A Plague On Both Your Houses

The Death of Privacy

Science fiction with a smile | Salon Arts & Entertainment.

Heather Havrilesky may be writing in this article about a show on the Science Fiction Channel, but her opening paragraphs speak to the idea that privacy is dead, a current cultural phenomenon (accepted as gospel) that is, I believe, really really bad.

“Mystery is a dying art. Holding on to your secrets during the digital revolution feels as antiquated and prudish as holding on to your virginity during the sexual revolution.

Not only is trying to keep your personal life private nearly impossible, but the whole concept of being a "private person" is patently outdated. What does it even mean? Not mentioning your tubal ligation on your Facebook page? Not tweeting about your disintegrating marriage?

Nothing is confidential anymore; those who'd like to pretend otherwise are greeted with suspicion and raised hackles. In an age when "community building" seems indelibly linked to casting your secrets into an unfathomable digital void, self-censorship can strike people as downright unneighborly. Information wants to be free, and no doubt about it, it's prepared to break your kneecaps and make a run for it if necessary.”

First, the obvious flaw with the analogy (and its not a bad one) as an argument in favor of giving up your privacy is that there are many people who either died of AIDS or live with HIV who wish they had remained virgins during the sexual revolution.  There are probably a whole slew of others who wish they had (or had not) participated in the sexual revolution for a variety of reasons.  Merely having a trend is not a reason to conform to it.  Following lemmings off a cliff, no matter how many there are is not a recipe for success or survival.

Second, isn’t privacy to be valued?  Does the Big Brother of the social networking universe need to know everything?  Should everyone know everything?  Does this breed responsibility or just fear?  The problem with the cacophony of the Internet is that people might not speak for fear that what they say might not be popular.  They might not do for fear that what they do might not be favored by the loudest and most vocal.  Yet it is those who speak up, who do not fear to say the emporer has no clothes, who insist the earth is round and it revolves around the sun who may be drowned out by the masses and the lack of privacy.

As history would have it, those who berated and despised privacy, those who argued that your private thoughts and actions should be exposed (possibly to ridicule), those who live by the phrase “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear,” are not exactly those whom I would characterize as the “good guys.”  Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Inquisition, Senator Joseph McCarthy, to name a few of the rogues gallery. 

The mob does not like privacy.  Lemmings do not like privacy.  For now, I will try to keep what I have and fight for people’s rights to have theirs. 

 

Don Imus Fired - Shame on CBS, Shame on Al Sharpton

"The message of the ongoing Imus scandal is simple: Verbal offenses against anyone, other than conservatives or Christians or Jews, will be treated as crimes, and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the judge and jury."

Before I get to the quote above, let me say that Don Imus' unrepeatable statements were rude, deplorable, outrageous, wrong, stupid, misogynistic, immature, horrific, sickening, moronic, unthinking, insensitive, racist, sexist, mean spirited and practically every other epithet you can throw at them. That he should have apologized is a given. That he should have pleaded for mercy in front of African American and women's groups is unquestioned. That everyone should object, and be outraged and call him out and call the words out and bring attention to the evil that was spewed is the American way. It is the whole point of free speech.

And that is why CBS should not have fired him. People in the media should not be fired for what they say or how they say it. I said elsewhere that is a dark alley down which we are about to descend.

Which brings me to the quote above - the quote is from Tom Delay. He is a man who's politics of extremism I abhor. And CBS and Al Sharpton have put me in his corner. If CBS is firing Don Imus why isn't ABC firing Rosie O'Donnell. She after all called Christian right wingers fascists. I don't like to be called a fascist. But then I'm Jewish so I don't like to be called a big-nosed money lender either. I once slapped somebody around for calling me a kike. But I also think the ACLU was right when they defended the Nazi's right to march in Skokie.

Where are all the free speech people now? Was the ACLU just kidding? Is it really all right to fire people for what they say on radio? On TV? Is the FCC right to censor all those vulgar words? Where's George Carlin? It appears there are more than 7 words you aren't allowed to say on radio, they've just changed. Every person who called for Don Imus to be taken off the air better watch out because Delay is revving up his big guns: "What the Left is doing is not a fluke - it's a concerted strategy. And it works. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's why I am calling on conservatives to use the available media (radio talk shows, blogs, letters to the editor) to protest and demand that Rosie O'Donnell be kicked off The View." What are people going to say? It only counts if it is insulting? Well, what Rosie says is insulting to Christians. Its not political? So now we are only protecting political speech? Kiss freedom of artistic expression goodbye.

CBS and the people who put pressure on them have gone to that scary dark back alley, and it's already looking like the lurkers are ready to pounce.

Shame on you and damn you. You have done something very wrong and very bad for this country. I believe you have done something that could seriously damage the fabric of the first amendment.

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