| | |
|
MatthewEckmanSecondPaper 8 - 19 May 2009 - Main.DanaDelger
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="WebPreferences" |
|---|
Correction | | | I think we all agree that norms-based defenses of privacy aren't likely to sway those who emphasize values other then personhood and autonomy. My intent in raising the threat of coercive governmental action was two-fold. First, as Ted mentions, the spring semester seems geared towards examining the balance of power between the state and its citizens, while the fall semester LawNetSoc? focused on private actors. But the other reason was to see if we can't come up with a compelling argument for protecting privacy that cuts across traditional ideological divides. I'm not claiming the specter of authoritarianism necessarily does that, though. Perhaps the best we can do is offer a basket of arguments in support of privacy and hope that one or another happens to resonate with the skeptic's moral compass.
-- AndreiVoinigescu - 19 May 2009 | |
>
> |
Andrei,
You're almost certainly right about the fact that all we can do is muster as many arguments and ideas as we can; you never know what will resonate with someone. I do want to say though that I wasn’t trying to advance a primarily libertarian argument, though I recognize it also rings that way. I was hoping to point out to Matt that there is also an intuitive, gut-level reaction to privacy invasion; I happen to think that these reactions are not necessarily the ones that you, Justin and Ted point out. For example, I’m not sure that most people feel the specter of possible government oppression when their grocery store knows they drink a dozen Diet Cokes a day; what good could that information possibly be to the government? But those same people, I think, may feel, intuitively, that it is no one’s business how much Diet Coke they drink. That feeling may lead them to the broader truth of your and others’ arguments about the government, aggregation, etc. You may disagree, since it seems you don’t share that feeling, but that is at least what I was trying to point out.
Also, I’m not sure there can be free markets and personhood, but that’s a different paper, entirely. It’s probably a hopelessly Marxist (and thus outmoded) sentiment to espouse, but I do believe commoditizing labor commodotizes people, a fact which surely does as much or more damage to “personhood” as the loss of privacy does. Like I said, that’s a whole nother kettle of fish, so I will simply leave it at that.
-- DanaDelger - 19 May 2009 | | | |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |