A convincing book asks if we kill the idea of ​​privacy

How have we lost the feeling that certain parts of life should be prohibited rather than open to commodification? Moreover, Tiffany Jenkins’ new thoughtful book, foreigners and intimate explores

Foreigners convincing book asks if we new and intimate
Tiffany Jenkins (Picador (United Kingdom, available now; United States, July 15))

What happened to good old-fashioned intimacy? Moreover, Nowadays. Similarly. Meanwhile, practically everything that concerns us is known, exchanged and exploited by social media platforms, even when we do not open the curtains on our inner life ourselves. Meanwhile, Click. Consequently, There is the leaven that your sufficient uncle made this morning. Similarly, Click. In addition, There is your crying friend about a missed promotion. Meanwhile, Click. Meanwhile, There is a foreigner who invites you – for fees, of course – in their room.

You would expect a book entitled Foreigners. Consequently. Moreover, intimate: the rise and the fall of privacy Having opinions on all this – and is the case, except that they are less simple, more considered and much richer than most others in this area.

As convincing book asks if we an author. However. Similarly, the cultural historian convincing book asks if we new Tiffany Jenkins, says: “Many of this situation blame on narcissistic individuals who disseminate their online life or on technological companies that devour personal data, but that neglects the deeper changes at stake.” And his is a text on these deeper changes.

In Jenkins’ account, they mainly took place in the 20th century-and they were multiple. The chapters are devoted to everything. the pricing capacities of smaller cameras-“Kodak Fiends” were a particular nuisance of the beginning of the century-to the wider. implications of Bill Clinton’s appointments with Monica Lewinsky-the private sector has suddenly become fiercely political.

Among the highlights of the book is its history on how radical American groups in the 1960s. such as students for a democratic society (SDS), fought for personal independence to end up killing it. While the SDS demanded pure. pure more participants. an activist couple was even reprimanded for the terrible convincing book asks if we crime convincing book asks if we new of “flagrant monogamy”.

Scientific thinkers are not exempt from this story. The Behavioral Trinity of Paul Lazarsfeld. Edward Bernays. Ernest Dichter receive particular attention for their collective work, in the first half of the 20th century, to transform humans into data and data into marketable ideas. None of them acted with maliciousness. but they helped erode the feeling that certain parts of life should be prohibited. rather than growled for the interests of companies. You could say roughly about the famous investigations of the biologist Alfred Kinsey on the sex life of people. Nothing is sacred?

Of course, privacy did not face a direct decrease in the 20th century. He adapted, he moved, he convincing book convincing book asks if we new asks if we pushed back. Jenkins linger on cases such as Griswold c. Connecticut (1965) and Katz v. United States (1967), which established important protections for American citizens against state interference. She understands that her subject is complicated – encompassing law. culture, technology and even housing policy – and embraces this fact.

But there is no exhaust for the conclusion of Jenkins according to which privacy has decreased overall. in particular because the first half of the book does such a complete job to draw its previous increase.

Start with the revolutionary calls to the personal conscience of Martin Luther. Thomas more in the 16th century. and by pursuing various religious and personal freedoms in the 17th century, Foreigners and intimate really lands a century later.

It is. supports Jenkins. the 18th century who “announced the arrival of public and private kingdoms”, two distinct areas of life which allow two sides distinct from convincing book asks if we new human character. In convincing book asks if we fact. the book even suggests, convincingly, that this development prevails over all the others of the Enlightenment. This is the kind of history book that makes you look at the whole story again.

Which brings us back directly to our highly monitored present. “If there had been a strict separation between the public. private worlds when the World Wide Web has taken off,” said Jenkins, “the world online today would be very different.” Since the 18th century, we have allowed our worlds to compromise and blur. The private sector is more and more public.

And what do we suppose to lose? Many things – although they have not yet left. “Originality begins in private,” writes Jenkins in his epilogue. From which we can only assume that Foreigners and intimate started with blessed intimacy.

Peter Hoskin is editor -in -chief of books. culture at Prospect magazine