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“Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it.
Values is the fact we trust each other.
And, culture?
Culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. That matters because most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”
Fredrick Backman
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“You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.”
Colin Powell
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Well. The relationship between secrets and culture and community is one which is fraught with contradictions, conflict and humanness.
I imagine this conflict is driven by the natural chafing between self-interest and community <I have called this community individualism & Enlightened Individualism in the past>.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We talk a lot about community and team and all of that good stuff. And we talk about it with good intentions. The problem is that true community demands some sacrifice.
Therein lies our big secrets.
On occasion we decide self-interest is more important than sacrifice.
Uhm.
This is a version of ‘what you can get away with.’
That phrase sounds horribly horrible. It suggests nefarious type behavior. But the truth of it is most of us see what we can get away with on some very personal day-to-day less-than-nefarious type stuff.
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We cut some corners.
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We maybe don’t tell people how we truly feel <or who we truly are>.
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We steal some post-it notes.
These are our little secrets.
We may even have some bigger personal secrets that we decide are just not things we want to share <these are not nefarious … just personal>.
Regardless.
For many of us our behavior arcs toward what we can get away with. That doesn’t mean it is completely unethical, or some abhorrent behavior, just that while norms set a ‘median’ standard guideline Life is constantly suggesting ‘but this one time you can get away with doing this.”
Which leads me back to the real issue.
The issue resides with the friction between culture and community and self. What I mean by that is the stronger & more powerful the cultural community norm is the bigger your secret becomes if you avoid the norms. This secret takes on exponential size if you start believing that the norms that are good for you are good and the ones that don’t match up with what you believe is your self-interest are bad.
You only accept the existence of the formal and informal cultural norm structure that constitutes accepted community construct, uhm, only as long as that suits your purposes.
Your big secret, therefore, doesn’t have to do with your own behavior, but rather in your non-belief ,if not overall disdain, for the community norms.
Which leads me to hate.
Why hate?
When you decide to see what you can get away with, you have to mentally divide community into “we” and “they.” And in doing so you make ‘we’ good <which suggests what you can get away with is on the side of good> and, conversely, you make ‘they’ bad.
This is a simplistic tactic for attempting to carry the burden of a big secret.
Hate is simple and hate can be an incredibly powerful empowering emotion.
Why?
In this scenario, using hate, the world becomes much easier to understand and less confusing, in the scheme of things, if you divide everything into friends & enemies, good & evil, right & wrong and a basic we & they.
This helps us because the world is strewn with conflict. Not just physical war, but of ideas, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Cultures, communities and classes are bombarded with conflict after conflict. And maybe because of the sheer amount of conflict one of the first things we do is pick sides. We choose a side to stand on because … well … it is easier. It is easier than thinking or, even more difficult, trying to hold parts of two ideas which appear in conflict in our heads at the same time. And once we have chosen a side we then go out and seek some information, or ‘facts’, to confirm not only what we believe but the side we have chosen – this permits us to maintain the status quo and chug along with Life as ‘normal.’
Oh. Yeah.
And then we proceed to do is demonize, or dehumanize, the other side. We diminish them. Make them, their thoughts & ideas, lesser than.
I would suggest this all just makes you smaller as a person <carrying around a big secret>.
Which leads me to say that big secrets make small people.
Yeah. Unfortunately all of us become smaller with a big secret.
And this smallness is compounded by the unfortunate fact that you become even smaller when ‘we’ are the people who others HAVE to keep big secrets from because they believe, and know, we cannot handle them <or don’t believe in them>.
All secrets carry a weight to them.
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“To agree to keep a secret is to assume a burden.”
Sam Harris
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In fact I could argue that all knowledge is a burden. It carries a weight of responsibility with regard to what you do with it, how you act because you have it, as well as how you think about you, and others, with it. Oh. Secrets ARE knowledge.
Having accepted knowledge you have made an agreement with it. I tend to believe we don’t think about this. We accept knowledge as … well … maybe like income earned – disposable income in fact. We worked for it, we earned it and it is now ours to spend as we choose.
But knowledge is actually more like freedom. It is an unalienable right, but it is also a privilege and therefore one assumes a responsibility to it.
Uhm.
And with responsibility comes burden. Which almost sounds odd in that something with ‘free’ in it also carries such a heavy burden. Maybe I should just suggest that nothing really comes for free, i.e., everything has something attached to it.
Knowledge?
Responsibility. The burden of responsibility. And that is a weight you carry. One which can be as light or as heavy as you make it. But. It is a weight nonetheless. One which you learn to carry well or carry poorly.
Knowledge tests our ability and our character with regard to how well we can carry this weight. It tests how strong we are .. once again … in ability and in character.
Having said that <and most likely having a number of people feeling a little uncomfortable thinking about knowledge that way>.
Secrets are a completely different level of a knowledge burden.
And secrets are tricky.
- Some are thrust upon you — unwanted but yet yours nonetheless.
- Some are gifted you — carefully shared by someone who believes the weight it carries is too much for themselves … alone.
- Some are just yours — built by you and carried by you.
But regardless of how you assume the responsibility of a secret; it is also knowledge. And therefore it also carries a burden, a responsibility, and a weight.
I don’t have the scale to weigh them, but my guess is that a knowledge secret exponentially weighs more than a traditional knowledge.
I also don’t have any research, but I also tend to believe, just like extra physical weight, as soon as we start feeling the extra weight of a secret … we seek to shed it.
Therein lies the true test of character.
Therein lies how big secrets can make small people.
All knowledge tests you. Secrets test you even more.
Knowledge, and secrets, take a strength of self to carry its weight.
The weight of responsibility of having the knowledge, the weight of freedom knowledge typically gives us and the weight of character that knowledge either makes you bigger or makes you smaller.
Whew.
That is a lot of extra weight we have accepted by taking on these secrets.
Which leads me to good.
As in good people doing good things. And as in good versus almost good.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that sometimes very thin line between good and almost-good can make a massive difference in life. That sometimes very thin line can decide whether your secret makes you bigger or smaller.
Look.
If you are clever enough, even if you embrace community, you can get away with a shitload of stuff. But cleverness does not eliminate the fact you gain a bigger secret burden with every action.
And you know what?
The “community” knows we struggle with this a individuals. In fact it has even created some ‘auxiliary precautions’ to help us avoid unnecessary secrets.
Huh?
This is James Madison’s Federalist Paper #51 or “if men were angels” argument:
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If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
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We are no angels as people.
Secrets bear that truth out.
And … well … we all carry secrets.
And … the bigger the secrets the smaller we become.
Ponder.