 So I was struck by the the turn of moral outrage By many people who I assume are fans of millennial woes. I didn't know he had fans I realized there were people who enjoyed his videos, but apparently he's right in his farewell statement That he has a lot of people who look up to him. I had no idea that anybody looked up to millennial woes I didn't know that he had fans. I always knew him as someone who Sent dick pics to women and got them to send naked pictures to him That was the first Way that I heard of millennial woes and so that's always kind of been the prism through which I viewed him So I had no idea that he had fans and then are all these people outraged that anyone would talk smack about millennial woes or they say it's kicking him when he's down or the mildest criticism or Or what's the other thing that I'm getting it's like, you know, how dare you he's a fighter for the nationalism He's a fighter for his people or he's apparently been doing all this amazing work for Helping people with self-improvement So I'm kind of struck by the the comments of moral outrage that I've received on On my videos for any discussion of millennial woes I was amused by his farewell statement because I found a pompous And Out of touch with reality so Is it wrong to gossip about millennial woes is gossip bad is gossip evil or is gossip good or is gossip morally neutral So I'm thinking about that because I've been in a lot of 12 step programs work the 12 steps multiple occasions and Step four we take a complete and thorough moral inventory Where among the things that we do is we come to terms with harms that we've done to other people And so with step eight we become ready to make amends for the harms. We've done others and one of the Most frequent harms that people think they've done to others is they've gossiped about other people It's like oh, I told my sister that our mother was too sensitive Or I told my friend that my boss was a jerk or I told my second best friend that my very best friend was sloppy eater or I told my third best friend that my second best friend Was having an affair So if it's already known that she's having an affair you haven't done any harm So it almost all these instances. You're not doing any harm. So it's one of the Biggest ways I notice when when people work the 12 steps that they're out of touch with reality over how much harm they've done So let's say you write in a YouTube live stream Luke shows getting boring or notice nobody's watching Luke Ford anymore or Wow Kevin's getting ten times the audience that Luke is these days or You know Luke's show sucks That's not doing me any harm I Have not in the least harm by that if you say you know Luke boy looks really getting older He's looking haggard or is his hair is thinning or he needs to get into shape or he's a slob He's he's full of himself. He's narcissistic. He's he's out of touch with reality You're not doing me any harm. I am not harmed by by those comments Okay, so you've only harmed someone when you've harmed them. So If you got together a group of people and said, okay, let's downvote Thanks, like let's downvote all of Luke's videos. I guess in the mildest sense that's some kind of harm Let's say you got together and say, okay, let's get together 20 guys and You know, let's let's Let's Slash Luke's tires. Okay. Now that would be doing some harm Okay, if you slash my tires like every tire that that would be about 1500 $2,000. Okay, that would be doing my harm but if you Tell your friend Luke is the world's biggest loser. He is completely deluded He is such a fool. He's an idiot. He's a traitor to his race He he thinks that he can convert to Judaism, but the Jews will never accept him I've never encountered someone as delusional as Luke. You haven't done me any harm. There's absolutely no harm in that I was interviewed on VH one once and Orthodox Jewish friend of mine noticed Yeah, I got some pushback on on my millennial woes coverage like people are I rate that they say I'm kicking in when he's down or millennial woes is always down. I don't regard myself as kicking him. I just Following the news and and I'm struck by some incongruities and some absurdities and some pomposities in the whole deal and I comment on them and they amuse me and Guess what? I haven't done millennial was any harm. So let's say millennial woes called me up and He like poured his heart out and revealed all sorts of things that were not public knowledge and Then I gave him Assurance that I would keep his confidentiality, but then I broke his confidentiality Okay, then I'd be doing his harm, but I haven't said anything on my live streams about millennial woes That isn't already out there Okay, so if you don't see anything in a chat or in gossip that isn't already widely known you haven't done anyone any harm now if you run into millennial woes at the pub and he's talking to a group of people and you go in there and you say You're a pompous twat or you know something unkind then you've done him harm because you've you've heard his feelings so you should never like Say things to people you should not use words to do harm but if you just like relate on the internet something that everyone else has already been talking about and There may be some angle that you find particularly amusing Millennial woes is not harmed by that. So I don't think you should go out and be a jerk And think oh go out and be a dick to people. No, I just I'm struck by how out of touch many people are About gossip and the power of gossip now if you relayed some information That was false about millennial woes and that cost him his income Then you've done him genuine harm or if you relayed some information about millennial woes that was new and as a consequence He lost 50% of his income you have done him harm Now that would have to be counterbalanced in a moral sense with whatever good So let's say you relayed some fresh information about millennial woes There was accurate still a custom half of his income, but on the other hand you could argue well people needed to know and The public good is served because it reveals that millennial woes says X But he really does why or say same thing about me so let's say you found out some juicy information about me you broke that news and as a result you reduce my income 50% and So you've done me some harm, but you may well have say done the public some good because like Luke's a big fat liar He says X on his streams, but he acts why and and the public have a right to know it's in the public interest All right, so so that's more more complicated gossiping is unmanly well What's what's the opposite of gossiping? It means never talking about people if you're not interested in people I don't understand you. You're not interested in life Okay, if you're interested in people you're gonna talk about people So I don't understand the mindset that The gossip is always wrong the gossip is unmanly. It's unmasculine. It's degenerate Because if you care about people you will inevitably talk about them so let's say you look at David Pinson's workout pictures and You think Okay, these are really impressive or these are really stupid or You know This is the way way forward, you know for the for the white race or this is you know, this is not a good look He should wait until he can do XYZ Okay, any of those opinions about things that David Pinson has publicly shared you're not doing him any harm Now you may indeed hurt his feelings if you read some caustic comment and And you know, you may hurt his feelings and you may court cause him to reevaluate Oh, maybe I shouldn't have posted that picture or maybe I should need to do X