Perhaps another way of explaining the puzzle lies in the fact that one might join an anonymity-shedding social network in order to maintain social ties with others who do the same. This would suggest geometric growth of social networks where one has a larger social network to begin with, as a result of peer pressure and ill-perceived costs of privacy until one is already locked in.

-- RickSchwartz - 9 Mar 2009

It’s clear to me both from Ted and Kate’s comments and from some offline discussions with Justin that there’s some confusion between the substance of my argument and the symbolic references I use to make it. Of course, as the author, I’m responsible for that confusion so in further drafts, I’ll have to think about how to avoid it, but for now let me try to clarify. I’m not actually making an argument about the difference between city and rural life or New York and Wyoming; I use those examples only as symbolic reference because, unlike the difference between city and rural life, I, and I think I can safely assume, everyone else in the class (barring time machines) has no intuitive personal experience about the difference between pre-Industrialized and urbanized society. That is really my argument--- that the urbanization of the late 18th century entirely shifted our paradigm around privacy both because the very nature of living in space with others inherently changes what you think of as private and because urbanized society allows specialization, which in turn allows people to cede responsibility (and thus privacy) for the everyday activities of their lives. While I think that living in Wyoming or other similarly rural spaces does affect our notions of privacy for the reasons just noted (and I’ve certainly argued as much in the comments), this isn’t the crux of my argument at all. It’s really only the most attenuated example of what is actually a historical argument about the impact of urbanization, writ large, on privacy.

On Ted’s point (and also Justin’s from offline) that “I think my problem is with the fundamental assertion that city life fosters more indifference or acceptance of loss of privacy and identity,” I want to first note that my argument is more properly read “I think my problem is with the fundamental assertion that urbanization fosters more indifference or acceptance of loss of privacy and identity,” as that, and not “city life” is my fundamental assertion. Of course, even a more proper reading of my argument doesn’t mean you’ll agree with it. It seemed to me, writing this essay, that this first point about changes in privacy as a result of urbanization was mostly self evident and almost entirely intuitive. Apparently it was not. I hesitate to offer another example, because I seem to have a problem with giving modern and personal examples to represent my historical and societal argument, but I will just suggest that the intuitive feeling of my argument is captured by anyone when they go to their shared college dorm room for the first time or in the first time you share a bed with another person. In those moments, the mere presence of another person shapes your expectation of privacy; even the inviolable privacy of your sleep is acted upon by that other body next to you, even if it, too, is sleeping. My point in the essay is that the presence of bodies matters, and living in a world that has been fundamentally altered by the piling of bodies into those little epicenters of gravities we call cities has to affect what you think of as privacy. If you don’t agree with that, well, I guess you just don’t agree. This seems so intuitive to me that I don’t know how else to argue it.

I do want to suggest, though, that perhaps part of the reason you all seem to be having a hard time with it is that you seem to be thinking primarily of my argument through the individual lens (a problem I am responsible for--- I recognize my essay juxtaposes the historical with the personal). Ted, you seem to be looking for evidence of the paradigm shift created by urbanization as written on individual bodies, but that is not at all what I am suggesting. My point is that the shift has already taken place. We all, in New York, Wyoming and everywhere else, live in an urbanized world. The Industrial Revolution has come and gone--- we live now only in its wake. I don't argue necessarily that a man moves from Wyoming to New York and suddenly loses all notion of his privacy, though I think to a certain extent changes in his ideas about privacy are inevitable as a result of such a move. My argument, more broadly, is that urbanization, the mass movement of people to cities, changed the basic underpinnings of privacy for society as a whole, not necessarily in or over the lifetime of one man. The experience of a person who moves from a rural to urban environment today is only some dwarfed Doppelganger of changes that have already taken place. I posited those experiences in the essay as a way to make more salient my point about urbanization; I’m sorry if they were confusing or led the reader astray from my argument.

I hope this was responsive, Ted, but it is predicated a bit on how I assumed you were reading my paper. If I was wrong, correct me, and I can try to respond differently.

-- DanaDelger - 26 Feb 2009

So I was not sure I disagreed, but now I think I do. I don't think we can dodge the terminology bullet. To use the language we used in class, we may differentiate between secrecy (people knowing the substance of what you are doing; what Dana is calling privacy) and anonymity (people connecting you with your actions). To use class terminology, these are both components of what we call privacy.

I think my problem is with the fundamental assertion that city life fosters more indifference or acceptance of loss of privacy and identity. As Justin implied, in a small town, you lose your anonymity, and so secrecy becomes more important. In the city (accepting Dana's argument), this balance seems to reverse. If we may make the assumption that modern data aggregation techniques strip both your secrecy (where you go, what you buy) and your anonymity, I don't see why the city would necessarily foster more indifference towards loss of privacy. In the big city, you assume you have anonymity, which is easily stripped from you. In the country, you treasure your secrecy, which again may be easily taken away. Both are fallacies: they are just fallacies of a different kind.

It is certainly true that there may be less opportunity to lose ones privacy in the small town than there is the city; if you are fishing and killing deer, it is less essential that you deal with the web of technology that allows tracking and aggregation of identity. I would also expect that there be less surveillance infrastructure in small towns (with the notable exception of Walmart). While the existence of the threat may be diminished, I am not convinced that the attitudes are inherently less problematic. I certainly think it may be easier to see the risks posed by loss of secrecy than the risks posed by loss of anonymity: every EULA on the internet is a testament to loss of secrecy, while few people know how often google follows them home. This would not be a point about how attitudes towards privacy were strengthened by self reliance, but rather a point about how the dangers people look for are different, and about how one may be more apparent given the structure of surveillance and the internet.

I hope this was at least a little clear, and I am sorry it was so long.

-- TheodoreSmith - 22 Feb 2009

Is there an objective difference between buying a can of soup in Wyoming and a can of soup in NYC? Or is your point that the difference is only subjective and that the subjective experience informs our notions of privacy alone?

-- KateVershov - 21 Feb 2009