- what ethically / biblically / legally should (or should not) be "private";
- what the effects might be of not keeping any particular thing "private" (including a) how others involved might respond; b) how innocent bystanders might be affected; c) how I might be affected (and I may or may not fit into b) in any particular issue);
- what my intentions might be of revealing something that at least some people consider should be ethically / biblically private;
- if the ethical / biblical mandate argues against something being / remaining private, what the best way is to reveal the heretofore private issue; and/or
- the relevance of the private issue to my autobiography, which is what this blog is all about.
Regarding the second issue, if one holds pragmatism (ends justifies the means and/or group consensus of right and wrong being the final yard stick) as having ultimate authority in determining what should or should not be revealed, than this concern would be the overriding issue in deciding whether a private concern should be revealed or not. If something other than pragmatism is accepted as the final moral measure, than #2 should not be a primary concern.
As to #3, my intentions would only be of issue if the basic value structure which allows for the maintenance or non-maintenance of secrecy makes my intentions a matter of concern. If it is determined that my intentions are an issue, this would likely be so out of concern for a) my moral, spiritual or psychological condition out of concern for me; b) my moral, spiritual or psychological condition because of concern for the affect intentions might play on how I carry out any revelation or non-revelation of a heretofore private issue; and/or c) the validity of my assertion regarding the heretofore private issue.
Point a) here seems irrelevant if taken purely and simply as a concern for my condition, as this says nothing about the heretofore private issue. (This isn't to say this concern might not be important on other grounds, but not vis a vis whether a heretofore private issue is rightfully private and/or should be revealed).
B) would be of concern for some methods of reasoning, as there could be determinations regarding better or less good ways of revealing or not revealing something something by which I might be judged, and this might include judgment of my intentions. However, this does not address the issue of whether something should or should not be revealed, just how it should or should not be revealed. In this light, then, I might be chided for revealing or not revealing something in the wrong way, but that would not discredit the revelation or non-revelation itself. For example, I might reveal something in a way someone views as wrong, while still recognizing that I was right in revealing the issue in general; I just did it in the wrong way, in such a case. This issue, I think, is separate from the the heretofore private issue itself and also the basic determination of whether or not something should or should not be revealed. Whether or not I reveal something in the right way or not, however, has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of the issue itself. So, for example, if someone is involved in child abuse, and I reveal it incorrectly, my revealing such a situation in a "wrong" way says nothing about whether the child abuse itself is right or wrong and should not be used as a way to detract from the wrongness of the child abuse.
Option C) above could well be combined with B), but could also be completely separate from B). In the case that it is completely separate from B), there would be no actual concern for me at all, but only for the heretofore private issue and perhaps those individuals that it involves. That is, in this case a determination concerning the correctness or incorrectness of my intentions includes no consideration for my moral or spiritual well-being.
The fourth issue would affect #3 as described above, but here the focus is on the yardstick for determining rightness or wrongness / better or worse approaches to revealing or not revealing heretofore private issues. In other words, this point pushes us to establish guidelines, apart from what I might or might not actually do. Presumably, this could come chronologically before some of the above issues, but not necessarily. That is, one might not think through this aspect of the dilemma, and just come to conclusions more or less by the seat of one's pants - that is, as a sort of knee-jerk reaction. In this case, it is quite possible (or even likely) that attributing all these moralistic aspects of the process (of determining what and how to reveal or not reveal something) to real-life contexts might be assigning more intentionality to the parties involved than is actually the case. This would not mean that there is necessarily no logic in such cases, but rather than any logic is quite likely less conscious than I'm assuming here. I don't think this fact (that reasoning might be more unconscious than otherwise), negates the above discussions, however, because these kinds of considerations could still be relevant, just less consciously so.
Finally, there is the issue (#5) as to whether, from a literature standpoint, the heretofore private issue is relevant to my autobiography. I think the family issues are generally relevant in as much as family is a big part of my life, in various ways. As such, it comprises a big part of who I am and also my concerns and, to a certain extent, how I might be the way I am. Some things about who I am might be difficult to understand apart from family, but also, when I eventually arrive at the present in my autobiographical chronology, it might be difficult to understand why and how certain things happen without understanding private family issues. Whether or not this is enough to justify revealing these issues here in this blog is subject to the other considerations (1 through 4). The thing for me that is so difficult is that so much of my life seems to have been subject to this secrecy rule that if I were to refrain from discussing private things altogether the reader would basically have an understanding of my life that everyone else (not myself) frames for me as they desire for their own ends, and my understanding gets completely lost in the shuffle. In such a case it seems like I would have to turn this blog into a biography, rather than an autobiography, because my own views of my life would be buried and ignored. In this case, where does one draw the line in knowing what to reveal (let alone how to reveal things)? It seems that there is always some justification or another for maintaining secrecy, which always argues against revealing heretofore private things. That is, it seems that most everyone in my life appears to be dead set on framing my life (or certain aspects of it) in their terms, which is contingent upon the maintenance of secrecy, that is keeping heretofore secret things secrets. Where, then does my perspective fit in? It doesn't. In this way my perspective, pure and simple, is wrong, illegitimate, or otherwise immoral in one way or another, according to all my detractors, some of whom are otherwise relationally quite close to me.
And there you have my dilemma(s) in a nutshell.
***
I'm sorry if I've missed something here, and I should say that I'm not really a philosopher by training, but I hope I'm making some sense here.
***
So why am I going through all the trouble to discuss this here? I'm doing this because I want you to understand some of the issues I'm grappling with in trying to decide what to write here and what not to write... or how to write something. Right now the big issue is regarding present-day interpersonal relations and the like, because of recent events in my life. So I want you to see that when I write something here, especially something of more current concern, I'm not writing it heedlessly or without at least some thought. In turn, I hope the reader will likewise keep in mind some of these concerns I've discussed in this post when assigning moral determinations related to what I post here.
Also, while I do have some protection of anonymity here, there are a few people who know who I am. And although I could decide at a later date to change or delete any particular comment or post, as anyone who knows how the Internet works, such later change or deletion is not necessarily a fool-proof option. That is, even if I make changes, the earlier version of this blog or a particular post could well be cached somewhere else on the Internet.
The other immediate reason for writing this post is that there are several issues currently that are distracting me and might fall within this "family secrets" category. So I'm trying to decide what to do about these things in real life and also vis a vis this blog.