or Y But you haven't really done him any harm now if you relay something that was given to you in confidence Then obviously you've betrayed a trust. That's how but I know as a 12-step sponsor and as someone who's gone through the 12 steps that People usually When they when they're talking about gossip in the harms. They've done others. They're almost always out of touch with reality If you say about your father Man, he's really you know gone to seed the last few years. He's really you know fallen apart he's not looking after himself anymore or He was always a lazy bastard He didn't he didn't work hard and you say that to a friend You haven't done your father any harm now if you say such comments in front of your father's friends And so you're publicly disrespecting him as as a child Then yeah, you've done him some harm. You've caused him some embarrassment But overwhelmingly when you gossip, you're not doing anyone any harm Now if you relay gossip that say turns to good friends against each other and And the gossip that you relayed was inconsequential Power politics is about information gossip is just verbal prostitution. Well Let's let's talk about Who's the president sleeping with so let's say that the president Trump is sleeping with Some Chinese woman or think about Rupert Murdoch. He's the head of news corporation And I am going to get to the the Hebrew concept of Lashon Harar in a minute. So Rupert Murdoch is the head of news corporation and he was married to Wendy Dang Who may very well being a spy for China? Okay, so if you say a Rupert Murdoch's been captured by a spy for China That's gossip, but it's also important information because if it's true That's highly significant Rupert Murdoch according to that that showtime miniseries on Roger Ailes the loudest voice in the room Rupert Murdoch forced Roger Ailes and Fox News to start going easy on Barack Obama and Rupert Murdoch took back control essentially of Fox News during the 2008 campaign and he ensured that Roger Ailes and Fox News were very easy on Barack Obama, so Roger Ailes had Wendy Dang Rupert Murdoch's wife at the time investigated That's not gossip. Well, I didn't know saying that it's not gossip. Let's say your boss is having an affair and and That could have repercussions for your whole office because because Whoever you're sleeping with is very likely to have a profound Effect on him and he thoughts I don't know who danger field is so I have no idea So being informed about who your boss is sleeping with it seems to me You would only be in your self-interest as a worker Who we sleep with has a profound effect on who we are and it's profoundly revelative of who we are It's it's important information It shows it shows who you are who you sleep with reveals who you are If if you're not faithful to your wife, okay, if you have friends who are committing adultery You are far more likely to commit adultery yourself So generally speaking men who stay faithful to their wives do not have close friends who are not faithful So being informed about the sex lives of your friends is in your self-interest so I'm just thinking out loud here so I'm not saying you should go to the office and say about another woman in the office Well, she's really packed on the pounds or what a ridiculous skirt. She's wearing today. She looks like an ass or Joe in the other cubicle. He really needs to have a shower because The repercussions of those kind of comments can come back to haunt you But if there are no negative repercussions to your comments, you haven't really done harm So I think most of the time when we feel guilty about gossiping it's It's not in touch with reality men who keep their vows usually distance themselves from friends who do not absolutely absolutely That's why it's in your interest to know the moral conduct of your friends like if you have friends who cheat in business Then that's probably gonna have some kind of effect on you It's gonna affect your How you you gauge them whether or not you want to do business So if you're gonna do business with someone you're gonna want to know, you know everything relevant about them So I'm just thinking out loud. There are forms of gossip that do harm demonstrable Oh, okay, so if you can point to demonstrable needless harm that your words have caused Then you have a men's to make Okay, where does one draw the line between chitchat and tittle-tattle you don't there's nothing wrong with chitchat or tittle-tattle unless you can Unless you can concretely point to harm done all right, so Give me give me an example All right, give me example But if you can't concretely point to harm done by your words Then it's not serious enough for you to need to make amends And it's not a serious moral issue. So if you talk about I don't know George Clooney Is he gay? Okay, you haven't done George Clooney any harm Right that it may not be the greatest use of your time But you haven't done him any harm so Gossip is human nature can only be kept in check via impulse control. So Yeah, saying something is human nature murder is only human nature rape is only human nature So everything that human beings can do is only is human nature. So I want to challenge the the concept that The gossip is some Bad bad bad sin All right, so Claire is asking about Lashon Harrah So Lashon Harrah refers to a Hebrew concept known as the evil tongue And there's a verse in the Torah that says do not go about as a tattle tale in your community So, yeah Don't go about as a tattle tale in your community in ways that are going to cause repercussions, okay so So The main thing is is there concrete harm done So Claire says the laws of Lashon Harrah and Judaism are so strict That you're not even supposed to That you're not even supposed to relay something that's true. So let me give you an example. This is not quite true So just before I was Due to complete or I hope to graduate from my conversion to orthodox Judaism this leading rabbi in England Got quite upset with me because I'd listed on my blog five well-known rabbis orthodox rabbis who are converts to Judaism generally speaking is quite rare for Converts to become orthodox rabbis. So this rabbi is a famous Kirov Outreach rabbi in England. Why why Rubenstein if I recall he said, please remove me from your list and I said no and He said well where you must because it says in the Talmud You're not allowed to remind a convert to Judaism that he is a convert because it could cause him pain said that's in face-to-face interactions that's that start a Overwhelming moral stance that then destroys the ability to do journalism and he says well, you just don't know the Torah give me the name of your rabbi and Then he went off and he recruited other people to to give me a hard time and so Because we we ended up having a mutual friend another rabbi. I Said to rabbi why why in England? Okay? I'll take it all down And he said no, no, I don't want you to take it down. I need you to realize the complete wrongness of your ways Harm is saying person X or person B's husband walk into a hotel with another person absent finding out who before spending a bunch of toro Yeah, maybe maybe not possibly So one example there is a now a woman in the orthodox community She went to lunch with her brother then people started gossiping about her that she was having a lunch with a man Who is not her husband? I didn't realize it was his brother. Okay, so that's really That's stupid, okay You see a woman in your your community having lunch with someone is not Not her husband and you immediately jump to oh, this is very, you know suspicious and morally troublesome and When it when it turns out to be