May 14, 2007
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splitting hairs
One might ask if there is a difference between talking about someone behind their back and consulting or confiding in someone about that same other person. The first is sometimes portrayed as a kind of a dirty thing mean, unfair or unjust. We say things like “you should tell it their face” and whatnot. The latter is seen as a normal and regularly practiced thing and sometimes even considered necessary for psychological health and well being. People talk about the need of having “outlets” and the likes. But if an emotionless disconnected external being were to observe both phenomena they would look pretty much exactly the same to him I suspect.
So what is the difference really? The same place the difference between most of our many conjoined concepts lie. In the intentions of the acting entity of course. And that is all there really is to it.
