Socrates’ Gossip Filter

Gossip - Slander – Fairy tales

 Everyone has sometimes listened to gossip and slander. If you tend to be less critical and hateful maybe you can boast with having heard more gossip than you have spread. Alas most of us have still contributed to gossip and slander far too often by spreading some of what we heard to others. In a spirit of "making-a-hen-of-a-feather" we have probably at one time or another even “improved” such tales. When the world we lived in was smaller, it was "gossip mongers", who were spreading gossip. But if nobody had been listening to the gossip, the gossip would quickly have died out. There is a proverb that says: "It is rarely the fault of only, one when two are quarrelling." According to some philosophers, there is often a third party involved when two who quarrel cannot stop and the conflict seems "insoluble".

 Rule: If two people have a conflict that they can not resolve with the help of live communication, it is because there is someone or something that keeps on creating the conflict. In order to solve such a conflict the “third party” needs to be located and handled.

 The insoluble conflict between Jews and Palestinians is a clear example of a third party conflict. Without the constant flow of false information from religious fundamentalists the two sides could probably resolve the conflict. At least if both sides would adopt some more conciliatory and humble attitudes.

Data Vacuum

 When you do not know anything about some other individual or group a "data vacuum" is easily created. A data vacuum arises from the desire to know when you do not know. Then you get a tendency to fill this vacuum with whatever fits in. Without data vacuums gossip and/or slander would not work. You, as a fellow human being, should therefore be obliged to get yourself vaccinated against gossip and slander by reducing your uncontrolled desire to know. It is much better to know that you do not know than to believe that you know. Anyone who satisfies his/her desire to know by filling their data vacuums with all kinds of gossip and slander is so far from Socratic ideals as is possible.
 In courts, it is considered a serious offense to speak untruths about others that may get those others convicted for something they are not guilty of. It is called committing perjury and is punishable in court.

 In daily life, nobody is sentencing individuals who slander or gossips, even if others are experiencing all sorts of bad things and difficulties because of it. You should cure your data vacuums by being content with realizing that you “do not know” and instead devote yourself to philosophical fairy tales and live communication.

Gossip in the Modern World

 In modern societies gossip mongers and their ilk is certainly still active in the small context. But now we have large sophisticated organizations, which can gossip much more and more effectively. We have media that have been spreading so much slander and gossip that most of us have long ago been forced to realize that "it need not be true just because it says so in newspapers or on radio or if shown on television."

 Moreover, we have the Internet, where everyone is free to publish almost anything. As long as we have data vacuums that needs filling, many lies fall conveniently in place in the data vacuums of our minds. So please realize that we have some responsibility for what happens in our surroundings. We have an obligation to try to avoid receiving and spreading slander and gossip. We actually have an obligation to recognize that we do not know only because we have filled our data vacuums with information. We have an obligation to recognize that information can be both false and true. It is our duty not to disseminate false information, if we want our communities to function. To be aware that you do not know is a Socratic ideal. To accept responsibility for the data vacuums in your mind that are filled with information that you never checked properly, when you accepted it, is an obligation that is not easily fulfilled. Almost everyone who has anything good to say to his surroundings will sooner or later be defamed by questionable "educators", who feel threatened by what is said.

 The gossiping and slandering artists have a method to gain acceptance for their views. They turn to the ignorant masses peddling "labels" that they make people accept. E.g. they say that "sects" are always evil. They do not inform their followers that sects can be both good and bad. When the ignorant masses have learned that "all sects are evil," it is enough to put the label "sect" to a group for it to be classified as a vicious group, regardless of the goodness or badness of that group.

Fairy Tales

 Gossip and slander consists of truths, falsehoods and outright lies. If you believe in gossip and slander you will easily get a negative view of your fellow human beings. Fairy tales are the opposite of gossip and slander. Fairy tales also consist of truths, falsehoods and/or lies. Anyone who reads a fairy tale does not believe that the fairy tale is true just because it is written. One reads fairy tale to receive the message that the tale conveys. Spiritually edifying fairy tales convey spiritually edifying messages. Virtually all written materials in the philosophy of life claims to be spiritually edifying fairy tales. We do not claim that such stories are true (even if the message may be a message of truth). We only ask the person studying the written materials to try to understand the message and use it to increase their spiritual wealth. The same principle applies to Socratic questions. The question itself means nothing. It is only when the individual answers the question and gives birth to their own ideas and truths, that the question fulfils its purpose.

 Fairy tales are the positive side of the coin, if gossip and slander is the negative. Information can be used positively or negatively for good or evil. It's the result that counts.

 Some of the most uplifting tales we know in our modern Western civilization, are the stories of Gautama (Buddha), Socrates and Jesus. As life-philosophers we do not worry about the truth of our fairy tales. All we need to know is that individuals studying them are elevated to new levels of awareness by their messages.

The gossip filter of Socrates

 When Socrates met a friend who wanted to tattle to him, he asked his friend to first undergo a threefold test. He proposed three "filter questions":

 1) Are you absolutely sure that what you are about to say is true?

 2) Is what you want to tell me something inherently good or desirable?

 3) Can what you want to tell me be of good use?

 If what the friend wanted to tell Socrates met one or more of these three criteria, it was good to inform Socrates of it, otherwise it was just as well to leave it unsaid.

 Each one of us can by answering these three filter questions sort out gossip and slander from our speech.

 Imagine if the tabloids used these three questions before they announced their "news" to us.

 Moral; Believe in gossip and slander and you feel worse. Make sure you receive spiritually uplifting messages and your life will improve.

The choice is yours!

Todde