Rüdiger Zill
Secrecy as a Way of Life
The secret divides the world into two realms: One that includes those who participate therein, the other one comprising those who do not. In the extreme, the first realm is a minority of one; the most secret of secrets being the one that I share only with myself; the one nobody else knows. Yet, this is the exception.
In most other cases, the wall that hides the secret is porous. Very often, our secret is known to a number of people. In some cases, even the uninitiated – though still ignorant regarding the content and the reach of the secret – may be aware of its existence. In everyday life the secret is omnipresent – and at times, it has a life of its own. What are the techniques of masking ourselves in everyday life and how do these work?
Rüdiger Zill is Researcher at the Einstein Forum, Potsdam. He studied philosophy, history and sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin and at the Warburg Institute in London. For his dissertation on Meßkünstler und Rossebändiger. Zur Funktion von Modellen und Metaphern in philosophischen Aff ekttheorien he received his doctorate at the Free University of Berlin. He has published widely on aesthetics, cultural theory and the history of knowledge; most recently: Hinter den Spiegeln. Zur Philosophie Richard Rortys (ed together with Thomas Schäfer and Udo Tietz, 2001); Gestalten des Mitgefühls (Special Issue of Berliner Debatte INITIAL, III, ed. 2006) and Ganz Anders? Philosophie zwischen akademischem Jargon und Alltagssprache (ed. 2007).