Once upon a time, I used to write a lot about “authenticity” and “identity.” When I’d said most of what I wanted to, when the discussions clarified the ways other folks thought differently from me, we let the conversations wind down.
At the time, I tried to underline the case that the notion of ìauthenticityî entailed a problematic duplicity that guaranteed the cogency of the discussion. In plain English, once we decide that thereís something inauthentic about ourselves and feel the urgency of trying to fix it, we generate the kind of over-against-self consciousness that weíre trying to remedy. (Thanks to wood s lot for returning to us and for pointing out this article in which Vincent Lloyd makes a complementary case.)
And I tried to suggest that pseudonymity did not liberate us to speak freely, but constrained us to subdivide our selves into partial identities, shackling ourselves to our partitioned personae.
All this becomes relevant again in my life partly because Iím practicing saying the word ìidentityî a lot, since Iím getting prepared for Digital Identity Worldóthe Conference, and partly because Iíve been drawn into several recent nightmares in which ìconfidentialityî plays a significant role. The heart of my attitude toward ìconfidentialityî connects directly to my approach to identity and authenticity. We can be whole persons, whole characters; but our investments in self-diminution render wholeness unattainable. One source that funds a tremendous proportion of these self-diminishing investments is the notion that people should be secret-keepers.
Quickly, now, I do not advocate instantly divulging all oneís friendsí most embarrassing, most incriminating, most vulnerable confessions. My point concerns the complications that arise through the conflicts of accountability that inevitably arise when keeping secrets, along with the tremendous amplification of the power differentials among people who ought to be able to converse and trust freely and fearlessly.
I propose that confidentiality erodes the very social obligations that it pretends to sustain (just as searching for authenticity alienates one from the self whom one always already is, and the practice of pseudonymity buys the prerogative to say whatever one wants at the cost of acceding to oneís unfreedom to speak in oneís own name).
In the past, Iíve been misconstrued as arguing the opposite of what I want to recuperate from: that thereís no such thing as artificiality, or that no one should ever deploy a pseudonym, or (today) perhaps that no one should have any secrets. So permit me to grant that we will have secrets, and then follow up with some reservations.
We will have secrets, because even if you, dear reader, exemplify everything pure and noble and admirable in life, youíll end up dealing with at least one person who falls short of your unblemished integrity. In our social connectedness, we canít avoid secrecy of some sorts.
We can, however, resist the prevalent glib assumption that any time anyone says, ìThis is confidential,î we have no alternative but to accept a binding contract not to discuss the topic again. I myself need to say more often, ìNo, this is discretionary; if you trust me enough to talk with me about your next-door neighbor, I need you to trust me to discern soundly with whom I might share what you say. If youíre unwilling to take that chance, please donít talk to me about your neighbor.î Spreading ìconfidentialî information around almost ensures that the secret will get out, and that it wonít be the secret-giverís fault: ìI told you that in confidence!î But if we shift the preponderance of our confidential discourse to the category of ìdiscretion,î we who make secrets share in the accountability for the secretís dissemination, for we determined that our listener might fairly be trusted wisely to reckpoon who might receive the secret and who not. If we choose a blabber-mouthed recipient of information, we canít hide behind the immunity-claim, ìBut it was confidential!î
Then, if we clear our plate of the countless inanities that pass for confidencesóoften enough, simple gossip that we ought not to circulate anywayówe make room for rare, genuine confidences. We should accept the terms of these imperative confidences (Iím deliberately avoiding the use of ìnecessaryî or ìessentialî) only in extraordinary circumstances, and some of us shouldnít accept them at all. By my vocation, I canít refuse some kinds of confidential information; but I have recently witnessed more than one occasion where confidentiality has been used in ways that do significant harm, and circumstances that call into question the ideological reflex by which I grow accustomed to accepting confidentiality as an inevitable general ingredient in social and professional relationships.
Weíll more readily trust one another if we ask for the utmost exercise of trust less casually. Weíll be better able to grant that ultimate trust if we hold fewer conflicting confidences. More often than we might think, the simplicity and freedom that derive from saying openly who you are and what you think far (or in opting not to speak at all) outweigh the dangers that arise from sowing mines of secrecy along the avenues of our social traffic.
I have some links and nuances to add in a later post, but itís time to put the computer (and me) to sleep.
DRMA: Itís three in the morning; Margaretís sleeping in bed next to me. Iím not listening to anything but the sound of her breathing. And itís beautiful, and Iím tired and fretful and restless.