Steve Cornell on Being a "Social Cannibal"

Readers of Resisting Gossip will appreciate this insightful word picture for a gossip: "Social Cannibal."

Steve Cornell:

...gossip and slander are behaviors that feed on weaknesses in others to nourish a sense of superiority. Like hungry cannibals savoring the flesh of another, social cannibals take pleasure in the problems, difficulties and failures of others. It’s dangerous to be in their company because you just might end up in their pot.

Cornell warns against interacting with social cannibals but also calls us to search our own hearts for these pernicious tendencies. And on top of that, he uses and explains that cool German word for the twisted pleasure in the pain of others: "schadenfreude."

Read the whole thing.