Imagine Honesty

IMAGINE HONESTY
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 1, 2010
Honesty is the bedrock of trust in any relationship. Secrecy in our relations is the bedrock of deceit, separation, enmity. In my relations with victims and survivors of private childhood sexual terror and torture beginning almost 20 years ago, I concluded that the essence of child abuse in any culture at any time is forcing a child to keep secret what an adult does with the child. Keeping secrets, that’s our social problem. I dream of a world where US diplomats would not say behind any foreign informant’s back or without the informant’s consent what the informant would not feel free to disclose her-/himself. This is a simple rule of maintaining trust in all human relations whatever the level.
To me, the current wikileaks pile on evidence that keeping secrets from the people promotes a culture of blindness to corruption of power by one’s own secret circle. May international diplomacy come to rest on open rather than on covert understanding and accountability. Open, trustworthy, credible honesty is the bedrock of peacemaking at all social levels. Love and peace--hal