Taussig's article on the reading of the face as a measure of merit is especially insightful in this age. "Right or wrong, reading the face is here to stay as a type of irriducible folk wisdom of popular culture. So deeply ingrained is this, a veritable 'instinct' and mad ambition, that the whole visual world can be thought of as 'face' to be read for its inner 'soul'." However, if the face is linked to judgement, then the masking of the face is as well, as we can see in the case of revolutionary Spain's Zapatista leader Marcos. His use of a mask created a mystique about him that was briefly dispelled when government officials "unmasked" him by showing a picture of "his" face and naming him a mere shopkeeper's son. In Sergei Eisenstein's The Strike, villains morph between human and animal.
In Bratich's essay, he finds that secrecy extends far beyond the concept of a box with unknown contents. Spectacular secrecy, as he calls it, includes the notion of public secrets, and he finds that the act of "revealing" a public secret, such as the identity of the informer in the Watergate scandal, merely adds to the secret. Apparently, it is possible to reveal in such a manner that the mechanisms that maintain the secret or benefit from it are strengthened rather than weakened. When the Spanish government revealed the identity of Marcos, it would seem that they were not fully aware of the implications of their revelation, and in fact the revolters' resolve was strengthened by the idea that a mere shopkeeper's son could be the leader of such a great movement. Such is also the case with secrecy in the U.S., except that those guarding the secret are masters at revealing in the most lucrative way.
In summary, the face is used as a measure of trustworthiness and overall merit. Spectacular secrecy is so excessive that those who are not "in the know" cannot fully grasp what the secret means, and instead the revealing of the secret benefits the revealer. To synthesize, all one needs to succeed in politics is a trustworthy face and Karl Rove.
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