the woman's brother, okay, that's that's a really petty stupid behavior so This this rabbi even though I was willing to walk away from the dispute In deference to a good mutual friend of ours. He wanted to just continue hammer-and-tongues. He was going after every rabbi I knew and And he just started like he says I'm going to rewrite your Wikipedia entry Yeah, gossip has a utilitarian function. It's an informal entertaining to ascertain a person's character. So he said I'm gonna Because because you've you've done this to me You've listed me as being a convert to Judaism, which was accurate I'm going to rewrite your Wikipedia entry. I'm going to sue you in Jewish religious court and I'm going to sue you in a secular court and So and he said I I've been sharing like excerpts of our email exchange with you know various people in The Orthodox Jewish community said well, you've been sharing Our private emails with other people without my permission Okay, then I'm just going to publish all our emails Because I when you have private conversations, there's usually kind of an implicit understanding that it should be contained When you start sharing private conversations, particularly when they're over a Matter which is turning to a pretty strong conflict then you're you're amping up the intensity of the conflict So I just published all all our email exchange on my blog and I'm told by by third parties that he ended up looking pretty stupid. So on the other hand, I'm I'm looking forward to completing my conversion to Orthodox Judaism and so I had to face that the head rabbi who would be overseeing my conversion to Orthodox Judaism would now first of all he would have to He would have to Adjudicate this this dispute I had with Rabbi Y. Y in the UK So I was willing to go to the map because I was sure that I was on firm Halakic ground So Halakha refers to Jewish law and So I thought that there was a communal interest in knowing which rabbis are converts to Judaism because there are many tasks that are convert to Judaism as a rabbi cannot do for example They cannot participate in a beat din which adjudicates whether or not someone can convert to Judaism. So there are many many things that are Rabbi Orthodox rabbi who converted to Judaism cannot do so I thought it's in the community's interest to have this information out there and that's a great That's a great Moral guide in life. Is this in the public interest? Is this in the community's interest? Is this in the general interest? Can you? Can you make the case so you on firm ground that this is in the public interest the general interest the communal interest? for what you're saying and doing and So I thought sure it was and so I won Okay in that dispute he realized he appointed a religious lawyer to go through the beat in the Jewish legal system to go after me and Gave up when he realized that he had a very very difficult path to go to win Abate dinner Jewish law court will very rarely if ever You know for someone to take down information. They post a public lead that is accurate Okay, so there are a couple of verses in the book of Leviticus by Ikra that say you know don't go about as a tail bearer among your people and They're a handful of other verses in the Bible similar to that so a Jewish courts like Sharia courts I Perhaps in in the concept of them But I really don't know anything about Sharia courts. So I know how I know something about how The but they did and the Jewish law courts work. I really don't know enough about How Sharia courts work? But in theory Certainly seems seems fairly similar So in Judaism started off in the Bible You had a couple of generalized texts about do not go about as a tail bearer among your people but these texts were used as kind of general Moral teachings They weren't regarded as part of really as part of Jewish law. They were just You know nice teachings of do I have relatives of Jewish ethnicity? No, not to the best of my knowledge so There were no real Halukic Jewish legal rulings on on gossip until Basically the the 19th century so Judaism was about 3,000 years old before gossip was really written out in specific detail and how it did that was that there was this rabbi in In Eastern Europe in the 19th century who became known as the Hoffetts. I am that's the name of his most famous work He who is it that desires life he who keeps his tongue from speaking evil? So he wrote a book about Lashon Harai evil speech. What he did is he took all these a garter So there are two streams in the Jewish tradition of the text There's a garter, which means stories and ha lacha which refers to law Okay, so what the Hoffetts I am did is he took all these stories in the Jewish tradition about not being a tail bearer That's how the Jewish tradition dealt with gossip Until really the 19th century approximately a Jewish tradition didn't try to legislate against gossip. It was just a broad admonition and So he took all these stories about gossip and why it's not good to gossip and then he turned them into dozens and dozens of specific laws so he took a garter and turned it into a halacha and so His peers laughed and laughed at him. They thought it was absolutely ridiculous but HaFetz Chaim is now regarded as the great authority on Lashon Harai Which is hilarious because his approach is completely absurd. You can't take a garter stories and then turn them into laws but Many Jews don't know much about Judaism and so they assume that the HaFetz Chaim is this authority on law And that there are dozens of very specific laws in Judaism against Lashon Harai, but this is absurd. This is all based on this fake move By by this rabbi of turning a garter to stories into law stories don't constitute laws stories don't Make for laws stories are stories. Okay, I can tell you stories and There's a lovely poem on the Statue of Liberty But strange ladies standing in harbors You know bearing poems and not a sound bass for an immigration policy and various Lovely inspiring stories in the Jewish tradition and not the basis for legal rulings on what is permitted speech But most Jews are ignorant of the Jewish tradition And so they just heard that Lashon Harai is a very big sin and they don't think about it And so they just accept it and they think that this rabbi the HaFetz Chaim is some great big authority on Lashon Harai And it's all based on absurdity and nonsense and foolishness Okay, so it's kind of like that the opposite ways that Christians and Jews read the Hebrew Bible so So Jews read it primarily for the laws which are primarily found in the books of Exodus Leviticus and Numbers Shemot, Vayikra and Bami Bar Christians read the Old Testament primarily for the stories and for The foreshadowing of Jesus and the foreshadowing of Christianity. So same text, but we read it completely differently So Christians will say when they're talking to a Jew, but what about this and they'll refer to some story in the Hebrew Bible and Jews are kind of confused because we don't base how we live on Stories we base how we practice on laws So Jews focus on the laws Christians focus on the stories So some lovely sentiment Said by say King David after he feels bad about taking another man's wife and Getting that man killed so that he can possess but but Sheva And and then King David says to God against thee and the only have I sin. Well, he just Murdered had had a guy murdered so that he could seize his wife Right, it wasn't just God that King David had sinned, but it's a poetic sentiment. So Jewish law isn't based on poetry You know Jewish law isn't based on strange ladies emerging out of ponds telling stories All right, so there are two very