-[[!meta title="The Sociology of Secrecy"]]
+[[!meta title="The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies"]]
+
+By Georg Simmel.
## Excerpts
knowledge developing with reference to the other party. The
investigation should finally proceed in the opposite direction;
-
[...]
given by the total relationship of the knower to the known.
more decisive possibility of remaining secret.
While secrecy, therefore, is a sociological ordination which
-
[...]
As a general proposition, the secret society
the violent pressure of central powers. This is true, not alone in
political relations, but in the same way within the church, the
school, and the family.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Thus the secret society
+ cotinterbalances the separatistic factor which is peculiar to, every
+ secret by the very fact that it is society.
+
+ [...]
+
+ lating will; for growth from within, constructive purposefulness.
+ This rationalistic factor in their upbuilding cannot express itself
+ more distinctly than in their carefully considered and clear-cut
+ architecture. I cite as example the structure of the Czechic secret
+ order, Omlaidina, which was organized on the model of a group
+ of the Carbonari, and became known in consequence of a judicial
+ process in I893. The leaders of the Omladina are divided into
+ "thumbs" and "fingers." In secret session a "thumb" is chosen
+ by the members. He selects four "fingers." The latter then
+ choose another " thumb," and this second " thumb " presents himn-
+ self to the first "thumb." The second "thumb" proceeds to
+ choose four more "fingers"; these, another "thumb;" and so
+ the articulation continues. The first " thumb " knows all the
+ other " thumbs," but the remaining " thumbs " do not know each
+ other. Of the "fingers" only those four know each other who
+ are subordinate to one and the same "thumb." All transactions
+
+ [...]
+
+ of the Omladina are conducted by the first "thumb," the " dicta-
+ tor." He informs the other "thumbs" of all proposed under-
+ takings. The "thumbs" then issue orders to their respective
+ subordinates, the "fingers." The latter in turn instruct the mem-
+ bers of the Omnladina assigned to each. The circumstance that
+ the secret society must be built up, from its base by calculation and
+ conscious volition evidently affords free play for the peculiar
+ passion which is the natural accompaniment of such arbitrary
+ processes of construction, such foreordaining programs. All
+ schematology - of science, of conduct, of society - contains a
+ reserved power of compulsion. It subjects a material which is
+ outside of thought to a form which thought has cast. If this is
+ true of all attempts to organize groups according to a priori prin-
+ ciples, it is true in the highest degree of the secret society, which
+ does not grow, which is built by design, which has to reckon with
+ a smaller quantum of ready-made building material than any
+ despotic or socialistic scheme. Joined to the interest in making
+
+ [...]
+
+ The secret society must seek to create among the cate-
+ gories peculiar to itself, a species of life-totality. Around the
+ nucleus of purposes which the society strongly emphasizes, it
+ therefore builds a structure of formulas, like a body around a
+ soul, and places both alike under the protection of secrecy, because
+ only so can a harmonious whole come into, being, in which one
+ part supports the other. That in this scheme secrecy of the
+ external is strongly accentuated, is necessary, because secrecy is
+ not so much a matter of course with reference to these super-
+ ficialities, and not so directly demanded as in the case of the real
+ interests of the society. This is not greatly different from the
+ situation in military organizations and religious communities.
+ The reason why, in both, schematism, the body of forms, the fixa-
+ tion of behavior, occupies so large space, is that, 'as a general pro-
+ position, both the military and the religious career demand the
+ wvhole man; that is, each of them projects the whole life upon a
+ special plane; each composes a variety of energies and interests,
+ from a particular point of view, into a correlated unity. The
+ secret society usually tries to do the same.
+
+
+ [...]
+
+ The secret society must seek to create among the cate-
+ gories peculiar to itself, a species of life-totality. Around the
+ nucleus of purposes which the society strongly emphasizes, it
+ therefore builds a structure of formulas, like a body around a
+ soul, and places both alike under the protection of secrecy, because
+ only so can a harmonious whole come into, being, in which one
+ part supports the other. That in this scheme secrecy of the
+ external is strongly accentuated, is necessary, because secrecy is
+ not so much a matter of course with reference to these super-
+ ficialities, and not so directly demanded as in the case of the real
+ interests of the society. This is not greatly different from the
+ situation in military organizations and religious communities.
