On his book Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society
Cover Interview of February 17, 2021
A close-up
Chapter 1 of Life After Privacy is an ideal first
look for the average reader. This chapter examines our curious, conflicted
relationship to privacy. We may say that privacy is important; we may recognize
it as a crucial historical and political virtue—especially in America. In general,
however, we hardly know what privacy is, or why it is valuable. And our behavior
suggests we care very little about privacy at all.
Historians might argue that the United States was born of
privacy concerns; colonists rebelled against British troops who occupied their
homes and invaded their shops and warehouses. Privacy seems the quintessential
American value. But it is not mentioned once in the U.S. Constitution; the
right to privacy is articulated a century later—and only earns widespread legal
protections in the 1960s.
In America, the right to privacy is everywhere, and nowhere.
It is arguably the central design principle of suburbia, where most Americans
live. And yet, isolated on suburban lots, behind privacy fences, in expansive
basements, people go online—and expose themselves rather wantonly. I dub this
our new ‘confessional culture.’ It amounts to something like a change in human
nature, how we share so instinctively, and completely. Online, there is a
growing sense that nothing is or should or need be private. Which means that our
digital spies do not have to work hard to learn much about us. We digital
citizens—thanks to our new culture of sharing—are the greatest threat to privacy.
Cultural critics and philosophers have tried to understand
why we are suddenly so apt to share. Some believe it is in keeping with the
capitalist spirit of entrepreneurialism: we share online in order to craft our
personal ‘brand’ that we ‘sell’ to impressionable peers. Some argue, by
contrast, that the impulsive sharing betrays an interest in privacy: when we expose
some things, this draws attention away from others. I conclude, however, that
we share because digital technology is a medium, and offers a sense of remove.
It acts like Gyges ring, from Plato’s Republic, which makes its bearer
invisible—and unhinged. Online, we feel utterly free, liberated to do and say
what we like, with no thought of consequences—because we are physically removed
from other people, whom we might injure or insult. Ironically, then, we are
wont to share online because of a preponderant sense—and illusion—that we are
alone, or private.
Our tenuous grasp of privacy, furthermore, is testified by a
common adjective ascribed to privacy invasions: we dub them ‘creepy.’ When
Target studies consumer data to determine when female customers are pregnant—in
their second trimester, no less—we call this ‘creepy.’ This is the strongest
complaint we can muster against surveillance regimes, but it is quite hollow,
and useless. For, calling something creepy is to recognize that it is wrong—but
you can’t say exactly what is wrong, or why. No wonder we cannot be bothered to
protect privacy.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
A close-up
Chapter 1 of Life After Privacy is an ideal first look for the average reader. This chapter examines our curious, conflicted relationship to privacy. We may say that privacy is important; we may recognize it as a crucial historical and political virtue—especially in America. In general, however, we hardly know what privacy is, or why it is valuable. And our behavior suggests we care very little about privacy at all.
Historians might argue that the United States was born of privacy concerns; colonists rebelled against British troops who occupied their homes and invaded their shops and warehouses. Privacy seems the quintessential American value. But it is not mentioned once in the U.S. Constitution; the right to privacy is articulated a century later—and only earns widespread legal protections in the 1960s.
In America, the right to privacy is everywhere, and nowhere. It is arguably the central design principle of suburbia, where most Americans live. And yet, isolated on suburban lots, behind privacy fences, in expansive basements, people go online—and expose themselves rather wantonly. I dub this our new ‘confessional culture.’ It amounts to something like a change in human nature, how we share so instinctively, and completely. Online, there is a growing sense that nothing is or should or need be private. Which means that our digital spies do not have to work hard to learn much about us. We digital citizens—thanks to our new culture of sharing—are the greatest threat to privacy.
Cultural critics and philosophers have tried to understand why we are suddenly so apt to share. Some believe it is in keeping with the capitalist spirit of entrepreneurialism: we share online in order to craft our personal ‘brand’ that we ‘sell’ to impressionable peers. Some argue, by contrast, that the impulsive sharing betrays an interest in privacy: when we expose some things, this draws attention away from others. I conclude, however, that we share because digital technology is a medium, and offers a sense of remove. It acts like Gyges ring, from Plato’s Republic, which makes its bearer invisible—and unhinged. Online, we feel utterly free, liberated to do and say what we like, with no thought of consequences—because we are physically removed from other people, whom we might injure or insult. Ironically, then, we are wont to share online because of a preponderant sense—and illusion—that we are alone, or private.
Our tenuous grasp of privacy, furthermore, is testified by a common adjective ascribed to privacy invasions: we dub them ‘creepy.’ When Target studies consumer data to determine when female customers are pregnant—in their second trimester, no less—we call this ‘creepy.’ This is the strongest complaint we can muster against surveillance regimes, but it is quite hollow, and useless. For, calling something creepy is to recognize that it is wrong—but you can’t say exactly what is wrong, or why. No wonder we cannot be bothered to protect privacy.