I think you're making this much more complicated than it is. If you promise to keep a secret, you keep it. Period.
That said, an exception can be made if keeping the secret would result in grievous harm to someone. The rules are similar to those imposed by law and ethics upon a medical care practitioner.
The idea that if someone tells you a secret it means they want it out is, to me, both illogical and repugnant, whether the person still walks upon the earth or lies beneath it. No offense, Anonymous.
None taken, but people don't tell secrets if they don't want it shared. My secrets are mine, but if I share a secret with someone then *I* wouldn't care if they shared it after I died. I do not tell *secrets* that I don't want anyone to know - period.
ReplyDeleteI came here to write a Do Over for my post, because I thought it might have sounded harsh. Reading it over, though, I think it's okay.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, if it's okay for people to tell your secrets, that's fine. You should say, "I'm going to tell you a secret, but you can reveal it after I die." Or you can let them know whatever rules are specific to your secrets. However, absent personal qualifications, a secret is a secret. When someone tells me a secret, they can be sure it will never be revealed, unless they've specifically given me permission to reveal it in certain circumstances. It seems it's a lot more loosey goosey in your world, but in my world honor is absolute.
Hmmm. Repugnant is a harsh word since most of us develop our standards of behavior as best we can.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but agree that the only real secret a person has is one that he/she tells no one. It seems clear (to me) that the telling of a so-called secret does indeed demonstrate a desire to tell this secret, suggesting said teller is held back by fear of judgment. That fear goes away at death, so I guess I'm in anonymous's camp on this one.
I would also question the concept that one's standards of behavior should be the same for the living and the dead. Could we extend that reasoning to the pre-born as well?
I did not say that Anonymous is repugnant, I said that judging "don't tell this to anyone" to be the same as "I want this to come out" is repugnant. And it is.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone says to me, "I'm going to tell you something, but please don't tell anyone else," that's what I understand. Apparently you and Anonymous feel free to free to interpret it according to whatever you might imagine to be true. It's really simple. If I promise to keep a secret, I will. You and Anonymous apparently have different standards.
I was a software guy for over 20 years. Carl, a real rocket scientist, moonlights as a software engineer. It's an interesting field. Programs can be hundreds of pages long, every letter has to be the right letter, and most parts of the program interact with many other parts. It's delicate. So when we're thinking of changing something, we follow a software programming rule: "Beware of unforeseen consequences."
ReplyDeleteThe same might apply to this discussion. Suppose someone said to you, "I'm going to tell you something because I want you to know, but please never tell anyone else." You don't, but after a while the person dies and you think what you were told would no longer have an effect, so you reveal it. But you didn't really know why you were asked to keep it secret, and harm results. Would that be acceptable to anyone? How would you explain your motives in breaking your promise?
Everything is relative. Almost nothing is absolute. There can be very therapeutic reasons for revealing a secret. Depends upon the revealee and the circumstances. Ya' know? It just depends. That's why we have brains and can think. So that we can make hopefully intelligent judgements. I am an agnositc. I have no idea.
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