Good Gossip

Robert F. Goodman is coauthor of Deadlock in School Desegregation and coeditor of Rethinking Knowledge and Values: Reflections Across the Disciplines.Aaron Ben-Ze'ev is author of The Perceptual System: Philosophical and Psychological Considerations and Aristotle's On the Soul.

Gossip is inherently democratic, concerned with private life rather than public issues, 'idle,' in the sense that it is not instrumental or goal oriented. Yet it can serve to expand our consciousness of what life is about in ways that are effectively inaccessible to other modes of inquiry." —Ronald de Sousa from Good Gossip"This topic is interesting and in need of serious study. The book is partially an attempt to exonerate gossip from its bad reputation by pointing to the various positive values it may promote. A worthy contribution to the study of gossip." —Irwin Goldstein, Davidson College