The negativity of meaning perspectives behind interpretations and diagnoses relates directly to the practice of gossip which relates directly to the dominator model and conformity. Gossip uses the heavy handed tools of interpretation and diagnosis to maintain a constant diligence for those who stray too far from the mainstream conformity. In the process of gossip, we enforce domination and conformity. We teach the lessons of conformity and the dangers of violations of that conformity. In the process, we also learn and relearn these lessons as a shared activity of that conformity. Gossip teaches us that there are limits to our individuation or right to believe what we believe and live the way we wish to live by acting on those beliefs. Gossip reinforces the presence and power of conformist judgments on conduct or perceived conduct. Gossip either keeps us in line, or it throws us out of line. It can make us an outlier, a stranger and an exile in our own context, in what should be our own country.[140]
At the same time gossip serves to maintain the essential conformity of the dominator model, it also alienates us from each other. Conformity is not community. Even as it reinforces our group loyalty, it violates the loyalty and compassion we might feel for each other. Gossip stands as inimical to the unconditional qualities we can feel toward others and ourselves. When any two or more people gossip about someone else, or even another group, they establish their judgmental bonding as a group. Those who gossip reassure themselves that they operate as the "us" group, and that happens by identifying others as the "out" group. In the process of identifying those others as the "out" group, we reify them. We turn them into objects of our scorn even when that scorn comes in the form of envy.[141] In that way, we violate the principle and realization of the I/Thou and the unconditional qualities that idea represents through the practice of gossip and its group judgments.
In that way, gossip can afford its participants a rather cozy feeling of belonging—for the moment. At some point, perhaps even as we work at gossip, we can experience the rather sick-making feeling that the group in which we want to remain, the "us" folks, could turn their gossip on us in a veritable blink. We can become the "it" to their group Thou. That experience of vulnerability can propel us even more deeply into the act of gossip to better show how deeply we can show our belonging to the "us" group, to maintain our identity in the conformist norm. Still, no matter how secure that makes us feel momentarily, we know that the gossip can turn on us very easily and for any one of a number of reasons. The reasons don't really matter because the reason comes in the perception and interpretation of the other not in the direct observation of the other. When we reflect critically on the meaning perspective that motivates the "us" group of gossips, we can see they live out the truth of the I/Thou idea. When the "us" group reifies the "them" group, the reify themselves. The gossips become an "It" even as they reify others into the "It." The feeling of belonging that gossiping can bring will always feel fragile to its participants especially when they find themselves gossiping about someone who moments ago felt secure within the charmed circle of the "us" group.[142] In that inherent fearful sense of instability of conformity enforced gossip, the force of negative interpretations and diagnoses, the dominator model and its concomitant conformity strengthen and endlessly reinforce their power.