Slander-The True Plague of Society

St Francis de Sales says:

"Rash judgment begets uneasiness, contempt of neighbor, pride, self-satisfaction, and many other extremely bad effects. Slander, the true plague of society, holds first place among them."
Introduction to the Devout Life, 3.29

If the question was asked, what is the true plague of society, slander is not what would come to mind, not by a long shot. Yet, the good saint feels that it is slander. He says, "The man who could free the world of slander would free it of a large share of its sins and iniquity."

Slander, for DeSales, is:

• robbing a neighbor of his good name--it is literally taking possession of another man's property
• Murder because it murders, not our spiritual or corporeal lives, but our social life. "By a single stroke of his tongue the slanderer usually commits three murders. He kills his own soul and the soul of anyone who hears him by an act of spiritual homicide and takes away the social life of the man he slanders."

But what is slander? I think for DeSales it is, "falsely imputing crimes and sins to your neighbor, revealing his secret sins, exaggerating those that are manifest, putting an evil interpretation on good works, denying the good that you know belongs to someone, maliciously concealing it or lessening it by words. . . . false accusations and denying the truth to your neighbor's harm. It is a double sin to lie and harm your neighbor at the same time."

Prefacing slander with mentions of honorable intentions, compliments, or jokes is venomous, according to DeSales.

DeSales seems to be concerned with correct labeling. Seeing someone drunk is not enough to slander them by labeling them a drunkard. Don't assign vice to individual acts. Only habitual acts that could have been thought through should be labeled a vice. Only say or describe what you see in the present, nothing more. However, as poisonous as slander is, to avoid slandering, one must not speak well of vice. 

Quite the tightrope. That's why he's a saint and we're not.