distinct Literary genres in the most or the Jewish tradition There is law and there's story and they're not the same law governs how you live your life stories can inspire Stories can provide, you know subtext of meaning, but they're not the basis on which you render legal decisions So you don't read The yellow pages the same way that you read a love note You don't read the New York Times The same way you read your credit card bill. You don't read a poem The same way you read a business contract Okay, different genres of writing require a very different approach and once once we know the genre that we're dealing with Then we can react accordingly. So the way that you should read your credit card Account is very carefully. Did I indeed spend all this money? And how much did I spend and is it in line with my spending plan? Is it in line with my goals? And so you look over your credit card balance and make sure that there's no fraud but When you're reading the newspaper at the end of the long day You don't need to pay, you know such close attention because they're two different genres And so too, it's helpful to put people in their genre I'm not a scholar of Judaism because my knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic is is, you know, pretty weak, okay, so You don't look at me. I assume as a scholar of Judaism. I'm not a scholar of Judaism I've read hundreds and hundreds of books on Judaism, but I'm not a scholar Okay, you're only a scholar if you are fluent in the original language of your topic So if you really wanted to know about what does Judaism have to say about Lashon Harar You would consult with someone who was Learned in the text in the in the original language. Okay, I'm just giving you an outsider's amateurish Understanding so we all belong to a certain genre, you know, Richard Spencer is the guy with the edgy takes He loves to give a contrarian edgy take that's easy. He's a shock jock Kevin Michael Grace is kind of a paleo conservative Roman Catholic With you know has acid takes in the words of Colin Liddell JF Garapie is someone who makes his living from live streaming So when you realize that he makes his living from live streaming he needs to come up with a provocative show every day and He needs to take a stand. Okay. What drives viewership are people with a passionate opinion, right? That's that's how you get the most views. You're very passionate about your opinion and The way you state your opinion just grabs people so that they are then drawn to watch you Okay, so the type of communication that he does for his live streams It's very different from the postdoctoral research that he did at Duke University To keep his live streams humming. He needs to come out with strong opinions every day that grab people Okay, but that doesn't mean that he knows anything about what he's talking about But he just needs to sound like he knows something about what he's talking about so we've got this big coronavirus pandemic right now and I don't really have a strong opinion I'm kind of in the middle because I don't feel like I know much and Because I don't make my living from this. I don't need to pretend to you that I know anything I don't need to come on here or fire it up To try to maximize my viewers because I'm depending on this to make my living Instead I can come to this with what I think is my integrity that I don't really know much This is an interesting perspective and this opposite perspective is equally interesting to me Okay, so I don't have to come on here and generate You know talk radio type intensity because I'm not depending on this live stream to make my living So I'm doing this as a hobby as opposed to people who are doing this for a living Those are doing doing it for a living. They have to come with you know hot hard strong Opinions even if they know absolutely nothing, but they need to project that confidence That they really understand what's going on I I don't need to do that and I don't do that and so I don't produce a live stream That's going to get hundreds and hundreds of viewers every time Because I come on here and say I don't know really very much about this topic But I'm you know, I'm kind of curious what you know. Do you have any recommended links? I don't think I have any special insights here, but I'm terribly interested, but I don't know much All right, so just as different forms of literature from an electricity bill to a love note belong in different genres So to people belong in different genres and once you correctly ascertain what genre someone in is much easier to Relate to them and that way you're going to be much less disappointed Okay, so every religion of which I'm aware condemns gossip every traditional way of life of which I'm aware condemns gossip Probably none do it in as minute a detail as Judaism But in general it seems to be taken for granted by elevated individuals that gossip is bad. I Remember in 2007 Dennis Prager very passionately opposed outing the names of the DC madam's clients He says, you know, why should we ruin these John's lives over something so trivial? well, I Understand gossip may well indeed destroy friendships destroy marriages destroy business partnerships can sometimes cause people to kill themselves or kill others but Most of the time seems to me The damage that is blamed on gossip Longs more appropriately on the people who acted badly. So if the millennial was acted badly and That's what's causing The hollow blue then that's primarily on millennial words. It's not on me or you who's talking about his bad behavior He didn't want people talking about his bad behavior. He should not have acted that way You know for many many many many many many many years and made a sex pest of himself so Often when you act badly and other people notice it and remark on it it's a human inclination to blame other people then for For gossiping about your bad behavior, but it's really on you. Okay, if a man cheats on his wife and Other people notice that is it primarily their fault or is it primarily his fault? I think it's primarily his fault if people simply notice your bad behavior and comment on it. That's primarily on you It's not on them now Gossip is like water. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad Sometimes too much water in the wrong situation can can drown you can drown an innocent person Most of the time water is a lovely thing in life Now I agree with Dennis Prager that ethics are both situational and absolute because the context determines the moral absolute so sometimes it's right to lie for example if The Nazis are coming and asking you, you know, where are the Jews hiding? It's it's right to lie Sometimes it was right for women to say sleep with the Nazis during World War two to secure a better Position for themselves or for their children or for their families Sometimes they needed to sleep with Nazis to get information to help the opponents of the Nazis so even sometimes it's right for People to have sex with those they don't want to have sex with I remember hearing discussion of this at Avondale College So if they had an ecology in Australia when I was a kid and I found it very disturbing because they were having these sub-school discussions about situational ethics and Whether or not women were right to sleep with Nazis during World War two to avoid being killed or something There's a very disturbing topic for a nine-year-old or a ten-year-old. I did not like it then but I'm 53 now I feel like I can deal with it Okay, so there's no escape from making moral judgments and Deciding when to speak when to keep silent when to act or when to hold back I'm looking