Whether one is in the United States or in Mexico, and
probably many other cultures, factual gossip has a beneficial outcome. Many may
disagree, but this is because negative behavior and so many do it is not
healthy. Gossip or the Spanish 'chisme' makes people understand ethical and
moral behavior. What is acceptable and healthy behavior and what behavior
people in society actually participate and get away with that is harmful to
progress: corruption of power, stealing, lying and institutional negligence.
The fine line of positive gossip and negative gossip can be
very thin but that does not mean one should avoid it completely then. This line
is two-fold: 1) is it factual or fictional; 2) does it harm someone and put
them in physical danger. Well, is what the person doing actually harming others
physically? Then it should be stopped. An example of unnecessary chisme is
talking about who is sleeping with who.
Sex is not important gossip for change or healthy behavior.
For example, when a Director of a university office is sleeping with his
secretary behind his wife's back or has an illegitimate child from a previous
affair that everyone knows about. That is not beneficial gossip. Or that his
new lover is already sleeping with another teacher; this is not important
gossip. It is their personal life and it reflects that they are untrustworthy
people in their personal lives. It could give you a healthy warning not to
trust them. But everyone knows that already. The important public fact here is
that because one is another's direct supervisor, this is a manipulation of
power. A positive leader in a university or corporation does not abuse his
power to sleep with people that they directly supervise. This unethical
behavior is understood across cultures. It is a sad fact that it continues,
interrupts daily work in the offices, and it makes everyone else in offices
uncomfortable when they have to witness it. Just as is the reverse, someone of
a lower ranking in an administrative position sleeping with a supervisor or
former president of the school, so that she can get her own office. This too,
reflects on a behavior that one learns to think is acceptable, but everyone
sharing the gossip understands that this behavior does not lead to actual
respect from others or individual self-respect.
Aside from scandal and affair, a healthy benefit of chisme
is learning about who has respectable behavior that will help the institution
progress and when this is a university, any forms of obstruction to student
education is harmful and irresponsible. For example, a previous Director, who
luckily left the university he was at, was clearly a sexist pig with no respect
for women. He would talk crudely about females when they were not around, in
open meetings about academic issues he would cast off female students as not
worthy of being educated, and he would openly disrespect his female
counterparts. This behavior is highly unprofessional and outdated. When people
spread chisme about him, this information can warn others about what is not appropriate,
and as well can be a useful tool for the benefits of shame.
Shame is positive outcome from factual gossip. It can teach
the individual, if they are mature, to process their wrongful behavior and be
more responsible and not repeat negative acts. Gossip can make people when they
are exposed to a public eye know what they are doing is unethical and unproductive. When in a
pack of wolves, one wolf acts out harmfully, the rest of the wolf pack
excommunicates the wolf from the others; that wolf becomes ashamed and knows
that he has misbehaved in a way that is unprogressive for the benefit of the
whole pack. Shame can be effective with people too.
When a person is shamed they can follow with self-reflection
and positive change or they can be immature, find scapegoats for their
behavior, make excuses and even resort to violence. When a university has a
protest by teachers and students because of corruption; this exposes to the
greater public, citywide or statewide, that the president of the school is not
doing her job. The shame of the president's lack of work to make a university
progress could make her change her behavior.
Like shame, constructive feedback can also be an effective
outcome from gossip. It can also clarify how mature an individual is when
responding to the shared information. For example, when a newly appointed
Director tells students and staff to be punctual, but then allows other
teachers, whom she favors, or students to be late and absent, she is showing a
double standard. When she tells her teachers that they are the problem for lazy
student grades and outcomes, she shows no support. And when she is intimidated
by her staff trying to improve their skills and appear smarter than her, she
tells them not to go to any more professional development courses. Now when she
is confronted with her actions that everyone has been discussing, she could
have been respectful and responsible with balanced behavior and learned from
her faults. But instead, she punished others and proved that she was not a
mature, effective leader. That is why she continues to fail in the eyes of an
ethical majority. Positive Gossip, the sharing of facts, will persist.
Not all gossip is negative. Positive chisme can be
beneficial in moving a larger collective ethical understanding. Those who are
acting corruptively, partaking in lies, cheating or exploiting others from
higher positions or to get higher positions, will be made ashamed or will set
the standard of behavior that is inappropriate. Gossip or chisme with factual
and informative data can help set a standard that could lead towards progress
in institutions, whether in academics, government or corporate climates. It is
a tool that has survived in the oldest cultures and contemporary spaces.
