The Grand Inquisitor Meets Free Information

I will echo Rick's sentiments: this is a great piece of writing. If anything, the challenge of the Grand Inquisitor seems even more poignant in the context of privacy. Right now, we are free (though not all equally able) to learn and know everything that we can about each other. What is the responsibility that comes with that freedom? Should this be a freedom we willingly surrender, if not because of the any individual burden on those who possess it, then because of its collective burdens on society?

Where privacy is concerned, there is both a freedom to know and a freedom to remain unknown that seem to be in tension. Any resolution would seem to call for part of one freedom to be voluntarily surrendered so that the other can be seized. Any privacy laws will be(are) a voluntary surrender of one form of freedom for security--not necessarily security from the outsider, but rather security from the state and from each other.

I think the Constitutional question you pose is fascinating. But I am hesitant to agree that freedom imposed paternalistically can ever be a good thing. Perhaps in the realm of knowledge and ideas, people spurn the freedom to learn for all the wrong reasons. But that very act of rejection is also an affirmation of freedom, is it not? Nudging may be acceptable where the end of scarcity means there's no longer a need to choose between freedom of bread, but, where privacy is concerned, we're not dealing with non-scarcity conditions.

The Constitution isn't about balancing the rights of the individual and those of the state. The state doesn't have rights. It has powers meant to preserve the rights and obligations of individuals with respect to each other. As a social contract, it's an agreement by all to a certain degree of submission in return for (hopefully) greater freedom.

I wish I could capture my thoughts on this topic a bit more faithfully in words. The question of what implications the Grand Inquisitor's charges have for understanding privacy and for constitutional interpretation strikes me as a very worthwhile topic for further discussion.

-- AndreiVoinigescu - 05 May 2009