+ The reason why, in both, schematism, the body of forms, the fixa-
+ tion of behavior, occupies so large space, is that, 'as a general pro-
+ position, both the military and the religious career demand the
+ wvhole man; that is, each of them projects the whole life upon a
+ special plane; each composes a variety of energies and interests,
+ from a particular point of view, into a correlated unity. The
+ secret society usually tries to do the same. One of its essential
+ characteristics is that, even when it takes hold of individuals only
+
+ [...]
+
+Counterpart of the official world, detachment from larger structures in
+which it's contained (the next level of recursion):
+
+ Moreover, through such formalism,
+ just as through the hierarchical structure above discussed, the
+ secret society constitutes itself a sort of counterpart of the official
+ world with which it places itself in antithesis. Here we have a
+ case of the universally emerging sociological norm; viz., struc-
+ tures, which place themselves in opposition to and detachment
+ from larger structures in which they are actually contained,
+ nevertheless repeat in themselves the forms of the greater struc-
+ tures. Only a structure that in some way can count as a whole
+ is in a situation to hold its elements firmly together. It borrows
+ the sort of organic completeness, by virtue of which its members
+ are actually the channels of a unifying life-stream, from that
+ greater whole to which its individual members were already
+ adapted, and to which it can most easily offer a parallel by means
+ of this very imitation.
+
+ -- 482
+
+Freedom and law from the inside:
+
+ In exercise of this freedom a territory is occupied to which the norms of the
+ surrounding society do not apply. The nature of the secret
+ society as such is autonomy. It is, however, of a sort which
+ approaches anarchy. Withdrawal from the bonds of unity which
+ procure general coh,erence very easily has as consequences for the
+ secret society a condition of being without roots, an absence of
+ firm touch with life (Lebensgefiihl), and of restraining reserva-
+ tions. The fixedness and detail of the ritual serve in part to
+ counterbalance this deficit. Here also is manifest how much men
+ need a settled proportion between freedom and law; and, further-
+ more, in case the relative quantities of the two are not prescribed
+ for him from a single source, how he attempts to reinforce the
+ given quantum of the one by a quantum of the other derived from
+ any source whatsoever, until such settled proportion is reached.
+
+ -- 482
+
+Existem a partir de sociedes públicas e de forma exclusiva::
+
+ The secret society, on the other hand, is a secondary structure;
+ i. e., it arises always only within an already complete society.
+
+ [...]
+
+ That they can build them selves up with such characteristics is possible, however, only
+ under the presupposition of an already existing society. The
+ secret society sets itself as a special society in antithesis with the
+ wider association included within the greater society. This anti-
+ thesis, whatever its purpose, is at all events intended in the spirit
+ of exclusion. Even the secret society which proposes only to
+ render the whole community a definite service in a completely
+ unselfish spirit, and to dissolve itself after performing the service,
+ obviously regards its temporary detachment from that totality as
+ the unavoidable technique for its purpose. Accordingly, none of
+ the narrower groups which are circumscribed by larger groiups
+ are compelled by their sociological constellation to insist so
+ strongly as the secret society upon their formal self-sufficiency.
+ Their secret encircles them like a boundary, beyond which there is
+ nothing but the materially, o,r at least formally, antithetic, which
+ therefore shuts up the society within itself as a complete unity.
+ In the groupings of every other sort, the content of the group-
+
+Aristocracy:
+
+ This significance of secret associations, as intensification of
+ sociological exclusiveness in general, appears in a very striking
+ way in political aristocracies. Among the requisites of aristo-
+ cratic control secrecy has always had a place. It makes use of
+ the psychological fact that the unknown as such appears terrible,
+ powerful, and threatening. In the first place, it employs this fact
+ in seeking to conceal the numerical insignificance of the govern-
+ ing class. In Sparta the number of warriors was kept so, far as
+
+ [...]
