It seems likely to me that when a person is saying ‘can you keep a secret’, to some level they are saying ‘here is a piece of gossip’. Gossip seems to be one of the backbones of any society, enforcing social norms, and possibly disciplining otherwise impervious leaders/rulers who violate those norms. The ‘secret’ then is really, ‘please keep it secret that I told you this from anyone who might punish me, or use this against me in any way.’
If you have a true secret that must be shared, a real threat of repercussions (violence) is all that may enforce this. Or not.
So, I went back and forth on whether to title this post “can you keep a secret” vs “can you you keep this confidential?” or “can you keep this private?”, which each have slightly different connotations. “Secret” pattern-matches most to “gossip”, and it’s not actually what I meant to focus on necessarily. (I do mean to include gossip as a subset of what I’m talking about, but not the central example)
The original published version (which you were replying to) had the title “can you keep a secret?”, partly because “can you keep a secret?” is a more common phrase, and partly because it was a little more clickbaity a title that I thought people would actually click on. But, this comment made me kinda regret that choice.
That didn’t really address your comment, but I wanted to clarify first that I think “gossip” isn’t necessarily the right frame here.
I do think it is often the case that when people ask for confidentiality, the most important thing they care about is information not being shared in contexts that will damage them. (And, indeed, people are often much more okay with you sharing something outside of the original social circle)
Very true. I think “can you keep a secret”, in the context of true secrets, is a bit of a non-question. What kind of secret? Sometimes, even revealing the type of the secret in question reveals bits about the secret itself (sometimes through multiple layers). How do you communicate about the meta-parts of said secret? What are your skills in behaving around true-secret material? Doing a ” Can you keep a secret?” “Yeah I can keep a secret!” interaction doesn’t really tell you much at all and seems to me more just a social dance to initiate gossip (or a similar interaction).
It seems likely to me that when a person is saying ‘can you keep a secret’, to some level they are saying ‘here is a piece of gossip’. Gossip seems to be one of the backbones of any society, enforcing social norms, and possibly disciplining otherwise impervious leaders/rulers who violate those norms. The ‘secret’ then is really, ‘please keep it secret that I told you this from anyone who might punish me, or use this against me in any way.’
If you have a true secret that must be shared, a real threat of repercussions (violence) is all that may enforce this. Or not.
Sort of a meta response:
So, I went back and forth on whether to title this post “can you keep a secret” vs “can you you keep this confidential?” or “can you keep this private?”, which each have slightly different connotations. “Secret” pattern-matches most to “gossip”, and it’s not actually what I meant to focus on necessarily. (I do mean to include gossip as a subset of what I’m talking about, but not the central example)
The original published version (which you were replying to) had the title “can you keep a secret?”, partly because “can you keep a secret?” is a more common phrase, and partly because it was a little more clickbaity a title that I thought people would actually click on. But, this comment made me kinda regret that choice.
That didn’t really address your comment, but I wanted to clarify first that I think “gossip” isn’t necessarily the right frame here.
I do think it is often the case that when people ask for confidentiality, the most important thing they care about is information not being shared in contexts that will damage them. (And, indeed, people are often much more okay with you sharing something outside of the original social circle)
Very true. I think “can you keep a secret”, in the context of true secrets, is a bit of a non-question. What kind of secret? Sometimes, even revealing the type of the secret in question reveals bits about the secret itself (sometimes through multiple layers). How do you communicate about the meta-parts of said secret? What are your skills in behaving around true-secret material? Doing a ” Can you keep a secret?” “Yeah I can keep a secret!” interaction doesn’t really tell you much at all and seems to me more just a social dance to initiate gossip (or a similar interaction).