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20 November 2002 (Wednesday): on privacy (a ramble)
If I may ask a stupid question: why is protection of privacy so important?
I don't ask this rhetorically at all; the idea of living a glass-house existence makes me squirm, and I'm trying to figure out why. Is it because protection of privacy is inherently a protection of individuality? The bedroom, the bathroom mirror: maybe these are the places where we define who we really are, immune from any judgment, and then wrap it in layers of self-consciousness before we emerge into the bright laser-eyed world. Or maybe it's here that we become what we are not -- where we shake out the crumbs of our darker habits, so that in "real" life we might be less brutal, less egomaniacal, less ugly. Denied this sanctuary, would we be forced to become 24-7 actors, ghosts in the shell of our so-called better selves? Would we go insane living a life that's always a performance?
Sometimes I wonder whether complete transparency would make us all lighten up instead. Everyone picks his nose at some point. Everyone wipes his ass. Everyone wants to sleep with his mother (no, really). Maybe if all this were exploded out into the open, we'd come to accept that aberrant behavior is actually a crucial element of normalcy. Maybe we'd all be a little more tolerant of the hilarity and bizarreness that makes us human.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the real reason is this: privacy allows one to decide how one is perceived. We crave acceptance by others, yet it's painful to behave acceptably all the time; it requires sanding down parts of ourselves until we fit into the pigeonhole. So we choose what we display, and keep the rest alive in secret. Anyway, when we are one of "the others," we're grateful for discretion. Spare us the spectacle, we say. We don't want to know that you french-kiss your dog. Give us something we can relate to.
posted by enjelani @ 02:58 PM PST
Replies: 10 comments
Crazy ramble... I've never really thought about how I differ at home as opposed to out in the world.
If I had a glass house, I think i'd have problems detaching myself from the rest of the world. Not that I care so much that people know what i'm doing or think or anything like that, just that having people actually OBSERVE what i'm doing or thinking 24x7 would make me loopy... Something comforting about knowing you are, at least for a moment in time, not relating with any other part of the human race.
So, I guess what i'm saying is I don't care if you watch me french kiss my Mom or sleep with my dog, but I just don't want to know that anyone is actually watching ;)
posted by syndromes @ 20 11 2002 08:19 PM PST
interesting.
I think that the law agrees with you - it's all about how other people think of you, it's all about your reputation.
On a somewhat-but-not-really-related note, friend of mine told me yesterday that the most disturbing part of the possibility ghosts really existing was that they could be watching all of the time, and that she loses sleep over that thought at times.
Hmm.
posted by dishi @ 20 11 2002 10:09 PM PST
interesting.
I think that the law agrees with you - it's all about how other people think of you, it's all about your reputation.
On a somewhat-but-not-really-related note, friend of mine told me yesterday that the most disturbing part of the possibility ghosts really existing was that they could be watching all of the time, and that she loses sleep over that thought at times.
Hmm.
posted by dishi @ 20 11 2002 10:09 PM PST
*sigh*
Sometimes I think my incompetence pops up on every (rare) occasion I decide to post a comment. If I manage not to horribly mispell something, I accidentily post it twice. Or I do both. grr...
posted by dishi @ 20 11 2002 10:19 PM PST
I've always seen it as a matter of trust. You give privacy to those you trust. And you take it away from those you don't.
To live with no privacy is to assume that nobody trusts you. And that is a very unsettling feeling.
posted by wink @ 20 11 2002 11:32 PM PST
I like your reasons, both for and against. They speak to the personal and emotional reasons that we value privacy.
Without knowing all that much about the subject, it seems to me that the law's concern over privacy nowadays is rooted in cold pragmatism; fear of the destruction that could be wrought in your life if someone were to have unfettered access to any and all knowledge about you. Identity theft, religious or political persecution, defamation, etc. - whether or not you particularly care about certain 'secrets,' someone else may choose to uncover and use them to ruin your life.
And some horrible people out there do exactly that - with no provocation at all.
I would guess that, when it comes to the emotional and spiritual bases for valuing or not valuing privacy, it's much as you say - a matter of peace, acceptance, perception, and sanity.
