If It's Secret And Elite . . .

Some things need to be secret: how to build a major bomb, for instance. Things your friend told you in confidence, for another instance.

But lots of other things don’t need to be secret and often we keep them that way just so we can have power over others. It makes us the elite, the keepers of knowledge which we share with no one else.

I think of people who withhold information which they could easily share, but they hold onto it until the last possible moment. Ever watch how the Vatican announces the appointment of bishops, in dioceses large and small? The information is secret, held by the elite only, until the subjects are allowed to find out.

I used to belong to a club (I let my membership lapse for unrelated reasons) which ran ok on the surface, but formed within it was an elite group which privately ran the group after the meeting in a bar.

When I watched the movie “Skull” on tv this evening, one character said that if it’s secret and elite, it’s bad. That makes a lot of sense to me.

I don’t think it’s bad every time in every case, but it seems to me you can pretty much count on it. There are things which need to be kept secret, but we have to ask ourselves why. Is the reason to make us the elite?