Is it always negative? Is it sometimes better to withhold information? How do you determine what should or should not be disclosed?
I think sharing information should be based on relevancy; there's nothing wrong with being secretive if you're not deliberately withholding something that would harm someone.
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference though, isn't it? It seems as if by withholding you are in the wrong, so you speak, only to realize it would have been better left unsaid... Or again, you stay silent, then later wish you had spoken.
There are some things that HAVE to be kept secret, for the simple fact that the general population couldn't necessarily wrap their brain around certain topics. Why does a plumber in Arkansas need to know about experimental propulsion systems being tested by the Air Force?
good point. Although my questions (maybe I should have specified) were concerned more with interpersonal relationships, national and international maintenance of information is another very important category of secrecy to consider.
Ahhhhh my bad. Damn man that's a lot tougher- you start getting into morality and all kinds of ethical issues when it comes to interpersonal relationships. It depends on the people involved I guess. Some people could care less if their smokin' hot wife is cheating on them, if they're also cheating. I live near Newport Beach which has the highest rate of divorce in the country, and OC has a lot of shallow people in general. I think for the most part people need to be honest and open for a relationship to function longterm.
Didn't say it was. But I hear a lot about the necessity of "openness" in the "free society," all the while I'm surrounded by masses of untrue information from numerous media outlets (journalistic, social, personal or otherwise).
To me secrecy is often a loaded word (it's negatively connotated). It should be seen as neither a virtue or vice. It is very circumstance specific as to how much discretion one should exercise in any given situation. You are withholding, or releasing 'secrets' to other humans. All other humans, including the person in question are different. Unless there is something about the nature of secrecy which is relevant, we should expect to find that we should act differently around different people, and that includes the extent of our discretion. Most people aren't capable, or are unwilling to listen/understand the full picture in most cases however. Accordingly, if you can only paint half the picture, it is probably better not to paint at all (in a lot of cases).
I think that all says a lot about what kind of a thing secrecy is. Peculiar, to say the least. Your last point was interestingly-put. Or least I thought so considering how difficult I find being clear to be (a lot of the time, maybe not always). It of course is obvious that one can be secretive. But after that almost everything about secrecy is ambivalently divided. Then, like you said, a degree of discretion is called upon by the circumstance in question and any person(s) it involves.
To me secrecy is also about intent, and also understanding whether the person may have a relevant interest in that information (Eg. they may want to know that information). For example, I am not keeping a secret if, when I had the chance to tell them, it wasn't in my mind at that time. Yet I could still be accused of keeping a secret. Additionally, I am not keeping a secret if you had no interest whatsoever in the information, although I could be accused of keeping a secret If I thought you wouldn't care about the information. Secrecy is a chameleon of a concept; to analyse whether one should or should not keep a 'secret', you really need to analyze the circumstances more closely as opposed to lumping all into the same basket.
Not always negative if done to protect the party involved, however if done to protect yourself and if the withheld information would change the outcome of another individuals opinion in a negative way, then yeah it's negative. It's all about context. If you had the context I think it's clear cut if it's negative or not, you should know by knowing the context if it's right or wrong
