Good Gossip

Robert F. Goodman

ISBN 10: 070060670X / ISBN 13: 9780700606702

Edité par University Press Of Kansas Jul 1994, 1994

A propos de cet article

Neuware - This work suggests that gossip has unexpected virtues. The contributors argue that gossip contributes to community cohesion and helps individuals better understand their own predicaments, problems and personal idiosyncrasies in the light of knowledge about the life experiences of others.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9780700606702

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Good Gossip
• Éditeur: University Press Of Kansas Jul 1994
• Date de parution: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 070060670X
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780700606702
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 230 L x 156 H x 17 P (en millimètres) 230 millimètres de largeur par 156 millimètres de hauteur par 17 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 358 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

As ubiquitous and influential as gossip is, it has been surprisingly downplayed as a topic of philosophical, psychological, and sociological investigation and debate.

In Good Gossip, twenty-two scholars from several disciplines turn a professional eye to that much-maligned yet heavily practiced form of conversation. Going beyond merely trying to explain a previously ignored human behavior, many of them argue that gossip has unexpected virtues. They show how it contributes to community cohesion and helps individuals better understand their own predicaments, problems, and personal idiosyncrasies in light of knowledge about the life experiences of others. Without gossip, the authors show, we would have no access to such knowledge.

Gossip also serves as a mode by which people resist and subvert power in a world that would otherwise seem overpowering. People gossip about the rich and famous in order to "cut them down to size," and informal gossip networks help overcome the depersonalizing tendencies of modern society.

Provocative and varied, this book looks at gossip from diverse angles by including essays on gossip and humor, logic, morality, privacy, legal and medical issues, feminism, history, rumors, and reputation. Although many of the authors conclude that gossip has a positive aspect that ought to be encouraged rather than prohibited, the collection as a whole does not constitute an unqualified vindication of gossip, but rather paves the way for future debate on this omnipresent pastime.

À propos de l?auteur

Robert F. Goodman is coauthor of Deadlock in School Desegregation and coeditor of Rethinking Knowledge and Values: Reflections Across the Disciplines.

Aaron Ben-Ze'ev is author of The Perceptual System: Philosophical and Psychological Considerations and Aristotle's On the Soul.