here at ABC news had an article in 2005 quoting research psychologist if we listen To gossip we can learn what people find offensive What people find acceptable and what they don't find acceptable? So it's a way to learn how to be a better social actor so gossip often plays an essential role in In how we function in the world Gossip tells us what's acceptable and what's Not acceptable. So it's worth paying some attention to gossip The accuracy of gossip may not matter as much as how often you engage in it Gossip humanizes people when people on the street can be like oh, she's so rich. She's so beautiful She's famous. She seems to have everything but oh wait if you aren't see a cheated on her too. Hmm so, yeah gossip Gossip can be good for you Knowledge is power and gossip is powerful currency Best piece of gossip always has a little bit of scandal involved and it's a little bit salacious and At some point your mouth drops and goes. Oh, no, she didn't Now mom may have said nobody loves a busybody but a lot of Psychologists and scholars believe that gossip is an essential Yeah, I don't have an opinion on Millennial woes whether he's a good man or not. He certainly does not strike me as a bad man. Okay, I Get no Vibe of evil From that guy. It's certainly not an evil man or a bad man from from from the vibe So maybe a little bit socially awkward You know may have been a little bit inappropriate. So mum may have said no one loves a busy body But frequently gossip is a healthy essential tool in helping People navigate life work together and define who's part of your group and who's not So 64% of gossip may even said they learned something while they exchanged secrets and that the information applied to their life So there's this orthodox rabbi in his story and Mark Shapiro. He was giving a lecture in 2008 on the lives of the gadolin means the lives of the great rabbis and You know, it's if you read my blogs, you'll see that I'm a relentless Exposer of the fraudulent fraudulence not just in the Haredi the traditional orthodox world but in the modern orthodox world it all needs to be exposed But that doesn't mean every single person needs to know Now as Ralph Cook says if they come into our ward and they try to affect us with their fraudulent stories It needs to be exposed But if they want to live by these buber mice's these old wives tales, that's a way of life. That's their choice So I mean if it threatens to interfere in the wider community. Do we need to combat? old wives tales Now it's hard to know what Lashon Harar evil speech and the Jewish tradition what it really is Because we really don't know what Lashon Harar is. So rabbis Gossip least as much as other Jews, but they talk it call it talking shop And they say oh we need it so that we can keep a handle on what's going on in the community But do rabbis need to know what's going on in the community any more than regular Jews? Of course not if someone's dishonest in business Someone's dishonest in other dealings if someone's unreliable if someone's a bad judge Of what's appropriate then I am better off if I know So the scholar says I've read many letters from great rabbis and they have filled with negative comments about other rabbis Now you might say this is long Lashon Harar But rabbis badmouth other rabbis all the time now if you ask these rabbis It's not class is forbidden to even supply or suggest negative things about a person. It's not That's that's a boomer. I said that's an old wise tale. That's from the Chafetz. I am taking a garter Poetry and stories and trying to turn it into halacha Jewish lore. It's absurd and silly. It's nonsense okay, so Rabbi is always trashing other rabbis, but if you ask the rabbi doing that they'd say oh no, it's not Lashon Harar It's that the Torah says you have to expose Hanafim hypocrites flatter us So the admonition to expose hypocrites is stated in the Talmudic tract a Yomah 86b Where it is derived from the legal category of hillulah sham desecration of God's name So let's say some rabbis going around pronouncing things or saying things that are wrong Then you have an obligation to protect God's name to expose his fraudulence He's supposed to expose hypocrisy. I Would say that if you asked all these famous rabbis who keep saying terrible things about other rabbis If you ask them they would say no, it's not Lashon Harar, but this other rabbi He's a fraud and I have a moral duty to expose him now could be that the other person is not a fraud And it's just a personal emotional dispute. I Don't think it is Lashon Harar to talk about a dispute the whole world knows about and it's in all the newspapers If a certain Rob did a bad thing Now mark says there's a rough meaning a rabbi who makes legal decisions Not of the first caliber, but of the second caliber He had a child out of wedlock when he was 17 and in Yeshiva about 20 years ago One of the Israeli newspapers exposed him and published the birth certificate I think that's a terrible breach of privacy. He made a mistake when he was young I don't think it's anyone's business. I would never write an expose a like that if I knew about it I'd probably choose not to write about him because how could you write about him and not talk about it If there was a case like this where he abandoned the girl and wanted nothing to do with them and then he became a big scholar I don't think that's Lashon Harar. That would be an example of exposing the hypocrites Try to balance Jewish values with secular values As a secular historian you go into a grave and dig up the body if you need to I've no prop would have no problem as a secular historian. I was doing that but among Gadol and the great rabbis I do not do that. I've never had to make that choice I'd rather not write about somebody than have to cover up their misdeeds Certain great rabbinic figures I would treat differently than other figures If that is not in correspondence with historical analysis, what are they going to do take my tenure away? Life is not only about historical scholarship And the New York Times has an article here also in 2005. Have you heard gossip has a purpose? So it quotes one one teacher where she says she was getting running comic commentary from her fellow teachers on the sexual Peccadillo's and classroom struggles of her colleagues to be honest It made me feel better as a teacher to hear others being put down. I was out there on my own I had no sense of how I was doing in class the gossip gave me some connection It felt like it gave me status knowing information being on the inside Gossip has long been dismissed by researchers as just background noise But now investigators say gossip to clarify and enforce the rules that keep people working well together Also circulates crucial information about the behavior of others. It cannot be published in online manual. So if if Millennial woes has incurable genital warts, this is information the public should know if he's going out You know having sex with people and infecting them. All right, that's in the public interest So gossip offers a foothold for newcomers in a group and a safety net for group members who feel in danger falling out Gossip is a sophisticated multifunctional interaction The police's behaviors in a group and defines group membership When two or more people huddle together to share inside information about another person who is absent They're often in spreading important information. They are enacting a mutually protective ritual People generally devote anywhere from a fifth to two-thirds of their daily conversations to gossip So we tend to gossip about people who sneak around who lie and who cheat and by