Gossip and the Future of the Dead

The supposed rabbinic condemnation of gossip occurs because the rabbis (both real and fictive) are themselves engaging in gossip (although it is dressed up as dispute and story telling) and because there is a strong homology between the structure of gossip and the mechanisms we use to keep the dead present in our community. In the simplest sense: gossip is a dialogue between two or more people about someone who is not there. Similarly, all discussion of the dead occurs between two people about someone (necessarily) absent. 

Gossip, while hardly democratic, is a popular method for social introjection (i.e. maintaining the dead,) one that Jewish authorities have tried (and failed) to harness and control; an examination of their efforts and anxieties will help us understand the role gossip plays as a techne for determining the people who are part of our future, even after they are gone.