Abstract
The secret as a form is seen by Simmel as central in social interaction. Knowing about each other is essential for social living. Yet all human interaction is also accompanied by a withholding of information. Sharing fully with others one’s inner-flow of consciousness is impossible, and selection also provides scope for purposefulness. Sincere self-disclosure and its opposite only come about in the context of a wider, ever-present, ‘not knowing’ about one another.
While the ability to speak is a condition of sociation, the ability to be silent forms sociation.
(Simmel, Soziologie, 1908/1958: 285)1
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© 2013 Henry Schermer and David Jary
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Schermer, H., Jary, D. (2013). The Secret and Secret Societies. In: Form and Dialectic in Georg Simmel’s Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137276025_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137276025_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44649-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-27602-5
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