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Diminishing our personhood | | | Introduction
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< | In an earlier post I described different ways in which States and private corporations surveilled and monitored individuals in order highlight the potentiality that these techniques have for the control and shaping of individuals. In this short essay I will try to unpack the concept of the right to privacy and by describing some philosophical theories show how the interference with it can result in an insidious harm to our agency. | >
> | In an earlier post, I described different ways in which States and private corporations surveilled and monitored individuals in order to highlight the potentiality that these techniques have for the control and shaping of individuals. In this short essay, I will try to unpack the concept of the right to privacy by showing its relation to freedom of expression and how the interference with it can result in an insidious harm to our agency. | | | | |
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< | Privacy and Agency | >
> | Freedom of Expression, Privacy and Agency | | | | |
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< | The right to privacy is an important requirement for freedom of expression and freedom of thought. The possibility of communicating anonymously for example, allows people to express themselves freely without the fear of retaliation or condemnation. Furthermore, one could infer that there is no possibility of freedom of thought if there is someone monitoring your moves; and ultimately, freedom could not be possible if someone is always watching. | >
> | Many of us have heard that freedom of expression is fundamental to the consolidation and strengthening of democracies. At least in Latin America, the phrase “Freedom of expression is a cornerstone upon which the very existence of a democratic society rests”, coined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the 1980s, has been quoted to the point of exhaustion by human rights advocates. In the United States, the relation between freedom of speech and democratic societies is made quite evident, among other reasons, by the vast amount of case law related to the first amendment. | | | | |
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< | According to Bernard Harcourt in the 1950s and 1960s, privacy was considered as something we needed for our existence. Moreover, he states that autonomy and anonymity “were viewed as integral parts of our environment and ecology, as essential ingredients necessary for human beings to thrive. We needed a room of our own, space to think and experiment, a place to be left alone”. However, he considers that nowadays privacy has transformed into some type of good that can be sold or bought due to the increase in the commodification of things. Meanwhile, according to Michael P. Lynch traditionally freedom of choice/action has been differentiated from autonomy of decision. He explains this distinction with the example of impulse buying: when we “freely” click on the button to buy something in the heat of the moment without that action or decision reflecting what matters to us after all. Lynch explains that this decision could be considered as “free” but certainly not as being completely autonomous. Someone who makes autonomous decision, is committed to the decision they make- that person owns the decision-. When that person reflects on the decision, she would validate, endorse it as being a reflection of her sincere values. | >
> | From my personal experience in the time I have lived in the United States, as well as information I have been able to gather and exchanges of ideas with professors and colleagues, the notion of enjoying freedom of expression is deeply rooted in the social fabric of the United States. | | | | |
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< | Lynch states that totally autonomous decisions are undoubtedly very rare (some might question if those are even possible). Nonetheless, for him we clearly value autonomy of decision, even if we only come roughly close the ideal. He states that the reason behind this is “because autonomy of decision is part of what is to be fully a mature person. And that, [he] believe[s], tells us something about why privacy matters. It matters, at least in part, because information privacy is linked to autonomy, and thereby an important feature of personhood itself”. | >
> | Therefore it should not be strange, rather less novel, to argue that only by having a real freedom to express ourselves is it possible to openly discuss controversial and radical ideas about issues of public interest or public officials, and of course, share our completely banal opinions. In this sense, it is also easy to infer that freedom of expression makes personal and intellectual enrichment of individuals possible. Indeed, being able to be heard and receive feedback on our ideas without noise or interference, helps us form our own opinions and define our own cultural, social, religious and political choices. Furthermore, by being exposed to a diversity of thoughts, ideas, news and information, we can craft our own personality and design our life plans. Freedom of expression allows us to be more mature and reflective individuals, which not only benefits us, but also the society in which we live. When the free flow of ideas and information is somehow restricted, the possibilities of life choices for people are weakened. Indeed, any lifestyle choices or viewpoints that are not known to us, we cannot choose. | | | | |
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< | To better understand these ideas, professor Eben Moglen offers an explanation about privacy; he states that privacy can be understood of comprising three concepts: secrecy, anonymity and autonomy. Secrecy refers to the ability to maintain messages private, so that the content is only known by those who send it and those intended to receive it. Anonymity refers to the possibility of maintaining the identity of those who transmit and receive the message obscured. These two concepts are the ones we most often refer to as being targeted or violated by surveillance. However, as I proposed before probably our autonomy is the aspect of privacy more affected by monitoring and surveillance. Autonomy refers to our “ability to make our life decisions free [of] any force which has violated our secrecy or our anonymity […]. Without secrecy, democratic self-government is impossible. Because people may not discuss public affairs with those they choose, excluding those with whom they do not wish to converse. […]. Anonymity is necessary for the conduct of democratic politics [...]That autonomy is vitiated by the wholesale invasion of secrecy and privacy, that free decision making is impossible in a society where every move is monitored […]. In other words, […] privacy is a requirement of democratic self-government. The effort to fasten the procedures of pervasive surveillance on human society is the antithesis of liberty.” | >
> | In this sense, it is also possible to say that in order to share our political, religious or ideas of any other nature, we need to have a space free from interference by the State or any other individual or group of individuals. Violations to our privacy (surveillance or the monitoring of conversations), then, can also affect our freedom of expression. For example, if we imagine that someone is observing us when we read, think, and communicate (sort of an intellectual surveillance), that follow us at every moment of our day and monitors our behavior, it is likely we would refrain from experiencing and expressing new ideas that may be perceived as controversial. This is particularly worrisome when whoever surveils does not stop at playing a passive role, but instead reaches inside and experiments with our behavior.