The cold view of justice is that it doesn't care how you feel; its job is to worry about the concrete or discrete matters of what should or shouldn't be allowed, as opposed to what makes life worth living. Not everyone agrees with such a minimalist or procedural conception of justice, of course; if nothing else, justice still carries aspects of vengeance and retribution, so feelings of a sort matter (although I hope it's not limited to that!)
But it's like noting that the promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" ultimately says nothing about the actual attainment of happiness, only its pursuit. Ain't love that way, too...
So there's the privacy that matters to you, and the privacy that 'society' worries about. There's some overlap, but the two can be distinguished to some degree. It's a real reawakening of sorts to hear you discuss the side of it that I haven't heard much about in a long, long time...
posted by m. mellow @ 20 11 2002 11:51 PM PST
It's an interesting twist on things, there, enjelani. How would we behave, stripped of all the masks we hide behind?
The question to me is what kind of individuals would we become? When I think about this, I see a set of two extremes. As you suggest we'd either become a society of honest, geniune souls, or a society of pretenders.
For me to grasp which it might be, I'd have to know if you're suggesting the idea of removing privacy right now, or are you ruminating on where we might be now had we not placed such an emphasis on it in the first place, way back when. If it's the latter, we might have become more open, honest, nonjudgemental people. Media snooping would have been irrelevant along with the facination that fuels it. With everything out in the open, the titilation is gone. Our social evolution would have been radically different.
But if you're wondering what it might be like if we removed privacy rights now, I'd say no thanks. Within the world we've been given, I've developed a private side that I only make available to a small number of people of my choosing. I'm a bit of a freak really, and I think I'd be constantly apologizing for being misunderstood. Better to just not subject people to my weirdness, I think. With privacy, I can be whoever I choose to be. The degree to which I expose myself is mine to decide. This is part of the American model of democracy. I think it's the "liberty" part of that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing. You could make the argument that without privacy, the real me would simply fit into the world and be accepted, and as a result, I might be more of myself all the time. But I think for me the reverse would happen. Like you suggest, I'd be pressured into normalcy, something I've waged a personal war against nearly all my life. I don't want to be normal. I want my freaky side to be mine, to reveal to whom I want, when I want.
Incidentally, I'm farting right now as I type this. I'm choosing to let you all know that.
posted by Jim @ 21 11 2002 12:27 AM PST
I view privacy is an unlikely fence between "we the people" and the mad dog politician history has shown popping up now and then with a few screws loose and a crazy agenda, frequently involving a discriminatory abuse of some group or another.
For example, Joseph McCarthy, the esteemed Senator from Wisconsin, wouldn't have had a shot at all his crazy witch hunt crap if the senate and nation had the spine to defend privacy, including individual thought and expression, as a fundamental constitutional right, regardless of any "communist threat." Suspending the Constitution during that infamous time proved to be a greater threat to our happy existence than any communist anything ever tracked down by the FBI snooping around in civilian underpants.
Notwithstanding the thought of bad dog breath, I think it would be rather entertaining to know that someone French kisses their dog. But that's me - in contrast, some Christian Fundamentalist Crazies may think that the person guilty of the heinous crime of kissing, never mind a French dog *grin*, is a scourge on society - burn them!! Shoots, there's even historical precedence for burning!
Keep Privacy alive and well and it keeps it that much more difficult for a Crazy in high office to take a big fat smelly dump in the back yard of your personal private space.
posted by Bill @ 21 11 2002 12:40 AM PST
I'm not all what you see
when you look at me
My privacy, it's my individuality.
Poindexter's render'in his TIA
but he's no Dr. Mindbender
to my Snake-Eyes, a-okay?
Jimbo can be his own bimbo
within his private space
remove it and what's his face
but a universe of empty space
black and cold
nothing to hold.
posted by MacAdamer @ 21 11 2002 03:12 AM PST
"Incidentally, I'm farting right now as I type this. I'm choosing to let you all know that." -Jim
I farted AS I READ THAT. We must have been separated at birth. ;)
posted by echeng @ 21 11 2002 03:21 AM PST