gossiping this acts to keep people from straying too far away from the group's rules and We resent it if other people don't pass on information that could protect us from those who might harm us So there are contexts where you're expected to gossip It's like an informal version of the honor code at military academies where if you know someone's cheating you're expected to turn them in So if you have someone in your group as a slacker then Fellow crew members will make jokes about him Cruel cracks about his character of manhood because his shortcomings reflect badly on the entire team So if someone in your political sphere, whether it's in Tifa or the alt-right is Doing things reflect badly on the group then you have an incentive to Speak out about it and even be cruel so Greg Kreitzer an author his life was forever changed when someone yelled at him Hey fatso He was so humiliated by that experience that he lost a bunch of weight and wrote an important book on fat So gasping too little maybe at least as risky as gasping too much Scuttlebutt is the most highly valued social currency a Good scoop spreads through a room like an illicit and irresistible drug Knowing that your boss is cheating on his wife or that a sister-in-law is a drinking problem or a rival is benefited from a secret trust fund may be enormously important and May indeed change your behavior for the better We all know people who are not calibrated to the social world at all If they participated in gossip sessions would learn a whole lot of stuff that they need to know and they can't learn anywhere else Like how reliable certain people are how reliable they are in this context and in this context and in this context So not participating in gossip They will be unhealthy and abnormal Talking out of school also buffers against low-grade depression Gossip may involve putting someone else down to feel better by comparison Or it may be simply a way to connect with someone else and share insecurities The end result is often a healthy relief The social personal and professional anxiety Adept gossip has usually sense which kinds of discreet talk most likely to win acceptance from a particular group Example a close-knit corporate team with clear values working lead hours tend to embrace a person who gripes in private about a colleague who leaves early But shun one who complains about the late nights Widely dispersed sales force may lap up gossip about colleagues, but take it lightly It's hard to judge how gossip gossip will move through groups that are split into factions Infidelity will eventually catch up with you One of the lessons from gossip So unless you acknowledge how powerful Powerfully good gossip can be Then you're not really confronting the issue in a mature way Almost all religious texts. I read just condemn gossip and they give short shrift to the moral necessity of gossip Which protects innocent people from predators? So by so doing religions ignore reality and thereby they impede progress towards a better world Primary reason that gossip has a bad name is that the benefits of gossip are diffused among many people Though they are better informed they have little incentive to speak up for the value of gossip While the price of gossip is usually concentrated on individual subjects who have a huge incentive Huge personal incentive to try to tamp it down to to protect their reputations to try to hide The bad things that they are doing So let's suppose there's a rabbi who's very physically affectionate, but not a predator He just hugs people a lot and makes some of the people he hugs uncomfortable now gossiping about this overly huggy rabbi Would be damaging to the rabbi But it would protect those who do not like to be hugged by such people and the rabbi could then take this gossip as a form of Reproof he could learn social cues. He could reform his ways But probably the most likely reaction he would have is to get angry and protest vigorously that he's done nothing wrong And that this gossip is evil and it's humiliating him unnecessarily So the English word gossip originated as God sip meaning a person related to one in God or a God parent Till the 1800s gossip denoted friendship Today gossip is defined as chatty talk the reporting of sensational or intimate information If people aren't talking about other people It is a signal that something is wrong that we feel socially alienated or indifferent For a real understanding of our world of our environment of our group of our people Okay gossip is essential This primary function is to help us to make social comparisons If we read bad news about celebrities or getting the gruesome details of our neighbor's misery over a cup of coffee Our own problems begin to pale and comparison Many people may gain from being gossiped about targets of gossip are made more human more easy to identify with so there's a saying that you're only a member of a group Once people begin to gossip about you if people in your group don't gossip about you you're not really a member I Remember a professor relayed that to me in Synagogue and he says you're a member of the group Meaning people are gossiping about me. I remember I once walked into a group of people who were all talking about me I didn't didn't know it. I was kind of sad that they hadn't included me in their reindeer games They were all kind of taken aback when I like turned turned a corner and and they said oh We were just talking about you. Whoops Okay let's Let's try to get a handle on things. So so there's Ricardo. So if I say about Ricardo He's not as good as baseball coaches. He thinks he is Haven't done Ricardo any harm If Ricardo says, you know Luke show is boring. He hasn't done me any harm, right? So this kind of gossip most gossip like this is just harmless It's just giving me cues such as you know, my show has gotten boring or You know Ricardo may have an over-inflated view of his own coaching capabilities Or it just may be totally wrong So gossip lets you know the limits on personal behavior so sending out dick pics to people who don't want them and Then people gossip about what you're doing That's letting you know that it's not a good idea to send out photos of your big fat, you know Guard rod to people who don't want them. You move into a community and Your neighbor tells you how the previous homeowner never disposed of his garbage properly now This gossip is letting you in on something important Okay, if someone says oh and you don't want to have You don't want to do business. You don't want to get into business with someone. So he's an alcoholic This is important information. You need to know whether someone you're about to Enter a partnership where there's an alcoholic So gossip shepherds the herd Says these are the boundaries and you're crossing them You're not abiding by the rules and you'd better get back in step So if you're in Tifa or if you're an alt-right and they're leading members of your group who are behaving in ways that are unbecoming then you have an incentive to gossip about them and Thereby, I hope that gets back to the person so that they get their behavior back into line Where does gossip become destructive? Well, it should be obvious when it does destruction. Okay, if If if People who know you Riccardo got together and spread information that Halved your source of income Okay, that's done you significant harm whether what they say is true or not So that's become destructive and unless you know, they have really really good reasons for so doing unless they can Unless it can be demonstrated that what they've done in the public interest. That's destructive Okay, so When does gossip become