Back-stabbing has become very popular in politics: Attack the competition without mercy. Ruin his or her reputation. Take them down at all cost, because my side is more important. The news is full of this sort of immature backyard brawling. So easy to do with social media because ‘anything goes’ and anyone can give an opinion, whether correct or not.
But it’s not just in politics that back-stabbers work. Have you ever attacked the character or reputation of a person who is not present in a conversation? On occasion, many of us have without realizing the enormous damage it can do.
And some people use back-stabbing very intentionally by throwing out information that is meant to put an un-present person in a bad light. This is done to damage that person, by playing the person he/she is talking to against the person not there and unable to defend himself.
These are people who–especially if they’ve been ignored–will play a so-called friend against another so-called friend in order to beef themselves up or to carve a place for themselves.
People who do this are dangerous. People who do this should be avoided, or at least seen as disingenuous and not truth-tellers. To listen to people such as this, to give them any slack or credence, can be very detrimental to anyone involved in the conversation. Because this is gossip at its worst, when words are used as weapons.
These word-weapons may be complete lies, or half-truths. Of course, any lie is sinful, but even if what is said about another person is true, but there is no real need to make the disclosure, then this harms the person’s good name. And that is slander if done maliciously.
We need to watch our words and our intentions in speaking them, both in face to face conversation and in social media. Words can indeed be weapons with disastrous effects for both the speaker and the receiver. After all, who wants to be around a back-stabber?
Translating a World on the Edge 