Book contents
- Life after Privacy
- Life after Privacy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Confessional Culture
- 2 Defending Privacy
- 3 Big Plans for Big Data
- 4 The Surveillance Economy
- 5 Privacy Past and Present
- 6 The Borderless, Vanishing Self
- 7 Autonomy and Political Freedom
- 8 Powerful Publics
- Conclusion
- Index
5 - Privacy Past and Present
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2020
- Life after Privacy
- Life after Privacy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Confessional Culture
- 2 Defending Privacy
- 3 Big Plans for Big Data
- 4 The Surveillance Economy
- 5 Privacy Past and Present
- 6 The Borderless, Vanishing Self
- 7 Autonomy and Political Freedom
- 8 Powerful Publics
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Before anyone despairs over the demise of privacy, it is helpful to consider the history of this institution, and how it developed into its modern incarnation. In one respect, privacy is a very young value, and humans have long lived – and communities flourished – without it. Privacy has always been embattled. That is nothing new – you might even say that is its native state. When people managed to achieve some degree or form of privacy in the past, it was in much lesser quantities, and far more selectively and rarely enjoyed than advocates and critics say we need and deserve. The amount of privacy we have come to expect or take for granted in contemporary suburban living, by contrast, is almost absurdly generous. It is hard to imagine or conceive of an architecture and landscape that prioritizes privacy better. But appearances are deceiving: on one hand, and as I have been arguing thus far, our lives have never been more transparent within our suburban bubbles. Do we care? Better yet: what does this indicate we value in or about privacy? Does it suggest we esteem privacy at all – or something else altogether?
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- Chapter
- Information
- Life after PrivacyReclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society, pp. 75 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020