.480 --> 00:37:13.480 thought experiment. If I couldn't warn you about 00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:15.880 the thief, about the predator, about the corrupt 00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:19.130 politician. If we couldn't check the power of 00:37:19.130 --> 00:37:21.269 the abusive boss through the whisper network. 00:37:21.710 --> 00:37:24.269 We might lose our primary tool for protecting 00:37:24.269 --> 00:37:28.510 each other. We might lose the social glue that 00:37:28.510 --> 00:37:31.610 allows for trust and cooperation on a large scale. 00:37:31.690 --> 00:37:34.809 We might be cleaner spiritually, but we might 00:37:34.809 --> 00:37:36.969 be much more atomized and much more vulnerable. 00:37:37.340 --> 00:37:39.579 Or is the attempt to eradicate gossip actually 00:37:39.579 --> 00:37:42.159 an attempt to eradicate a fundamental part of 00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:44.719 human connection? Maybe the messiness, the choice 00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:46.940 morsels are the whole point. Maybe we just need 00:37:46.940 --> 00:37:49.099 to learn how to be better gossips. Better gossips. 00:37:49.099 --> 00:37:51.780 I like that. Sturdy gossips, like those women 00:37:51.780 --> 00:37:54.099 in the barn. Defending the good, not just spreading 00:37:54.099 --> 00:37:57.320 the bad. Exactly. Thank you so much for joining 00:37:57.320 --> 00:38:00.179 us on this deep dive. My brain feels slightly 00:38:00.179 --> 00:38:02.880 rewired. It was a genuine pleasure. It's a fascinating 00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:06.219 topic. And to you, the listener. Here is your 00:38:06.219 --> 00:38:09.280 challenge for the week. Observe your own conversations. 00:38:09.820 --> 00:38:12.320 Don't judge them. Don't try to change them. Just 00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:15.039 watch them. Are you grooming? Are you warning? 00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:18.360 Or are you eating choice morsels? Pay attention. 00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:20.920 You might be surprised by who you are when you 00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:23.019 think no one else is listening. Until next time. 00:38:23.059 --> 00:38:23.420 See you then.