Читать книгу The Myth of the Shiksa and Other Essays - Edwin H. Friedman - Страница 13

Several years ago a newspaperman doing a piece on the CIA reported his difficulties in coming up with the most elementary information about that super-secret organization. He was unable to obtain from them even the approximate number of employees who worked there, a fact which he felt was very important to his own story. Finally, in desperation, he called the Russian Embassy and promptly got the information.

From whom, then, was the information being kept secret? Actually, as secrecy and counterespionage have become more important and more sophisticated in the relationships between governments, a rather ironic system of triangles has been established. Over and over again nations have not informed their citizenry about certain facts, for fear the enemy would find out, but the enemy has already found out, producing a situation in which the party triangled out is the citizenry. Indeed, some of this is not new at all. For as older international treaties concluded between heads of governments come to light, over and over again it turns out that there were secret provisions. In such cases again, it is the citizenry who have been triangled out and the leadership of foreign nations that have obtained a pseudo-togetherness by creating such relationship systems. Further, while it is never stated baldly, it almost appears that government leaders of different nations are in a conspiracy to help one another obtain more power over the citizens they each respectively govern. For this is how secrets work, and as I shall show, it is the ultimate purpose of secrets in families. It also provides the ultimate justification for their revelation.

I do not wish, however, to convey the impression that families act like governments. As you all know, there has been much analogizing of family process to what goes on in politics. It is rather governments that act like families, for where else did the human race learn to function like that?

This essay is divided into three major sections. Section I will discuss some effects of secrets on the emotional process of a family. Section II will, through specific examples, discuss some effects on families of revealing secrets. And Section III will add some thoughts about the ethics of not being “dependable” about keeping secrets.