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Re: Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Regarding the reluctant reader who states that he doesn't publish a personal weblog because he does not want to "give others the right to know personal information" about him: well, it seems that he's accomplished this quite nicely, although perhaps inadvertently, on his own. His statement defines him: private, quite possibly guarded; non-particpatory, and perhaps anti-social. This latter term has, of course, two meanings: hostile to organized society (which I would not presume) and unsociable (which is a fair presumption). We live in curious times. The older values of the neighborhood and the marketplace have been displaced. Anonymity in many social situation reigns, and this causes certain perversities within a society. I do not accuse your correspondent of 'perversities', but rather question his thinking. Everyone has a right to privacy. This is without question. But the real question is how to engage in civil discourse among many, and in a society where anonymity reigns. The perjorative word 'idiot' has it's root in the ancient Greek for 'ignorance'. The Greeks, who prized an active public life like no civilization before and few since, would be baffled by many of our notions of "privacy". Especially those regarding our thoughts of the nation, our communities, the economy . . . indeed, the active life of thinking of our lives.
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