I Heard It Through the Grapevine

I am a horribly judgmental person.  What's worse, I like to share my judgmental thoughts with people I know and, well, gossip.  For a long time, I tried to resist the magnetic pull of talking about other people and their lives, but it turned out to be a lot like sugar and once I let a little into my life, I had to let it all into my life.  As much as I recognize that talking about other people is typically frowned upon, I forgive myself for it.  Not only am I not perfect, but gossip is such a natural part of human culture (at least in my experience) that I find it hard to believe that we're not wired to do it.

This semester, one of the classes I'm taking is called Evolutionary Psychology.  While I doubt we will cover gossip as a means to survival (stick with me, here, it's not that crazy of an idea), I hope we do.  Gossip as an evolutionary advantage is one of the reasons I forgive myself so easily for talking about others.  I do not have the training to say this is all factual, but these are my thoughts on why we gossip the way we do and why it's such an addiction.

If you think about gossip, it serves a real purpose.  Gossiping about others allows us to gauge the people we are talking about and gauge the people we are talking to.  Both of these things helped determine, in the past, who was the "fittest" in the environment.  By "fittest" I am not referring to who was best able to run a marathon, but in the sense of Darwin's ideas, where being "fit" means best adapted to the environment.  Let's say, for instance, that one caveman, Ugh, asks another caveman, Gruh, if a third caveman, Nng, was good with the lady-cavemen.  If Ugh feels that Gruh is being honest with his feelings about Nng, then Ugh knows that Gruh can be an ally to Ugh.  We are more guarded with our opinions when it comes to strangers, and the closer we feel with someone, the more honest we can be with them.  If Gruh is honest with Ugh, then Ugh knows that Gruh trusts Ugh and Ugh can trust Gruh.  That will come in handy when they're being chased by cheetahs, later.

Gossiping: the best way to get an ally.

Meanwhile, any information Ugh learns about Nng is also helpful.  For example, if Ugh finds out that Nng's strength with the ladies is that he is really good at caveman poetry, then Ugh can do a multitude of things in order to be better than Nng at wooing the lady cavemen.  Maybe Ugh will pick up a book on poetry and learn how to write it himself.  Maybe Ugh will steal Nng's caveman thesaurus (his book, not his pet dinosaur) so Nng can no longer win over the lady cavemen, leaving more for Ugh to reproduce with and thus leave his genetic legacy.

Obviously this is really watered down, but it makes sense.  All Ugh had to do was a little snooping around via gossip and he could be in with the finest of the lady cavemen, and the same is true today, whether the lady cavemen be ladies or that really awesome job.  (Not that objectifying women is cool, but what did they know in the cavemen days?)

I have also come to realize that if you're not talking about other people, the only things left to really talk about that are safe topics are yourself and the weather.  No one wants to get into politics or religion, especially with friends.  Feelings get hurt immediately and friendships are, on occasion, destroyed.  Meanwhile, if we only talk about ourselves and the weather, we would all be conceited meteorologists.  And we would be really, really bored.  Sure, we can talk about Jane Austen's novels until we are not only blue in the face but six feet under, but the content never changes, so it is only as interesting as it ever was.  But people change, people do things, people are sometimes unpredictable.  They are therefore interesting.

By analyzing and discussing the actions of others, we are not only entertained, but we learn from it, as well.  Talking about the mistakes of other people allow us to figure out what went wrong without experiencing the pain of the mistake.

If we all accept that we talk about each other, what's the big deal?  Why not let us be human and enjoy the concept of each other's failures and successes with people who aren't the people we're talking about?