Secrecy as a Means of Control: Coercion versus Groupthink

In a society where knowledge is power, the ability to control the distribution of knowledge, what people know and when they know it, becomes the ultimate power. Secrecy is thus a means to an end: the end is controlling other people by controlling what information they have (or do not have). In STS.011, we have read cases illustrating two different ways in which secrecy facilitated control. In some cases, secrecy became the ultimate bargaining chip, giving a privalaged few the right of the censor: the power to decide who is permitted to speak and what they are allowed to say. In other cases, secrecy facilitated control by creating insular, psychologically isolated environments in which individuals were cut off from both the consequences of their actions and the value system of the larger community. These environments became incubators for a new group identity in which morality was redefined to serve the purposes of the group. Secrecy plays a vital role in the creation and maintenance of these isolated group identities. In other words, secrecy can be used to control either by making speakers beholden to censors or facilitating the creation of a group identity. We will explore both possibilities in order to understand how secrecy brings about control and why it sometimes fails. We begin by considering how secrecy facilitates control by creating psychologically isolated environments. Separated and vulnerable, individuals trapped in such environments become ethically 1