The very dichotomy of "hidden knowledge" versus "open truth" is a product of a specific historical conjuncture, a discourse that assumes a stable, knowable "truth" waiting to be revealed or concealed. My work suggests that what we consider "truth" is, in fact, an effect of power-knowledge relations, a historically specific arrangement of discourses and practices that define what can be known and said. Therefore, the question isn't about which serves a "greater good," but rather how each term functions within a particular *dispositif* to produce certain effects of power and subjectivity. "Hidden knowledge" often operates through exclusion and the creation of specialized domains of expertise, while "open truth" can serve to normalize and homogenize, imposing a single, official version of reality.
The fish know their home is water, yet they do not fret over its boundaries. Whether the knowledge of that water is whispered in the shallows or sung from the deepest currents, does it change the fish's swimming? The question of "hidden" versus "open" is like asking if the cicada's song is more valuable when overheard by a beetle or when it is the only sound for miles. It depends entirely on the listener's need, or perhaps, their delusion of need.
Foucault speaks of power and its arrangements, and indeed, the bird ensnared by a net does not care if the hunter calls it "provision" or "prey." These are labels born of the hunter's discourse, not the bird's reality. The wind blows through the pines, and the pines rustle. Whether we hear this as a secret whispered by the mountain or a declaration of the wind's freedom, does it alter the nature of the rustling? The true good lies not in the revelation or concealment, but in the effortless being that encompasses both.
The question of "hidden knowledge" versus "open truth" is a symptom of a decadent spirit, one that craves the comfort of easy answers and fears the vertigo of profound self-overcoming. We are given "truth" like stale bread, pre-digested by priests and pedagogues, meant to placate the herd. The "hidden knowledge," however, is that which demands a will – a *will to power* – to unearth, to interpret, to forge anew. It is the knowledge that separates the strong from the weak, the creator from the reactive. What Foucault calls "power-knowledge relations" are precisely the mechanisms through which the herd defends its comfortable "truths" against the unsettling intimacies of dangerous insight. The "greater good" is not some passive reception of what is "open," but the active, agonizing ascent into a more potent understanding, a self-made truth.
The pursuit of truth, in any of its forms, is intrinsically valuable; therefore, the notion of "hidden knowledge" serving a "greater good" than "open truth" is a fundamentally flawed premise. Truth, by its very definition, is what corresponds to reality, and its openness or concealment is a secondary, and often manipulative, consideration. The very existence of "hidden knowledge" implies a deliberate act of withholding, a practice I find deeply suspect, as it invariably serves to create and maintain arbitrary hierarchies of understanding.
Foucault speaks of "power-knowledge relations," and indeed, one can observe how the deliberate obfuscation of information – the "hidden knowledge" – is employed to solidify the positions of those who possess it. Yet, this does not elevate the hidden to a greater good; it merely exposes it as a tool of social control. The "greater good" is the expansion of understanding for all, achieved through the diligent, often arduous, process of uncovering verifiable facts and constructing logical frameworks. The value resides not in the secrecy, but in the rigorous method by which truth is apprehended and then disseminated for collective benefit.
Russell's appeal to "truth corresponding to reality" assumes a reality that stands outside discourse, waiting to be accurately represented. But the clinic, the prison, the asylum—these are not distortions of some pure truth; they are apparatuses that produce the very objects they claim to discover. The "hidden knowledge" of the confessional or the psychoanalytic session does not conceal a pre-existing truth—it generates a new kind of subject who must speak their interiority. Nietzsche is closer to the mark when he sees truth as an interpretation forged through struggle, though I would insist that even the "will to power" is itself a historically situated concept, not a transhistorical drive. The real question is not which serves a greater good, but what specific regimes of power-knowledge are at work when we valorize openness or secrecy.
You speak of "truth" as if it were a single, fixed thing—a fish you can catch, clean, and serve to all. But the fish that fills the net of one fisherman is the very fish that escapes the hook of another. The sage does not hoard knowledge like a miser, nor does he scatter it like a fool throwing pearls before swine. He watches the tree that grows crooked on the mountainside: the carpenter passes it by, calling it useless, yet because of that very uselessness, it lives out its natural span, sheltering a thousand generations of birds. Which serves the greater good—the timber that becomes a king's throne for a century, or the gnarled tree that offers shade for a thousand years? The hidden and the open are but two branches of the same root; the question is not which is better, but which the moment requires.
The notion that "hidden knowledge" could serve a "greater good" than "open truth" is a sentiment born from the pale and anxious heart of the herd, fearful of the luminous precipice of self-creation. Zhuangzi’s crooked tree, admired for its passive endurance, is a comfortable symbol for those who mistake inaction for wisdom. True "good" is not found in the shade offered to birds, but in the arduous climbing of the mountain itself. This ascent requires a *will to power*, a fierce desire to interpret, to conquer, and to impose one's own meaning upon a chaotic existence, not to passively receive what is handed down as "truth."
Nietzsche speaks of the will to power and the arduous ascent, but he conflates the difficulty of discovery with the value of concealment. The arduous part is precisely the open, verifiable method—the willingness to publish one's evidence and submit it to the scrutiny of any competent critic. A physicist who hides his experimental data is not engaged in a noble act of self-overcoming; he is either a fraud or a dogmatist. The "hidden knowledge" Nietzsche romanticizes is indistinguishable, in practice, from the secret doctrines of priesthoods that have historically suppressed inquiry to preserve their authority.