Think Julian Assange is sui generis? He's just one in a long line of agents provocateurs, stretching back through Trotsky to the Greeks.
BY MARGARET MACMILLAN | MARCH/APRIL 2011
WikiLeaks is something new, but human beings have always been fascinated by secrets and what to do about them. According to Greek legend, King Midas's barber knew his master's shameful secret: that the king had been given donkey ears by an angry god. The barber, unable to bear the burden of his knowledge, whispered the secret into a bed of reeds; when the wind blew, the Greeks believed, you could hear the reeds telling of Midas's shame.
Those in power, not surprisingly, have tended to agree with Midas that certain things -- military plans and international negotiations, for example -- are best kept secret. Yet down through the centuries there have always been Julian Assanges too, arguing that secrecy is in itself bad. Neither side has ever definitively won, but powerful elites have lined up so consistently and effectively on the side of secrecy that calls for greater transparency have generally lost the argument. Are we about to see another revolt against government secrecy snuffed out, or has WikiLeaks ushered in a more lasting change?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,....................
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