archive - good dish

This column caused more of a stir/controversy than all of my others....people are still gossiping about it.

START MAKING SCENTS

GOOD DISH
By Oak

The best meals I've ever had have been feasts for the senses. The food tastes wonderful, the smells are exquisite, everything looks beautiful, there is at least one thing I lay my hands on to eat, and there's something delicious to hear and converse about. The conversation can range from world events to the torrid affair a mutual friend is having, but one thing is for sure; good dish, or gossip, is as necessary at a memorable feast as the main entrée. As witches, we bless our ritual feasts and say "may you never hunger, may you never thirst" to those near. To this could be added a wish for an abundance of good gossip.

As a long time member of the Reclaiming, I have become accustomed to the occasional tirade against gossip by someone in our community. Gossip can be delicious, satisfying, entertaining, loving and fun. Gossip can also be ugly, distasteful, and lethal. Like the goddess herself, gossip can be both constructive and destructive. I have seen gossip used in all its aspects in my time in Reclaiming. At its best, it builds community and forces changes that need to be made. At its worst, it is used as part of an ongoing campaign of misinformation to discredit those we disagree with or don't like. Whatever the case, giving a negative connotation to gossip is misguided, as access to gossip is one building block of our community, as sacred as the food we share at ritual. I am for gossip. I am against spreading lies and misinformation about community members. There is a difference.

Given that gossip has been generally perceived as a female endeavor, it is important for feminists to explore and reclaim this word and practice. Researchers in the fields of evolutionary psychology, biology, communications, linguistics, and anthropology are currently doing the same. Maligning the practice of gossip is a relatively new phenomenon. The word "gossip" came from the Middle English "godsib" or "godsipp," meaning a godparent or sponsor. It referred to a kinship circle. Gossip at that time was seen as an important way of bonding with others in the community. Modern researchers assert that gossip is far more than just a trivial pastime; it is in fact essential for our psychological, social, and physical well-being.

As our culture has become more fragmented and alienating, gossip has become not only more maligned, but more needed. Creating alternative culture is important in that we can rely on ourselves for gossip, and we don’t have to consume it for a price. Given that so many people do not have communities from which they can trade gossip, more and more become reliant on gossip about celebrities. Celebrity gossip puts us all in the same global village. If we don’t have friends or co-workers in common, we can discourse about Martha Stewart’s troubles. One benefit of being part of a community such as Reclaiming is that it provides us with a plethora of stories which we can gossip about.

Evolutionary psychologists, such as researcher Robin Dunbar, assert that we gossip because we are genetically programmed to do so; it is in our evolutionary hard-wiring. Dunbar has made a persuasive argument that language itself evolved in order to allow us to gossip. The human equivalent of our primate cousin's 'social grooming' is gossip. Dunbar and others assert that language evolved because it allows us to more efficiently use the limited time we have available for social interaction. By talking about others and what they are up to, we keep in touch and feel bonded with a wide social network. Gossip is a sort of 'vocal grooming'. Chimpanzees spend hours practicing social grooming in order to connect and bond with each other. We pick up the phone and tell our coven sister all about who was doing what with whom at witchcamp. Thus the web of connection is spun.

Recent research reveals that about two-thirds of our conversation time is devoted to gossip. By gossip I mean; talking about who is doing what with whom; discussions of personal relationships and experiences; who is 'in' and who is 'out' and why; how to deal with difficult social situations; and the behavior and relationships of family, friends, and celebrities. When we gossip we talk about others who are not present and what they are up to. We also theorize and guess their motivations, trying to figure out what makes them tick. Negative gossip, actively criticizing others not present, takes up about 5 percent of our conversation time. Women and men gossip about the same amount among groups of the same sex. However, there are some interesting gender differences. Women tend to talk about those who are closer in; while men talk more about those they are not so intimate with. Men tend to refer to themselves more while gossiping. Women are much more animated in the telling of gossip; women's facial expressions and voice inflections have a wider range, thus they make gossip more entertaining. In mixed gender groups, women gossip at about the same rate, but men up their discussion of more lofty topics by fifteen to twenty percent.

