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-11-
talk about it. As Mr. Armstrong has said about everything from
shotguns to sex, it is not the thing, but the misuse of the ·thing
that is wrong.
And talking about the Work and the people in it has been misused.
Badly.
Why?
Firstly, we must remember the old marketplace principle of supply
and demand. If demand for news exceeds the supply in normal channels,
interested parties begin to rely on each other for information. So
any barriers that hinder the rapid dissemination of news such as cen
sorship (in a government or a boardroom) or physical barriers arising
in catastrophies (earthquakes, war, etc.) encourage rumors.
Investigators, in studying rumors, have found that people de
prived of authoritative news tend to speculate on what is happening.
Either individually or with the help of other interested parties,
they pool what bits of information they have to form reasonable es
timates of the whole story. A significant change in the environment
that remains unaccounted for feels incomplete. Like hearing the
opening few notes of the Blue Danube without the mentally satisfying
tum-tum tum-turns. Or waiting for the other shoe to drop. This pro
duces the the almost irresistable urge to fill in the missing portions -
from one's own imagination. The results of this attempt to complete
the elipsis are obviously suspect. People who do not have the per
spective of one deprived of authoritative news, but do have the
facts are usually amazed at the results of this speculative exercise.
Amazed is too weak a word--dumbfounded and aghast better describes
it.
There are other reasons. Some of which we are all familiar with.
Events are discussed for purely entertainment value. Just to keep
life and the conversation interesting. The most colorful rumor of
that type was the "Paul McCartney is dead" one of 1969. It involved
playing records backwards and license numbers of parked cars on album
jackets. The intrigue and sense of conspiracy was exhilarating--
and basically harmless.
For us in the Church, the difficulty is that these things have
a tendancy to go too far. "In the multitude of words there wants
not sin; but he that refrains his lips is wise" (Prov. 10:19). The
problem is usually with that action word, refrain. For the "foolish
things of the world" refraining ain't easy. Amen. Yea, verily.
Another commonly known reason is to bestow STATUS on the teller.
Someone may be pleased to show us they are informed. But we should
always be aware that the specialists that study these things tell us
that people who give us information outside of official channels
usually distort the news by distilling it (leveling in rumor argot)
because of 1) time considerations (long distance calls are costly),
or 2) the conversation is on a tac� that only involves the news in
part (on a tangent) or, 3) the bits that support the tellers own
opinion about why something happened are highlighted while those
that conflict are diminished.
Shaky at best.