THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

PAIN | 2007-02-23

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Bob, you make important points on this topic and brilliantly.

From the comments here, I think there are a few of us who have watched fine people ruined by malicious gossip. Tale-bearers quickly discover that they can destroy whomever they are jealous of as long as the tales are sensational and nasty enough.

I have known people who have gotten away with exactly what you are talking about. And I know far more who did nothing but a good job but who were ruined by malicious tales.

It seems to me that insiders with the right connections can get away with anything, just as you suggest.

And yet, outsiders and new people with few connections are routinely ruined by jealous people.

This is the price we pay for living in a society where almost everyone is an employee. There are too many of us fighting over the same jobs, perks, promotions, boss's praise, or corner office. We all are begging for a dollar on the same street.

The routine response to sensational gossip is: "We take these charges seriously."

The boss may know that the gossip is a habitual liar and that the victim HAD an excellent reputation; but if he were to investigate the matter and question people about it, the sensational nature of the gossip could quickly become impossible to keep awat from the public. So if the victim is new or has few connections, the easiest thing is to fire him.

Gossips know whom to attack.

I know you don't like the Bible much, but Paul (in Romans 1:28-32) makes a good point that these gossips deserve death: they destroy people's lives.

My comment here is an extension of what you say, and I also must stick up for the people who have been ruined by false charges of perversion.

Here's the formula:

The better you do your job –> the better your reputation –> the more jealousy over you –> the more gossip about you –> the more damage to your career.

Everyone wants to be popular; but popularity is costly.

Can you see the clear thinking you have inspired, Bob?

Comment by Pain —

COMMENTS (3)

#1 Pain | 2007-02-23 15:34

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Thanks Bob for giving this prominence. I see this as the number one social problem today. I suspect things have worsened over the last ten years or so. As employees, we depend on the good graces of someone else to get ahead. Too many people act as if the only way to get ahead were to destroy their competition -- fellow employees. Victims are afraid to talk about this problem when it happens because it would mean spreading slander against themselves.

Dependance on employment means that men become women and women become ugly.

The Founding Fathers (such as Jefferson) said that such a system was a system of bribery and that the virtue necessary for men to stay free would collapse. It has.

#2 Pain | 2007-02-23 15:47

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This is why people are resistant to basic statements of truth. They are accustomed to listening to and obeying only those who have something to offer them, those in positions of power. They will block out anything from their minds that does not come from a power figure (such as mommy professor, or mommy newsman) and they will block out anything that does not fit the current fad. People listen to hear if what one says fits the current fad. A fad is anything that someone can do without fear of censure from peers. Really it is just extending the rules of the workplace to life itself. One obeys the boss lest one be fired. One conforms to the behaviors of peers lest they destroy your reputation through malicious gossip. Any sign of independence is ruthlessly suppressed by bosses and peers.

Truthfulness has become revolutionary: truth threatens a lie more than another lie.

The workplace has become the schoolyard in a tough neighborhood: and life itself has become the workplace.

#3 Alan | 2007-02-24 07:30

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The Liberal who fights and runs away, lives to fight as a progressive another day. In todays society labels have replaced the words such as values, chacter and personal intergrity, labels shield the wicked, personal accountability can there for be avoided and the wicked, "Anti Whites" can some day return and attack us once again. Let the "Liberals" reinvent themselves, they can never change who they really are, we need to attack their poor character, values and integrity. The anti white whites are race haters and promoters of non white immigration, "White Genocide. They are distroying our white race and culture, thus, they lack the values, they are freaks of nature, why let them off, like Bob said, lets smash the SOB'S by exposing their sick Idealism with simple commonsense logic. Last, these freaks lack integrity, to lie and mislead others to further a distructive aim is obviously proof, lets just simply provide the straight poop, screw the propers and all those who apollogise for these jerks by making up excuses for their freakish nature.