+
+ On the other hand, the democratic principle is
+ bound up with the principle of publicity, and, to the same end, the
+ tendency toward general and fundamental laws. The latter relate
+ to an unlimited number of subjects, and are thus in their nature
+ public. Conversely, the employment of secrecy within the aristo-
+ cratic regime is only the extreme exaggeration of that social
+ exclusion and exemption for the sake of which aristocracies are
+ wont to oppose general, fundamentally sanctioned laws.
+ In case the notion of the aristocratic passes over from the
+
+Freedom, obedience and centralization:
+
+ To this result not merely the correlation of demand
+ from freedom and for union contributes, as we have observed it
+ in case of the severity of the ritual, and in the present instance it
+ binds together the extremes of the two tendencies. The excess of
+ freedom, which such societies possessed with reference to all
+ otherwise valid norms, had to be offset, for the sake of the
+ equilibrium of interests, by a similar excess olf submissiveness
+ and resigning of the individual will. More essential, however.
+ was probably the necessity of centralization, which is the con-
+ dition of existence for the secret society, and especially when,
+ like the criminal band, it lives off the surrounding society,
+ when it mingles with this society in many radiations and
+ actions, and when it is seriously threatened with treachery
+ and diversion of interests the moment the most invariable
+ attachment to one center ceases to prevail. It is conseqeuntly
+ typical that the secret society is exposed to peculiar dangers,
+ especially when, for any reasons whatever, it does not develop
+ a powerfully unifying authority. The Waldenses were in
+ nature not a secret society. They became a secret society in
+ the thirteenth century only, in consequence of the external pres-
+ sure, which made it necessary to keep themselves from view. It
+ became impossible, for that reason, to hold regular assemblages,
+ and this in turn caused loss of unity in doctrine. There arose a
+ number of branches, with isolated life and development, fre-
+ quently in a hostile attitude toward each other. They went into
+ decline because they lacked the necessary and reinforcing attri-
+ bute of the secret society, viz., constantly efficient centralization.
+
+Responsibility:
+
+ Nevertheless, responsibility
+ is quite as immediately joined with the ego - philosophically, too,
+ the whole responsibility problem is merely a detail of the problem
+ of the ego - in the fact that removing the marks of identity of
+ the person has, for the naive understanding in question, the effect
+ of abolishing responsibility. Political finesse makes no less use of
+ this correlation. In the American House of Representatives the
+ real conclusions are reached in the standing,committees, and they
+ are almost always ratified by the House. The transactions of
+ these committies, however, are secret, and the most important
+ portion of legislative activity is thus concealed from public view.
+ This being the case, the political responsibility of the repre-
+ sentatives seems to be largely wiped out, since no one can be
+ made responsible for proceedings that cannot be observed. Since
+ the shares of the individual persons in the transactions remain
+ hidden, the acts of committees and of the House seem to be those
+ of a super-individual authority. The irresponsibility is here also
+ the consequence or the symbol of the same intensified sociological
+ de-individualization which goes with the secrecy of group-action.
+ In all directorates, faculties, committees, boards of trustees, etc.,
+ whose transactions are secret, the same thing holds. The indi-
+ vidual disappears as a person in the anonymous member of the
+ ring, so to speak, and with him the responsibility, which has no
+ hold upon him. in his intangible special character.
+ Finally, this one-sided intensification of universal sociological
+
+ -- 496-497
+
+ [...]
+
+Danger for the rest of society and the existing oficial and central power:
+
+ Wherever there is an attempt to realize
+ strong centralization, especially of a political type, special organi-
+ zations of the elements are abhorred, purely as such, entirely apart
+ from their content and purposes. As mere unities, so to speak,
+ they engage in competition with the central principle.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Accordingly, the secret society seems to be dangerous simply
+ because it is secret. Since it cannot be surely known that any
+ special organization whatever may not some day turn its legally
+ accumulated powers to some undesired end, and since on that
+ account there is suspicion in principle on the part of central
+ powers toward organizations of subjects, it follows that, in the
+ case of organizations which are secret in principle, the suspicion
+ that their secrecy conceals dangers is all the more natural.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Thus the secret society, purely on the ground of its secrecy, appears
+ dangerously related to conspiracy against existing powers.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The secret association is in such bad repute as enemy of central powers that,
+ conversely, every politically disapproved association must be
+ accused of such hostility!
+
+ -- 497-498
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