The morality of rumours.

Rumours are a moral dilemma. That is, to receive a rumour puts the recipient in a moral quandary. The question is: should I pass on the rumour or not?

Well, the answer to this is always no. The reason why it should always be no, is that the recipient of the rumour is unlikely to have the necessary inside information to determine whether or not the rumour is true or not. If the rumour is NOT true, then to pass it on, is to commit slander, if negative. No moral person could, therefore, pass on a rumour in all good conscience.

The funny thing is, however, that most people spread rumours reflexively, without even thinking about where the information came from, or whether it was just a malicious lie sent spinning out into the world, by some anonymous jealous or spiteful person. Often, I think, rumours are just that: created to do harm to one that the rumour-monger has taken a dislike to. Like all of us, I have heard some ridiculous rumours in my time. You may have heard the same ones, too (think hamster and film star, for instance). I am pretty certain that the majority of rumours I get to hear are just not true. A moment's thought about them makes them begin to seem very unlikely indeed. We have all, for instance, heard the rumours about happily married film stars or other famous people, who have several children and yet are rumoured to be gay. Our first response to that should be: "That's ludicrous!", but too often, perhaps, in fact, almost all of the time, people pass on such rumours without thinking about their veracity.

Rumours wouldn't spread, at all, if people were either wise, intelligent or both. If they were wise, they would realize that they don't know enough to know whether the rumour is true - and therefore shouldn't in all moral conscience, pass it on. If they were intelligent, they would be smart enough to see through it and know it to be a lie - and again, wouldn't pass it on. However, in this world, the wise and the intelligent are few and the foolish and stupid are many. Thus it is that rumours are passed on, grow and become legends known by all - and yet, unsupported by any evidence, at all.

One can only conclude that rumours thrive on the stupidity of men...or their lack of moral conscience. For it can never be right to spread a negative idea about someone, without knowing it to be true. In fact, it can never be right to spread a negative idea about someone, even if you know it is true. One shouldn't, in brief, use words against the reputations of our fellow humans. To do so, strikes me as a moral failing.

Now, what do I do when I encounter a rumour? Well, firstly I just listen. Then I watch the person who is telling me of it, to see what their attitude is towards it (too often this is a kind of malicious glee). When they have finished, I will then comment on what they have said to see if they have any support to the comment they have just made. On those occasions when I can see some flaw, contradiction or know of contrary evidence, I will let the person know that what they have just said is false. On one occasion, for instance, I was at a dinner party, at which someone said, about a famous person, that they were partial to a particular kind of illegal relationship. My first and immediate response was: "I don't believe it!". I then told them all why I didn't believe it. You see it just wasn't plausible, given the physical shortcomings of the rather old man in question, that this kind of relationship could ever have occurred at all. It was just malicious gossip designed to bring him down, which was being relayed, without any thought about whether it was true, at a rather elevated gathering, at which people should know better. After I had pointed out the absurdity of the situation in question, I saw several people begin to re-appraise their unthinking acceptance of the slur. What surprised me, however, was that they hadn't thought of it themselves.

So, my personal approach to rumours is never to pass one on, to refute those against which I can discern contradictory evidence and to remind those who spread rumours that they have absolutely no way of knowing that there is any truth to what they are saying at all.

However, I am just one voice in a rather big world. Thus, my own little stand against rumour-mongering can only have a minute effect. However, if all who read this begin to take a higher moral stand on the issue of rumours and urge others to do the same, perhaps human discourse can rise above words founded on ill-feeling and begin to speak of certain truths to each other.

That would be an immeasurable improvement over what often passes for conversation, these days. Indeed, the modern conversation is often nothing but a series of rumours stuck end to end. I rather hope to see the end of such conversations. There are more fruitful ways to speak about the world. I only hope people make the effort to adopt them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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David Beckham, footballer and legend.

David Beckham. You didn't expect me to write those words, did you? Well, neither did I. It is just that I couldn't resist after hearing something about David Beckham, yesterday.

David Beckham is one of the most famous young men on Earth - but would you think of him as one of the brightest, too? Anyone who knew anything of him, from his interviews, is unlikely to think so. He comes across as a sweet but tongue-tied man, who finds it diffficult to express himself coherently in words. Yet, if there is one thing he is good at, it is PR. Either it is public relations, at work, or the global effect of Chinese Whispers has led to an interesting view of David Beckham, here in Singapore. Yesterday, a girl from Indonesia, who was twenty years old, told me this about David's life: "He went to Oxford University, but left without finishing his degree, because he wanted to focus on his football."

I greeted this with a long, almost reverent silence, that anyone could believe such a thing. Then I asked her: "Who told you that David Beckham went to Oxford?"

She couldn't remember where she got the information - but was sure of it. Now, either she had read it in a mistaken journalist's article - or had heard it from another, sometime - or she had imagined it. She was unable to source her knowledge. Yet, "know" it, she did.

Now, if you know anything about Oxford University, you would know how immensely difficult it is to get in. It is challenge as unlikely in its own way as becoming a leading professional footballer - but it is a very different kind of challenge. I cannot imagine, in anyway, that Beckham was ever a serious candidate for Oxford University - nor that he could have gained entrance. The internet confirms my view in that I couldn't find a confirmatory story. Indeed, he was a footballer by the age of 17 and, not being a child prodigy, did not have time to go to Oxford before then. So, clearly, this story about Beckham's aborted academic career is just that - a fiction, an urban legend of Indonesia. The question is, where did it come from? Was it a published source, perhaps the result of cheeky PR...or was it a mistaken journalist, perhaps conflating life stories, accidentally and coming up with this amazing tale - or was it a rumour started by an idolizing fan, for whom Beckham was a God? We shall never know, but it does point up one of the strange things that happens to the famous: people relate with confidence, information about them, which simply isn't true. Strangers adorn the life story of the famous one with embellishments and details, adoring additions that create something other than an image of the real person. Perhaps this only happens with a certain kind of celebrity. Perhaps it only happens with those who have popular mass appeal. I feel doubtful that it would happen to a serious individual famous for very sobre achievements - such as Richard Feynman. It may occur - but I somehow doubt it. However, whether or not it is a universal phenomenon of the famous - it is certain that it happens to some of them - and one of the victims of this is David Beckham, here in Asia.

I don't know how widespread this "information" about David Beckham is - but Indonesia is a very populous country (of almost a quarter of a billion people) and my informant came from a small town in Indonesia. It is a remarkable testament to the power of the media that she knew who Beckham was considering her isolated origins - but it is also an indication that perhaps this tale about Beckham's Oxford University days is widespread. If it is the product of a rumour, the rumour monger is, statistically, more likely to have come from a large city. Therefore, if this is so, the fact that the rumour had spread to a small town, in an isolated area, indicates that the rumour has spread far. This reasoning brings us to the hilarious conclusion that many Indonesians might believe that David Beckham, a man of no academic background or pretensions whatsoever, was an Oxford University drop-out.

I wonder what else is believed of Beckham around the world? What a strange thing fame can be.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, fourteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)