non-jew here, and IMO you did really well -- except for the yelling.
i don't know if you were "correct"; i'll leave that to other jews. but the concept of lashon hara is difficult (as i understand it), and i think you did a good job of getting it across in this context. and yes, i think it was important to do it publicly -- because the event that set things off was public as well, and ethical lessons are learned well if they have immediate practical connection and application.
i also agree with your "severity" distinction. i think it's ok to write down negative thoughts about other people; i find that cathartic (though i endeavour to do it so nobody else can see, or only somebody i trust NOT to tattle about it, like a partner). i don't think it's appropriate to destroy other people's private property even if said property contains a bit of nastiness about oneself -- if the page had instead been put up somewhere public, or handed around for everyone else to see, then i think it'd be ok for the third kid (or anyone else) to destroy it.
i think gossip is way nastier than either of those two. i don't even like positive gossipping much because i think private information is for the owner to disperse at their own leisure; it's not my story to tell. i can excuse it as part of community building". but to stir up bad blood between people is definitely not laudable behaviour.
there are exceptions, but they all present dilemmas for me, and i need special circumstances to find it ethical to blow the whistle. frex a company secretly dumping toxic chemicals -- not a huge dilemma because it's not a private person doing private damage, but i'll still wonder about how to approach it, whether to first confront somebody privately. a person cheating on zir spouse, i know it, and am a friend of the spouse -- that sort of thing is much harder for me. when person A likes and trusts person B with secrets, and person B blabs them around and generally speaks ill of person A and IMO just stays close to find out dirt -- oy.
as to whether it's worse to write bad stuff in a private notebook but do so where others can see it, or for the person written about to destroy that writing -- i'd be hard pressed to decide. probably the writing, because it was careless, and it was what set the whole thing in motion.
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lashon hara
Date: 2007-10-01 06:08 am (UTC)i don't know if you were "correct"; i'll leave that to other jews. but the concept of lashon hara is difficult (as i understand it), and i think you did a good job of getting it across in this context. and yes, i think it was important to do it publicly -- because the event that set things off was public as well, and ethical lessons are learned well if they have immediate practical connection and application.
i also agree with your "severity" distinction. i think it's ok to write down negative thoughts about other people; i find that cathartic (though i endeavour to do it so nobody else can see, or only somebody i trust NOT to tattle about it, like a partner). i don't think it's appropriate to destroy other people's private property even if said property contains a bit of nastiness about oneself -- if the page had instead been put up somewhere public, or handed around for everyone else to see, then i think it'd be ok for the third kid (or anyone else) to destroy it.
i think gossip is way nastier than either of those two. i don't even like positive gossipping much because i think private information is for the owner to disperse at their own leisure; it's not my story to tell. i can excuse it as part of community building". but to stir up bad blood between people is definitely not laudable behaviour.
there are exceptions, but they all present dilemmas for me, and i need special circumstances to find it ethical to blow the whistle. frex a company secretly dumping toxic chemicals -- not a huge dilemma because it's not a private person doing private damage, but i'll still wonder about how to approach it, whether to first confront somebody privately. a person cheating on zir spouse, i know it, and am a friend of the spouse -- that sort of thing is much harder for me. when person A likes and trusts person B with secrets, and person B blabs them around and generally speaks ill of person A and IMO just stays close to find out dirt -- oy.
as to whether it's worse to write bad stuff in a private notebook but do so where others can see it, or for the person written about to destroy that writing -- i'd be hard pressed to decide. probably the writing, because it was careless, and it was what set the whole thing in motion.