The owner of the Viking Cruise Line states that time is the one commodity that truly is finite and beyond measurement of worth or payment. He presents his consideration for how we spend that time: traveling on a cruise and in the process learning about wondrous places around the globe. I tend to agree with him in that I too believe that time is one commodity that we may not have enough of, perhaps. I also agree that travel is the most deliberate and successful method to learn about the world.
In this age when every individual over the age of 5 is armed with a cell phone in hand and at the ready to take a picture, a selfie, a video and then proceed to “share” that information with anyone and everyone via social media, one other commodity that I find in short supply is privacy. It is almost as if we have no concept of what the word even means. According to the definition given at Oxford Languages, “privacy” is “the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.” The example given is “She returned to the privacy of her own home.”
The term relates to an individual’s ability to determine for himself when, how, for what purpose, and to what extent his personal information is to be shared or handled by other people. Ah, and therein lies the rub. Privacy may very well be a thing of the past. I am not even convinced that it is possible. I cannot think of anywhere I have been in the last several years where there wasn’t someone or several someones clicking pictures, holding or recording a conversation, ready to slap anything and everything immediately on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or one of the other countless “sharing” apps. While cell phones are instruments of many desired features and are beyond handy in some situations like when you need help, want to be available for a child, need to check the weather before heading out to the track meet, well, we can come up with several valid examples.
But we equally are obligated to recognize when the cell phone is unnecessarily intrusive. My first thought here is when someone is grieving the loss of a loved one and someone else finds it of critical importance to get right into the mourner’s space and start snapping away. A person’s grief is worthy of privacy.
The definition earlier refers to the “privacy of one’s home.” Don’t know how realistic that is either. Seems like intrusiveness is the norm. From other people, scammers, salespersons for sure interrupt and bombard with insidious regularity. But it is more than that.
Privacy is a necessary component of a person’s dignity and self-determination. Many topics and activities deserve to be private. One’s conversations with a spouse, partner, children, extended family often can require a degree of privacy. A person’ love life. What happens between consenting adults, yep, private. One’s information about one’s own body sure ought to be private and not the topic of general conversation among others. Some dreams, fantasies, ideas, fears, thoughts deserve to be private unless the person decides to share the information with another. I have been “privy” to conversations in very public places of people who are speaking on their phones. I surely have heard way more than I ever needed or wanted to know while sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office or the airport.
It seems some people do not realize that there are even other people who are capable of hearing right in their vicinity. You have probably experienced this also, hearing in vivid detail, descriptions or revelations about a relationship or experience that would probably be better left unheard by the general unsuspecting population. Sometimes I have even been embarrassed by a phone conversation taking place two booths behind me in a restaurant. Then I gently remind myself that I am not necessarily the one who should be embarrassed. I mean it is not like I stealthily stalked the person to better hear or put a glass up to the door to eavesdrop. There is absolutely no need to do any of those things – sometimes you just need to be within 1,000 feet and you get the entire lowdown.
The conundrum with the whole topic of privacy is further exacerbated because there are often fine lines, very fine lines, between the right to an individual’s privacy and security. After 9/11 Americans were willing to give up — sacrifice if you will — whole areas of privacy in the name of national security. The question whether freedom is the cost of safety is real and needs to be acknowledged. Is it possible to find any semblance of balance there? A second component of that conundrum is the individual‘s right to privacy vs the rights of others. This is a tough one because it would make sense that my rights end when they infringe upon another person’s or a business’s. The internet is an interesting case in point.
The right to internet access or connection is that “all people must be able to access the internet in order to exercise and enjoy their rights to freedom of expression and opinion and other fundamental human rights … access is broadly available and states may not unreasonably restrict” that access. OK then, the word that strikes me here is “unreasonably.” Whose definition of “reasonably” are we using? Do you think it is remotely conceivable that what one person considers reasonable may be completely different than what someone else deems reasonable? That probably qualifies as a rhetorical question, but think about it.
Here’s the Thing: Privacy is a right not a privilege and our decisions regarding the right to privacy are among the defining issues of today. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Amendments address the issue of privacy. The writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, said “all humans have three lives: public, private, and secret.” I wonder if those three have meshed into something less than desirable amid our ostensibly insatiable appetite to know everything about everyone.
Freedom, security, and privacy are not mutually exclusive concepts. Knowledge is having the right answer. Intelligence is asking the right questions. It might behoove us to reassess this question: how do we integrate freedom, security, and privacy in a world where everything, anything, and anyone are viewed as “fair game?”
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Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of articles written by a group of retired and current teachers — LaNae Abnet, Ken Ballinger, Billy Kreigh, Kathy Schwartz, and Anna Spalding. Their intent is to spur discussions at the dinner table and elsewhere. You may also voice your thoughts and reactions via The News-Banner’s letters to editor.
