Is Pope Francis right that gossip is an evil that destroys social life?

See Pope Francis’ Christmas Message to His Top Advisers: Don’t Gossip: Francis urged the Vatican inner circle to bless more and talk less badly of others. It wasn’t the first time he had used the occasion to scold them by Elisabetta Povoledo of The NY Times. Excerpts:

"On Saturday, Pope Francis used his annual Christmas message to the leaders of the Vatican’s various departments to admonish them.

Again.

“A church community lives in joyful and fraternal harmony to the extent that its members walk in the life of humility, renouncing thinking the worst and speaking ill of others,” Francis told the cardinals and prelates who make up the Vatican’s administration.

He also touched on a personal bugaboo: gossip.

“Gossip is an evil that destroys social life, sickens people’s hearts and leads to nothing,” Francis said."

I have links to some related posts below. Gossip is not all bad. Here are excerpts from some of those posts

"the evolution of gossip is the joint consequence of its reputation dissemination and selfishness deterrence functions. Specifically, the dissemination of information about individuals’ reputations leads more individuals to condition their behavior on others’ reputations. This induces individuals to behave more cooperatively toward gossipers in order to improve their reputations."

"not only is two-thirds of human conversation basically us gossiping with each other, but some scientists believe that the main reason why language evolved in the first place was the inherent need for primates to gossip."

"This is how groups police themselves. Spreading information amongst the group about who’s in or who’s out. Who’s good or who’s wicked, who’s dangerous and who’s safe, who can be trusted and who can’t."

"humans needed something that would help them keep up-to-date with friends and family as they spread out across distances, and networks of Homo sapiens were becoming too large for everyone to effectively groom everyone else.

Or, to put it another way, humans evolved to gossip."

"What made this gossip useful — and not just fun and petty — was that it allowed a group of people to get on the same page organically. It facilitated learning from others without direct observation. It helped strangers build connections. It increased cooperation by aligning individuals on acceptable behavior."

"gossip’s beneficial societal function comes from its ability to make things clearer and to help people better understand their environment."

Now not all gossip will be good. But it is a way to share information, which is valuable. And if it is less costly than other ways of communicating, then it is beneficial.

Related posts:

Explaining the evolution of gossip (2024)

Why gossip might not be bad and how it works in business (2023)

Psychologist uses money in experiments to study how gossip can be useful (2021)