Discretion means general reserve toward the total personality, not respecting specific secrets

Evidence

Acquaintance in this social sense is, therefore, the proper seat of “discretion.” For, discretion consists by no means only in the respect for the secret of the other, for his specific will to conceal this or that from us, but in staying away from the knowledge of all that the other does not expressly reveal to us. It does not refer to anything particular which we are not permitted to know, but to a quite general reserve in regard to the total personality. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 7796

Categorization

• DEFINE: Simmel defines discretion as a general withholding stance rather than a targeted respect for particular secrets — a genuinely counterintuitive refinement.
• XREF: Connects to the reading project’s Simmel-triad analysis: discretion as the boundary norm that lets dyads stay dyadic without an observing third.