Ustaz Mark Bang<\/p>\n
I was a college student in 2017 and entered into a very big battle. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The students’ union electoral commission conducted an election, and I contested successfully for the position of Academic Affairs secretary.<\/p>\n Most of my closest friends, who I didn’t believe to be the worst gossipers, gossiped about me; they falsely claimed that this person was a drug addict, drunkard, and big liar, but most of my strong friends stood their ground to elect me, and I was happy about it. Overwhelmingly, I appreciated and accepted each and every individual who elected me and those who didn’t cast their ballots for my position. As a good leader, you need to care for others, including opponents, even Jesus Christ on the cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing.\u201d Look! Those whose eyes were opened, cured of their disease, and whose demons were cast out of them shouted out loud, calling for the Lord’s crucifixion.<\/p>\n Hating another human being and going further to gossip about her\/him isn’t good completely; I am against this. Even when I was young, I didn’t entertain such a senseless act. Some people like gossip because they don’t have anything interesting in their personal lives, so they must be checking into other people’s lives. Just think for a second: if you don’t have anything interesting to do or hobbies that keep you busy with YOUR own life, then you need to change your focus to someone else’s business. In simple words, they have been “lifeless” and have no purpose for themselves. When you are busy with your “own” things that you invest your time in, then you don’t have space to gossip or be on top of what others are doing with their lives. So like I said to some people, “If you don\u2019t have anything positive to talk about, I appreciate it if you don’t say anything at all.”<\/p>\n Gossip is a human sickness. Gossip is like an open sore, pus-yellowish-green, general disease of the mouth. It drips, spreads, infiltrates, infects, and poisons the energy and minds of other people. Some people like gossip because they don’t have anything interesting in their personal lives, so they must be checking into other people’s lives. Just think for a second: if you don’t have anything interesting to do or hobbies that keep you busy with your own life, then you need to change your focus to someone else’s business. In simple words, they were “lifeless” and had no purpose within themselves. When you are busy with your “own” things that you invest your time in, then you don’t have space to gossip or be on top of what others are doing with their lives. So like I said to some people, \u201cIf you don\u2019t have anything positive to talk about, I appreciate it if you don’t say anything at all.”. Next time someone starts to spread gossip, think of this: In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?” Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It\u2019s called the Triple Filter Test.” “Triple filter?” “That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my student let’s take time to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?” “No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…” “All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?” “No, on the contrary…” “So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you’re not certain it’s true?” The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued. “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter – the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?” “No, not really…” “Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?” The man was defeated and ashamed. This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.<\/p>\n That’s partly why I hated gossip \u2014 the effect of people gossiping about me didn’t just impact my schooling, it went on to affect me at work and even my interactions with neighbours, in a negative way. I know it sounds like I am digressing but for me to find the urge to want to live again, I had to try and reason with myself about hate and the fact that I have, for most of my life, felt a seething hatred towards gossipy people, to the point that I have ridiculed people, stone-walled any attempt by one or more parties, to talk about other people, with me.<\/p>\n The effect of making myself non-amenable to \u2018gossip\u2019 meant that people I worked with could never look at me for a shoulder to cry on. The effect of gossip within society is that it reaffirms the value consensus, between individuals, in a similar way to how axons in our brain react towards one another to create synaptic movement \u2014 gossiping is the gel of rules relating to morality, it’s as much of an important part of society as divisions in power between the executive, legislative, judicial branches of government.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ustaz Mark Bang I was a college student in 2017 and entered into a very big battle. The students’ union electoral commission conducted an election, and I contested successfully for the position of Academic Affairs secretary. Most of my closest friends, who I didn’t believe to be the worst gossipers,[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":32739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oped","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Ustaz-Mark-Bang-9.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32740,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32738\/revisions\/32740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHere is a mini-story from the philosopher Socrates about it: A story about Gossip.<\/p>\n