Since the fifties, privacy has been considered essential for our existence. Professor Eben Moglen offers an explanation about privacy that allows us to explore the different effects that intrusions to this right may have. He states that privacy can be understood to comprise three concepts: secrecy, anonymity and autonomy. Secrecy refers to the ability to maintain messages private, so that the content is only known by those who send it and those intended to receive it. Anonymity refers to the ability of maintaining the identity of those who transmit and receive the message obscured. These two concepts are the ones most often referred to as being targeted or violated by surveillance. However, our autonomy is likely the aspect of privacy most affected by monitoring and surveillance. Autonomy refers to our “ability to make our life decisions free [of] any force which has violated our secrecy or our anonymity […]. Without secrecy, democratic self-government is impossible.” According to [https://privacyinternational.org/node/103 ][Privacy International]] “autonomy is not just about the subjective capacity of an individual to make a decision, but also about having the external social, political and technological conditions that make such a decision possible. Privacy confers those external conditions. As private autonomy is a key component of public life and debate, privacy is not only a social value, but also a public good”.
In this sense, the interference to our privacy caused by the surveillance of our behavior significantly affects our autonomy, and the strengthening of our personhood. Intrusions to or interferences with our privacy undermine it. Control of our own information and behavior by ourselves is diminished, either because someone else is actively shaping our behavior or because they have access to it and decide not to act on it. From the perspective of the “knower” (i.e. the monitoring/surveilling party), the very existence of the person being monitored shrinks. This relationship is so uneven that the “knower” may eventually cease to recognize the individual subject to surveillance as a full subject. Michael Lynch explains this idea stating that the “knower” will learn the reactions to the stimuli the person subjected to surveillance has, why the person acts the way they do, and how that person “may become like any other object to be manipulated even if” the knower decides not to manipulate her. The person being monitored will be dehumanized in the eyes of the knower. | | | | |
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< | The intrusions or interferences with our privacy undermine it. Our capacity to control our information and behavior is diminished, either because someone is directly controlling it and shaping our behavior or because they have access to it and decide not to act on it. From the perspective of the “knower” or the monitoring/surveilling party the very existence of the person being monitored shrinks. The relationship between those two is so uneven that the “knower” may eventually cease to recognize her (the individual subject to surveillance) as a full subject. Lynch explains this idea stating that the “knower” will learn the reactions to the stimuli the person subjected to surveillance has, why the person acts the way they do, and that person “may become like any other object to be manipulated even if” the knower decides not to manipulate her. The person being monitored will be dehumanized in the eyes of the knower. When a corporations profits from our information (our activities online for example) they intentionally treat us as objects (“object of profit”). | | | Conclusion | |
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< | With State surveillance and monitoring by private corporation our agency is undermined, weakened. The effects these techniques have on our development and growth are not always evident, but they are constantly evolving and plotting against us. The various forms in which we are being molded without often realizing it, are reducing our ability of self-evaluation. We are acting based on what we think are our own desires, but there might always be an intruder in our own mental process. We, or most of us, want our actions and behaviors to be free from interference, most want to be able to autonomously chose which desires will become our will. Most of us don't want to lose our ability to explore ourselves as human beings, don't want to be treated as product or to be molded in order the be controlled. We need to reclaim our freedom. | >
> | With the presence of abusive State surveillance and monitoring by private corporation our agency is undermined, weakened. The effects these techniques have on our development and growth as mature individuals is not always evident, but they continue to evolve. The various forms in which we can be molded without often realizing it, affects our ability of self-evaluation. We need to be aware of the consequences that surveillance and monitoring have in our daily life. We need to fetch the choices that will allow us to use technology to improve our thinking and our ability to learn. We have to begin to make our process of learning and exchanging ideas, a purposeful act. Being able to understand how technology works is daunting, but having an idea of what it does and its effects on society is an imperative. | | |
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< | I don't understand the idea of yours behind this draft. I see that there are some people whose ideas are summarized. It doesn't seem to me that you have actually put us in dialogue, or taken the opportunity to develop the ideas originally expressed by Bernard, or me or Mr Lynch. Three different notions at different levels of generality have been expressed in successive paragraphs, but what is the relationship among these ideas, and how did that generate an idea of your own? The conclusion, aside from the faux-paranoid language of "plotting" and "intrusion" doesn't actually contain any idea I can summarize, except that of "we need to reclaim our freedom," which is emotionally satisfying but not analytically illuminating.
As with the first essay, it seems to me that the important task of
improvement here is the clear articulation of your own idea. Once
clearly and succinctly out on the page, as the first sentence or two
of another draft, we can see what support is necessary to assist its
development, whether from Harcourt or Lynch or somewhere else. Those ideas which you need to explain the development of your own
can be drawn from and cited not to a publisher's advertisement but
to some actual text. We need, however, what you think, not what
Bernard thinks or I think, to play the central role in the next
draft. | | |
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