Backbiting dissected

(first published September 24, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

First, backbiting is a failure in communication. A person’s grievance against or critique of another is addressed to a third party, someone who holds probably little stake in the issue between the first two people. Second, backbiting is a perversion of communication. For a person to communicate is in the first place to engage others in an exchange of messages that promote understanding and harmony, whereas feasting on someone’s good name behind his back attacks unity, dividing the unsuspecting person and his backbiters into “him and us.”

How does backbiting begin? It can be the fruit of a false pacifism. Ron and Sam have an issue or conflict to resolve. Amid the heat of trying to remedy the situation, Sam, looking for a quick fix, decides to “peacefully” let Ron’s viewpoint prevail. In his heart, Sam simmers with rage. Soonest after parting with Ron, Sam removes his peace mask and grumbles about Ron before third person Dave. There is no assurance that Dave is the last person to hear Sam’s complaints about Ron. The cheap peace has sown abroad what was a contained conflict.

Backbiting can also be the result of false concern. Dave and Sam talk about Ron. Sam justifies this by saying that he is simply, without malice, fleshing out his conflict with Ron, to assess the conflict more broadly, and to seek to know how to help Ron deal with any of his own faults. In the process, Sam starts to bring up old, older and older issues with Ron, taking pleasure in presenting himself as the noble, righteous, slighted entity while reciting a litany of woes that present his subject in unflattering, if not highly demeaning light. The purported concern for the absent party has turned out to be a mere veneer for the backbiter’s self-centered concerns.

False pacifism and false concern entails repression, not resolution of one’s beef with another. Resentment’s pile up in one’s heart in a low-quality, imitation patience that projects a peaceable visage to hide a raging heart. Since one supposedly has no more issue to resolve with another, he either pretends to be at peace with that other person, or “peacefully” avoids his presence. But the shaky peace collapses as soon as the backbiter finds the next willing listener, the one on whom the backbiter pours his hidden grudges against the third person. The backbiter’s problem is one of courage and perseverance. He would rather be an agent of gossip than invest time and soul in the delicate task of reconciling with another.

“When you understand someone, truly understand someone, you can't help but love them,” says Mike Dooley. “Therefore, anyone in your life—anyone—who you feel less than love for, you have misunderstood.” Backbiters are generally people who do not understand the one of whom they speak negatively. They focus on the shadows of their “subject” never exploring that person enough to realize that his shadows, perhaps, emphasize better his lights, so that person is in reality like a work of art featuring splendid chiaroscuro.