Secret…how many reminiscences, memories and sensations this simple word evokes. Every secret brings with it the charm of mystery, of doubt, of an intimacy that not everyone can access. It is no coincidence that the great poet Francesco Petrarca entrusted his most hidden thoughts and his own anguish to a writing that he titled precisely Secretum. And it is also no coincidence that there are few things that intrigue us and at the same time create discomfort in us than state secrets or the third secret of Fatima. Then there are the secrets of Pulcinella, that is, those things that everyone knows even if they pretend nothing is happening, a bit like what happens in certain families and in our local politics. In short, secrecy accompanies a large part of our life and our imagination.
Alongside the ability to speak, the ability to keep silent has equal importance in the history of human societies: secrecy creates and destroys groups, inevitably generating inclusion and exclusion and shaping behaviors and relationships. Although based on silence, secrecy is a social act, indeed a foundation of every society, as Massimo Cerulo, professor of Sociology and Sociology of Emotions at the University of Naples Federico II, tells us in the short essay Segreto (il Mulino, 2025, pp. 144).
Spies, criminal organizations, lovers, but also ordinary people build their existence around the secret, but at the same time in the awareness that it always carries with it the risk of being betrayed. As a traditional proverb says: "The secret of one is God's secret, the secret of two is no longer mine, the secret of three is everyone's secret". Or, to quote La Rochefoucauld: "He to whom you confide your secret becomes the master of your freedom".
Yes, because sharing a secret means giving up part of our independence and control over ourselves and our lives. Yet, we are used to confiding in each other and we build (and destroy) bonds on confidences. And we build our awareness and our identity by keeping secrets that we are not willing to share with anyone and that we tend to remove even from ourselves. The secret is, therefore, something very human and at the same time sacred and ancestral. Keeping one is something that can intoxicate and at the same time crush under the weight of responsibilities.
The big question is whether there is room for secrecy in our contemporary society. In our digital society, where the hunt for hidden truths and information seems to be a trend and where with a click you can destroy people's identities and balances, what meaning can this word take on? The answer that Cerulo offers us is to always try to keep quiet about something about ourselves, especially in these times when everything is habitually posted and shared.
Never before has silence been golden and it is worth keeping quiet to share perhaps only with a single person or a few close friends so as to create reciprocity, respect, relationship. In short: community.