Ever told anyone the truth ?
Was it the mathematical truth, your personal truth or the social truth?
Ever regretted it?
You have to know someone well before you tell them the truth.
A double edged sword. It can cause and start a war. It can destroy friendships and.... It can prevent disaster.
In order to find out whether we can tell someone the truth,we have to try and find out if we can trust them.
We have to use gossip -
These individual bits of information ,are exchanged between individuals usually on a like for like basis amongst social groupings.
In order to use truth socially we have to find out if we can trust a person.
From tribal societies to the present day small social groups used gossip to find out about each other and to engender trust.
A social knowledge vital for survival. How can I be sure who will help me or who is out to kill me?
Society is now a much safer place but there is still a rich vein of gossip.
We can learn all about someone without the risk of offending them by asking them directly.
Namely that one thing they say that they hate : talking behind people's backs.
Consider it a social taboo. Yet it is vital.
We can get to know people individually but we need to make a judgment about if they are lying or not. If we use gossip, we can obtain a more rounded viewpoint. We take advantage of the wider community and are able to find out an individuals social reputation .
Gossip informs and also holds our social reputation and thus our word becomes valuable.
A single unit of gossip used in exchange is called a gleme.
The Gleme.
Derived from - Meme the cultural unit of exchange,first used by Richard Dawkins.
And Glean. Information extracted from various sources, collected bit by bit.
One piece of information exchanged through gossip is called a 'gleme'
A unit of gossip.
The gleme.
Information collected from various sources for the purposes of social trade or exchange , what distinguishes it from proper conversation. A gleme is a unit of social or cultural trade,generally traded for the purpose of improvement within a social hierarchy or group which uses gossip.
The look in someone's eyes when they receive quality gossip.
The best thing about is, if you exchange gossip and receive a gleme in return, you now have two glemes.
If you have glemes you have social inclusion.
If you don't have then you're socially bankrupt. You are no use to people, you have nothing to exchange with them.
Destroy them
If your social reputation is strong it becomes easy to destroy another .
The gleme can spread virally through social groups .
Generally once it is repeated by someone other than the source several times it becomes the truth.
Over the mountain,
On human faces,
And all around me,
Moving to melody,
Floated The Gleme
Tennyson
The only question I have for you :
What are people saying about me?
The Rebel Fish