destructive when it's obvious, okay? If we talk about things that are publicly known about millennial woes or publicly discussed about millennial woes We're not doing millennial woes any additional harm. Okay, that information is already out there Right, but if millennial woes confided in you and you promised to respect the confidentiality of what he said and Then you broke his confidentiality and you expose things that he said to you in confidence then you Doing something destructive But if you repeat a comment you read on 4chan Paul In in a YouTube live stream, you're not doing him any harm But if you run into him at a pub and he's having a nice conversation with with three three people and Then you say hey, you know woezy I hear you've got incurable genital warts You've done him harm on the other hand if that prevents people from Contracting some incurable disease and I don't know you know millennial woes is STD status So I'm talking about a hypothetical here that's been widely discussed So if you prevent people from getting say an incurable disease or a nasty disease by gossiping about someone you've done something good But if you gossip about someone relay inaccurate information that turns out to harm them then then it's been destructive So gossip let's people know boundaries. Let's people know limits Let's people know the rules. Let's people know when they're getting out of line If you want to know who to avoid at work or in your neighborhood or on YouTube Okay, if you want to know who the leaders of your group love and who they loathe Who to go to when you need help what it really takes to get a promotion or a raise How much you can safely slack off in the workplace? Now you better pay attention to the company grapevine Gossip tells you who's in who's out who's hot who's cold If you're worth being talked about you're a member of the group you're in if you've got valuable information you're in Now generally speaking kids gossip is much more cruel than that of adults But these cruel comments are often quite effective because the target learns important information that he's not invisible to the rest of the world So if he's been dressing badly if he's a cheater if he's a liar if he's a sneak if he smells bad He needs to get that information even though it may be painful to hear Gossip is a Rorschach test if you look at the nature of someone's gossip you can find out what concerns them People who gossip rank high on the anxiety scale Not only do they disclose more but the anxious are on the receiving end of gossip more often and more likely than those less anxious to Consider the information crucial Gossip can introduce subtly destructive energy into a social group Sure, but when what distinguishes it from being destructive versus constructive so So when people are gossiping about us and it makes us feel bad We're very likely to say it's destructive, but it may very well be painful information that we need to hear It's legally defamation per se to publish that someone has an STD if they don't Yeah, but also what needs to happen is they need to Need to have a reputation that can be tarnished millennial words does not have a reputation can be tarnished Okay, if two members of group talk about a third member it can create factionalism Maybe but also Okay, let's suppose that Holly and I talk about Ricardo and we say Wow, Ricardo is just Over the top in his his online comments man, he's just you know, he's lost the plot He's just you know, he's gone completely unhinged, you know, I'm concerned about him But I know he's not going to listen to me and you know, he's not going to listen to you But who's who's another party that might have some influence over him? Or You know when he's he's headstrong You know Ricardo won't listen to anyone. He's gonna he's gonna just you know blaze his own trail and He's been poisoned by the alright So yeah, if you if I've got a problem with Ricardo ideally I take it out with Ricardo Privately right that that is the ideal way to operate But we don't always have the energy to do that so If there's someone at work who smells bad, you know consistently smells bad It's a very awkward conversation to have You'll probably say, you know, wow, you know Joe, why does he always smell bad hasn't you ever heard of deodorant? So ideally you'd go directly to Joe, but you may not have the fortitude or the energy Okay, we gossip about people we care about so if I never gossip about Ricardo means I don't care about him Look and I carry out our private conversations in public, right? But I never talk about Ricardo means I don't care about him, right? We only talk about people we care about We wouldn't talk about millennial woes if we didn't care about him We don't bother talking about people who don't matter to us We would not talk about Kevin Michael Grace if he didn't matter to us We would not talk about Richard Spencer or Greg Johnson or JF got a pee or Mrs. JF If they didn't matter to us. We don't talk about people who don't matter to us So if I care about you, I'm gonna talk about you The only way I'm never going to talk about you Is if I don't care Yeah, Ricardo only talks about me because he cares Right they abandoned from the patriotic alternative, but he did have a reputation that's now being destroyed He had a reputation in some Alt-right circles. He didn't have a wider societal reputation that can be tarnished. Okay, once you're Publicized as millennial woes was a couple of years ago Once once he said as many controversial things online as he said or as I've said, you know, I cannot be tarnished Okay, you cannot hurt my reputation because one I directed a porn movie To I blocked about the point industry for ten years There's nothing that you can say that's gonna hurt my reputation. Okay, I Am I am liable proof. I have no reputation to preserve. I Just don't think anything can be said about me that will be damaging It's nothing about me that's going to shock people in my orthodox Jewish community. Yeah, my reputation is judgment proof Millennial where should just start streaming again people were watching greater numbers. Yeah, people love People love someone who's vulnerable and open about their stuff People love flawed people flawed people are much more relatable Okay Are we only gossip about people we care about? Remember that when you get hurt by someone's gossip So most of the time gossip spread between two people is neutral. It's a pregnancy. It's a promotion But betraying a confidence and spreading sensitive information can end a friendship can be destructive The people that people talk about Not usually the most popular is usually people talk about people who are different and don't conform Okay, those are the primary Subjects of gossip people who are different people who don't conform meaning people who are low in agreeability So by being different and not conforming they are inviting gossip If I did fewer live streams and I took you know said fewer controversial things I would be less often a target of gossip. So we gossip about those primarily Who don't conform who don't behave as we expect them to people who behave different than expectations People who get reputations for being gossips aren't particularly popular because they regarded as untrustworthy So gossip is always about people see the fact or supposition Rumors deal with people's anxieties There are wish rumors that we hope are true and dread rumors that we pray are false Rumors are an echo of ourselves The rumors that we spread they reveal our desires Our fears and our obsessions They're a mirror to our soul Gossip is a key part of a striving socially unified society It's