Gossip serves to inform us as to the unspoken, informal, or implicit rules of groups, as opposed to the formal explicit ones. In Reclaiming, we say in our principles of unity that we are non-hierarchal. Anyone who participates in the community for over a year and a day will eventually learn from gossip how the unspoken hierarchies operate. Gossip also serves as challenges to these hierarchies and can enforce and bring about ethical standards. Recently, a prominent figure in the environmental activist community told friends he was hiring a sex worker for another prominent activist's bachelor party. This was to be kept a secret from the bride. Gossip spread, and eventually enough people knew and he was confronted as to the destructive sexual politics this action embodied and the terrible position he was putting the other men who would be present at the party. Gossip served to hold him accountable and stop an action that would have been damaging to the community at large. 

It is my experience that in our own community when there is an outcry against gossip this usually signifies something important needs to be brought to light in the community. Accusations that gossiping is an attack on leadership has usually meant that there are abuses of power and issues of accountability and ethics that need to be brought to the surface. Gossip serves as a way to build pressure for all of us to deal with issues that those wielding power and influence want to suppress or go away.

Of course, gossip can also be used to discredit those who are challenging power structures. In the past few years I have been in conflict with other prominent members of the community over issues of how we structure ourselves. I have to expect that I will be gossiped about. I not only have conflicting views with prominent members of our community, I am a prominent member myself. Who more than myself can expect to be gossiped about? To step into our power in the community means that every wart and wrinkle in our personality and misstep in our personal lives will be part of public discourse. To challenge power in the community means the same. This is aggravating, often humiliating, but completely inevitable. It in fact, serves to build and create community.

It is part of our hard-wiring to gossip about those we see as powerful and prominent in our community. By doing so, we figure out what constitutes social prominence, and we also begin to challenge it. Researchers have noted that negative gossip increases when we discuss those we perceive as more powerful. This is a way we integrate the fact that those in the light also have a shadow, thus painting a truer picture of what it means to be human. Gossip functions in human community to humanize us all, to mitigate our tendency to idealize our leaders. Gossip also serves to keep the social order, thus it makes sense that it is utilized in dismissing those who challenge the status quo. The paradox of creating an anarchistic Pagan community is that we are embarked on an endeavor in which we are constantly creating, challenging , and defending the status quo. A lot of this is done through the practice of gossip.

Gossip can be the language of power-with, but it also can be a tool of power-over. Research on childhood bullying finds that a fundamental aspect of female bullying is spreading lies and mistruths about those who are the target of the bullying. In just about every women’s community I have been a part of, this kind of behavior occasionally has been employed. When we hear gossip in our community, the first question we must ask ourselves is, is this true? It is important to be wary of being told something hideous about another community member and being asked to keep it confidential. This may be a clue that what you are being told is untrue, and you are only being told this information to discredit the other member of your community. If you are in a meeting and Treestump invokes confidentiality and then tells the group that Rainwater, another priestess who she has had trouble with, has been saying that Tofutti, a senior witchcamp teacher, is a CIA plant, well, this is confidentiality that you don’t want to keep. As a therapist, I am well-versed in keeping confidentiality. Therapists break confidentiality when clients threaten harm to themselves or others, or talk about abusing a child or elder. As a community member, I refuse to keep un-founded rumours confidential. I would do my best to check out if Rainwater actually had done the above, and I would let Treestump know I would be checking this out. To do otherwise would be harmful to the community.

As Reclaiming has gotten bigger, gossip has become more important as a means of swaying public opinion. Given that we have few venues for public debate and discussion of our internal issues, gossip is the primary means that these issues are played out. My guess is that gossip will eventually pressure us to create ways in which to hold each other accountable and for dirty laundry be aired in a public way.

Another benefit of gossip is that it allows us to examine and explore stories that can be tested against one’s own life experience without incurring the cost and risk of acquiring the actual experience. This is especially important and intriguing in a magical community. Gossip provides us with plenty of cautionary tales and lessons about practicing magic. When we hear that Flytrap has a new lover after her incredible invocation of the goddess at Beltane, we smile and remember that we will encourage our single friend to get out there in the circle next May. When we hear that Mustard lost her job and has some mysterious illness after she invited others to hex someone she was fighting with, we take note that this might not be a good course of action.

Next time you sit down to feast in a circle of witches, honor the dish that comes to the table, the gossip that inevitable will occur. Notice whether it is delicious or sits badly on the palate.

Honor it for what it is, the social yarn that knits us all together. And when you hear gossip being derided by others in the community, ask yourself, ‘Is there something we all should be talking about more openly?’