The concept of privacy has been on my mind a lot lately, for several reasons. There is a tension between the private and public person, and whether that boundary should even exist. I’ll tell you my viewpoint upfront: I believe a “private life” is essential to our well-being as individuals and to our humanity’s collective well-being.
However, the issue is far from easy or clear-cut.
We’ve always understood that there are parts of our lives not meant for public consumption. This desire for privacy is not always borne out of hypocrisy or a wish to shield unsavory activities; indeed, many of the activities we engage in behind closed doors are quite necessary. Biological functions necessary to human life–reproduction, the ridding of bodily waste, childbirth–are carried out in a private fashion, i.e., they only involve the people essential to the activity. This explains why it’s completely normal for a doctor to be in a delivery room, while it would be appalling to have a random stranger with no vested interest watching the childbirth, shoveling in popcorn as if bringing life into the world is a spectator sport to be consumed like a Friday night football game.
While some individuals and groups have always crossed those boundaries, we understand those are exceptions, not the rule.
But with the rise of social media, the boundaries have blurred significantly. What was whispered about in the recesses of closed bedrooms is now shared openly and without shame. Sometimes, this transparency is helpful. I think of support groups, medical information, mental health, etc. People need a place to seek information and share, so they know they are not alone in their struggles. However, does the community bulletin really need to know about your toenail fungus or the laundry list of grievances you have against the local pizza place? When did it become okay to get into a virtual shouting match, complete with cursing and grammatically questionable insults, with random strangers about problems that are not directly related to either party?
I often feel confused at these interactions, as if the world left to go on vacation to a strange and faraway place, and I’m standing there at the empty station, wondering where everyone went. I know I’m not the only one, either. There are countless people walking around with confused expressions, shaking their heads and muttering to themselves, “What happened?”
The fast pace of today’s society has left behind many stragglers. Who the winner is in this scenario has yet to be seen, but my money’s on the stragglers.
And yet, while many of us closely guard our private lives, clutching them dearly as we venture out into the digital world, we also understand the security in dealing with consistent people. People who don’t lead separate lives when they are away from us. There is trust in knowing that who I’m talking to is the same person at all times. No one likes being deceived.
So when my coworker is a nice unassuming man, but then goes home to beat his wife? That man is guilty not only of criminal cruelty, he is also guilty of lying and betrayal. He has betrayed his public image and lied to everyone. He has robbed his wife of safety and trust, and everyone who comes into contact with him becomes less trusting because of his deception. He has effectively poisoned the well with his evil.
Hypocrisy is universally repulsive.
So how do we balance the need for transparency with the need for privacy? How do we ensure that individual thought is preserved while still having a reliable mechanism for recognizing the wolves in sheep’s clothing?
My conclusion is this: You can’t. In the end, you have to choose. If we seek to preserve private life, we run the risk of people leading secret lives. They will abuse the concept of privacy to carry out their selfish, and possibly evil, desires.
Which begs the question, why would I endorse the idea of privacy?
The reason is simple: If you abandon privacy in favor of complete and total transparency, you will have neither. We know this because we’ve seen it play out. When human speech is monitored with feverish zeal, humans adapt. We relegate our opinions to the recesses of our minds. We learn to conceal our true thoughts in an act of self-preservation. In the pursuit of a completely public persona, everyone becomes a hypocrite.
I met a wonderful person (I’m being purposefully vague) who fled communist Cuba many years ago. She shared how when Castro came to speak, his people would take attendance, noting–and presumably punishing–those who refused to attend. Later, Castro’s people would publish photos of the teeming crowd as proof of his popularity among the Cuban people.
They had no private lives, but that couldn’t stop them from hating him.
The fact is, not all of our initial thoughts are good. We have to work them out in our own minds or with others that we trust. Even this article, which I feel completely confident and comfortable sharing, has been edited. I deleted thoughts and rearranged them and changed my mind about sentences. Why? Because our thoughts are like seeds, they need to grow and be nurtured and shaped, and sometimes we have to uproot them and cut them out. If we don’t have the space to change our minds or work out our own opinions, we will stunt our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth. We will simply accept or reject; there will be no more synthesis.
We talk in terms of rights in our country. And while I fervently defend natural rights (as opposed to so many of the rights we talk about), I don’t want to frame privacy in terms of rights. Because the fact is, privacy is something that countless people across history have been denied. Instead, I ask you to think of privacy like beauty or art. We don’t need it to survive, but we need it to be fully human.
So treasure your private life. Put it to good purpose. Don’t abuse it. And when someone threatens it, guard it with your life. Because it is your life.
I believe there are sound theological reasons for this position, although I did not write this article from that viewpoint. If you would like to read about those, let me know and I will write a follow-up post.
Wow! Beautifully expressed!
Thank you, Sharon!