a barometer of our aspirations As we seek for ourselves a glamorous Turbulent lives of the rich and famous There's a danger that gossip as we know it could wither away. We could return to the status quo In which nobody's personal life is considered nationally riveting The proper time to become alarmed about the role of gossip in American society is when there starts to be less of it That's Nicholas layman writing in the New Republic Okay from This is London 1998 Old-fashioned gossip is not only about dishing the dirt. It is essential to survival Any employer who wants a happy? How has gossip alienated you from people you care about? Oh That's right Ricardo is so good at live streams because he is much less contrived than I am so I am very controlled I only like rarely show You know how I really feel about something Normally, I've got that stick up my butt, you know that Anglo-Saxon reserve You know that stiff up a lip, you know, very rarely do I let go so when has gossip? When is gossip? damaged me Okay, I'll tell you when when gossip is damaged me when it has touched on Things that I'm trying to keep quiet So really the most of the damage that gossip has done me is that other people have simply Become aware of the things that I'm trying to get away with So the gossip that I've primarily hated is when people have Noticed and remarked on my bad behavior trying to think of any any particularly painful gossip I'm thinking about someone who was close to me who saw me on VH1 about 15 years ago and Her kids were watching VH1 and then suddenly I pop up and I'm surrounded by these scantily clad models and my friends Orthodox Jew and she was like a pod and she said like how could Luke don't do this? I thought he'd left all this behind It's disgusting. It's like right in front of my kids. It's like in their face I don't know if I can ever have him at my home again and So she went off on me and then she felt bad and she sought my forgiveness and I said you didn't do me any harm You know that the the expressions of your heart were valid concerns. You did me no harm So if I violate convention then I should only expect to be gossiped about It's vital to swap information The other people create people create rumors when they are uncertain when they have strong desires or strong fears We gossip and create rumors to fill a vacuum when we don't know what's going to happen people gossip to create a social network to bond with other people and to put ourselves in the circle and Be you know with our people with our group Gossiping is good for you. It makes you more psychologically positive Without a traditional gossip network Society could crumble So celebrity watching can be in healthy part of adolescent development celebrity attachments can serve as pseudo friends And they become the subjects of gossip and discussion among real friends Fascination with celebs not only helps you bond with other people but to become more autonomous from your parents Those children who develop unhealthy fixations on the lives of stars much more likely to be lonely lacking strong bonds with family and friends It's more a result of these lack of strong bonds So study after study is tracking our eroding commitment to community as Americans. No, I don't regret burning on woes I'm just kind of taken aback by all these people who are appalled by it And it was all publicly available information and I was appalled that anyone Was looking up to woes I've always known him before I even knew he did YouTube videos as a heavily dysfunctional, you know sex pest He's never held a job He's very talented at what he does many ways far superior live streamer to me far better at video editing So this is nothing about me being better than him I was just kind of taken aback that people think oh, it's so bad to gossip about woes What's the line between innocent gossip and sinful gossip? It's only sinful if you do significant harm to someone who does not deserve it unless you can point to concrete harm It's trivial. It doesn't matter if you concretely harm someone By things you've said unnecessarily harmed innocent people then you have amends to make otherwise Doesn't matter so with our eroding commitment to community As Americans spend more time with computers. We may start bawling less. We might start bawling alone But you are adding to the pile. Yeah, it makes no difference Okay, it makes no difference. Let's say I go out there and I'm arrested for soliciting a hooker Okay Whatever you say about it will make no difference because there will be dozens of other people saying similar things or worse Yeah, it does in your imagination like in your fantasy world about what matters It's really significant, but in the real world. It makes no difference But in your imaginary world, it's very very significant in the real world Between flesh-and-blood human beings it makes no difference if you gossip about me being arrested for soliciting a prostitute or make no difference So, you know sports gossip is a way that men tend to break the ice Whispering about the lives of others is always served as a finely tuned social warning system That helps people avoid the inevitable pitfalls of life. Did you hear who she hooked up with? Did you know this guy's got incurable genital warts? Can you believe that he did that to her? How could they have fallen for him? So gossip warns us about bad guys sad guys dangerous guys We we judge celebrities as a means of justifying our own life choices to sort out our values and to share our opinions with Other people it's a way of forming a pack mentality. It's another way of saying it's a way of forming bonds and deciding on boundaries and ethical strictures in which need to be respected and which are being violated So when I first came to Judaism, I learned that Judaism had all these hundreds of laws against gossip and I thought whoa This is tough. You know, I learned that gossip was very destructive and unethical and And I had a long background in journalism. I thought oh my god. What am I? I didn't know anything about anyone having incurable, you know, genital warts. I'm just picking up on things widely said on various threads on 4chan Paul and elsewhere and So I even reproved my stepmother for for gossiping kind of embarrassed about how unhinged I got but I didn't have the proper understanding Who the most pathetic white nationalist ranked them there's so many Well, we could have one one list for for neo-nazis one list for criminals One list for sexual degenerates. I read this book called good gossip It's one of many academic works over the past few years in praise of gossip pointing out the good the gossip does such as bonding Creates community it develops and forces and subverts moral norms challenges power it overturns institutions I no longer agree with the comment that idiots talk about people and the wise talk about ideas Why are ideas always more important than people? Sometimes ideas are more important than people sometimes people are more important than ideas context is king Ethel writes my experience with gossip was Work related I feel great about the Cowboys draft including CD lamb at Y receiver I Took a college course on management of human resources to my great shock There was a section defining the grapevine is a legitimate communication source It changed my whole point of view on gossip so rational It's really important to accept gossip and then manage it personally so it doesn't affect one's own good judgment Gossip develops the value significance judgment and group concerns or chasm of the gossipers Okay, I've run a lot longer than I expected, but good talk will continue at another time