Secrets
In a recent article, The Intelligence Branch Answers to No One, J. B. Shurk posits the inherent danger to self-government of secrecy.
“Can self-government exist alongside centralized intelligence agencies? Espionage agencies seek secrets and keep secrets. To the extent that they inform the public what they know, they decide which secrets can be disclosed. Now this may be the only way for a clandestine service to operate, but it certainly does not equip the public to make fully-informed decisions. When choosing which policies or representatives to support, voters know nothing of substance within the classified world.”
Recently I heard Mathieu Pageau describe The Simple Act That Could Have Prevented “The Fall”. (Taken from the transcript so it seems a bit confused, my highlights.)
“When Eve offered the apple to Adam, Adam should have asked God and said, hey, God. By the way, Eve is offering me this. This is what she told me. What’s cool? What should I do? Very simple. Exactly. But. And why why should he ask. Because it contradicts if it didn’t contradict. You know if, if she was giving something that didn’t contradict what God said, you know, wouldn’t have to ask God. You know, if you have free will, you could do. But it’s something that directly contradicts what God said. So in that case, yes, you should inquire. It seems obvious actually when you say no. But this is a real this is a real social phenomenon. I mean, this is how things get subverted. People say things about other people and then they don’t. They make sure you don’t. You don’t connect. See, it’s all about connecting things, right? It’s all about communication and connecting things to God. And he kind of broke that communication. The snake broke it. He’s like, I’m telling you a secret about God. And he’s like, you’re not going to ask him, are you? Because I’m saying he has bad intentions. So if he has bad intentions, why would you ask him? You know, I already convince you that God was lying to you, so why would you then go ask God if he is lying to you? Know you won’t see that’s that’s how Satan tricks people. It’s he makes sure that there’s no communication. See? And this is why, by the way, this is why, the most powerful thing in the world is secret stuff like secret, like that. Let’s say we’re talking about governmental function. Intelligence agencies are more powerful than governments. That’s why they can be. They’re not necessarily, but they can be It’s also why the occult appeals to many people. A cult to something that’s hidden. People like the idea of secret power. absolutely. Yeah. And secret in the sense that. Yeah. Secret from everyone else. That’s one thing too. But you see that the thing is too, there’s nothing wrong with secrets, but they can be used to subvert. And so you got to be careful. It’s like it doesn’t mean secrets are bad, but you got to be real careful when you’re dealing with anything that tells you not to say something.”
In Pageau’s understanding, the great sin of the Fall was not eating the apple but keeping the act a secret from God.
A very entertaining five hours is available by listening to a reading of G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. The plot revolves around the total confusion begot by the secrecy of undercover police espionage agents against anarchist terrorists. The reading is by Ruby Love at her Substack Classics Read Aloud. In a perfectly intended pun, it is a real gem. (Classics Read Aloud is a most unusual spinoff of Doomberg.com, a site for exceptional analysis of energy markets and geopolitics presented by a green chicken.)
However, while I am fully on board with the danger of government secrets, what about private secrets? I am not very secretive myself, at least I don’t think so. But I can keep a secret or perhaps it is more apt to say I am discreet. My mother was a very nervous person. For that reason I did not tell her what was going on in my life. In college I told my roommates to never call my mom in an emergency. Luckily, there never was an emergency.
I understood my intuitive response to her nervousness had merit when I went to work in Oak Ridge, TN at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 Plant. I was given a Q clearance which is equivalent to Top Secret. As a young engineer working on facilities support I never worked nor even understood that I had seen secret information. However, one day walking through a building I came across a sign indicating the area was a part of the Fogbank project. I had fun accidentally saying the word fogbank in conversation after that. It was only decades later that I learned that Fogbank is a code name given to a secret material used in nuclear warheads. The key concept of secrecy I learned with my Q clearance is the need to know. Never tell someone something unless they need to know it. Decline to listen to someone tell you something unless you need to know it. I think I was right not to tell my mom about much of my typical activities because she really did not need to know. In the news today there is much about the Epstein files and other government activities that I think the public does need to know; at least to some extent, what, why and how the secret intelligence agencies operate.
At the moment I am trying to keep the secret that I bought a new television as a Christmas gift for my family. Clearly, they never read my posts at LRC.
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