The importance of Gossip

Mal was Neues: ein Blogeintrag auf Englisch, damit auch ALLE was verstehen.

Suprise, this time my blogentry will be on English. I think everybody will understand my bad grammar and this topic is international, so everybody should understand.
I try to explain the importance of gossip in a anthropological way.

Gossip is a way of sharing information about someone or something, but it mustn't be a bad thing. The German words "tratschen" or "lästern", also the Japanese word 悪口 ("waruguchi", bad+mouth) has a bad touch. In this case I try to use 'gossip' in a neutral way.
The main character about gossiping is, that one person share his information with another or a bigger group. All this people know the person/thing they speak about and mostly they all got the same opinion about it. This sharing happens when the speaker trust his partner and the topic of the information is important for the society.

And this is the main point of gossip: the importance of the information. In small groups where everybody needs everybody, like little shepherd group in the mountains, it is important, that they all can trust on each other. Imagine this little group of shepherd, maybe around 20 people, men and women. To feed their sheep, they have to tramp. Also to watch the herd they rotate the whole time. They share tents and food and now about one of this guys it is said, that he steel or sleep with a woman of another. The trust in him will be gone. It can be, that the shepherd just blame him in a hard way and he will loose his status or in the worst case they exclude him from the group. He can't stand alone and has to find a new group, but how to get in? He has to explain the reason why he had to left the old group.
When the people know the aftermath, they would do everything for don't getting in this position. A friendly and open relationship will exist and everybody would accept the social rules of the group.

I think in our society this model of importance isn't often. In our societies we don't need such much help of everybody for surviving. Loosing a group is not so hard, because in a city are more people who don't know you and you can easily find new friends. But the shepherds got no chance to find a new group.

A second important point of information is the prevention. Imagine a group of foreigners in a bigger group. Maybe Turkey in Germany, Japanese in Brazil or Germans in Japan. It is possible for them to make friends and contact to the bigger group, they can work for them and live they daily life. But they will always be another group.
When something happen to one of them, in a positive or negative way, everybody would know it very fast. The gossip will be a way of sharing information to puzzle a picture of the ambience. Everybody will see a 'out-group-person' in another way or had another experience and sharing these experiences can give them a feeling of safety. They all know more about a outer-person and can react in a better way. As I said, this can be a positive and a negative.
Maybe, one of the small group fall in love with someone of the outer group. But a inner-people had heard/ seen that this outer-person is a cheater. Another people can attest this. So they all try to protect the people of the own group. But on the other side they can have heard good things about the outer-group and try to support.

So, I hop you can all see, that gossip is a important action for protecting the society. In one group and between groups, it can link or seperate, it belongs to the rules of the society you live in.

When you want to read more about the social importance, I suggest this article:
Merry, Sally Engle. Rethinking Gossip and Scandal. In: Donald Black (ed.), Toward a General Theory of Social Control. Vol.1: Fundamentals. Orlando and London 1984, 271-302.
Thanks for trying something new!