(Not so) gossip girl here...

If you can’t say something nice about a person then don’t say anything at all.

We’ve all heard this adage at some point in our lives. In fact, the teaching never goes away. It’s present in everything we do and everywhere we go, usually in the form of our guilty conscience. Yet, we still gossip. We ignore the scoldings and the timeouts we received when we spoke ill of our classmates as children, and we rebelliously partake in the forbidden act.

Although humans have evolved in many ways—altering our behaviors to fit ever-changing social norms—one thing we haven’t changed is our inherent penchant for gossiping. Like envy, pride and lust, gossip has always been an integral part of our lives. Consider Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” and the popular CW teen drama “Gossip Girl.” From an overarching analytical vantage point, there aren’t many differences between the two when it comes to gossip. Despite the differences in technology, setting and plot, the main function of gossip remains the same.

In Austen’s world of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, many of the characters’ actions are driven primarily by gossip. We see this point exemplified in Elizabeth’s unfounded prejudice against Darcy and her curious partiality for Wickham. Elizabeth creates false images of these two men based on the exaggerated tales she hears through the gossip mill. She then allows these prejudices and biases to affect the way she views and interacts with each man when she meets him in person. Similarly, in the televised realm of Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, we watch the privileged characters make foolish and/or rash decisions based entirely upon falsified “blasts” about “Manhattan’s elite.” Unfailingly, these blasts lead to weekly showdowns and heartbreaks amongst the show’s main characters.

Although our lives as mere mortals may not be as glitzy and glamorous as Elizabeth Bennett’s or Serena van der Woodsen’s, we share their penchant for gossip. Consider, for example, any normal day at Duke. We are always surrounded by people—on the bus, walking to class, eating lunch, relaxing on the quad. And I don’t know about you, but when I’m caught up in a crowd of people, I can’t help but catch snippets of conversations going on around me. Sometimes I hear about classes and research, but most of the time I hear people talking about other people. These conversations usually begin, very enthusiastically, with the phrase, “OMG, did you hear what (fill in the blank) did/said?” From there on in, the conversation just becomes a tell-all, exploiting and most likely exaggerating some poor innocent (who might not be so innocent if most stories are to be believed).

What is it about gossip that we just can’t let go? There’s obviously something about scandals and rumors that is deeply intertwined with humanity. Earlier I provided Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” as an example, but we know that gossip dates back much farther than the 19th century. Gossip is timeless and knows no borders. No people, no culture, no nation is immune to it.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard believed that people turned to gossip when they had nothing meaningful left in their own lives. Gossip opposes “real talk” in that it concerns only the “superficial and external.” The writer Patricia Meyer Spacks, however, approaches gossip in a different way. She sees it as a mode of healing. In her article “In Praise of Gossip,” she writes, “By talking about the concerns of other people’s lives, the talkers grow to understand their own more fully.”

I don’t believe that Spacks’ understanding of healing gossip can be applied to all forms of gossip, but I do see her point. As human beings, we best understand our own plights when we view them in light of others’. And this form of healing gossip often provides that for us. We hear about other people’s situations and choices, and it makes us feel like we’re not alone.