The academic pressings of my courses tomorrow, combined with a unfortunate part of the human condition known as exhaustion, will make my commentary on privacy this evening a bit shorter than usual. More may come.
What frustrates my psyche the most about the dying institution of privacy is the nationalistic notion that secrecy is, by default, an institution of vile intentions. Whether the secrets themselves have ill intent or not is beyond the point- the control of knowledge has been vital to a sense of social and intellectual stability for all of recorded history, and it is a portion of the human journey that cannot be eliminated. It would be like attempting to cease the breathing of air, or the fight-or-flight reflex of individuals to react to danger. The capacity for free thought would simply cease to exist without the filter between information sources and the receptors of said information known as privacy. No human is capable of attaining all knowledge, so in a conceptual sense, if all information was available, everywhere, how does one even begin to hold any of it sacred? How does one prioritize it? Where does truth and uselessness get their separation? Pop culture and politics? Morality and maliciousness?
'Only terrorists need keep secrets': only a governmental extremist need agree. You haven't succeeded in suppressing me- this blog is public by CHOICE. For every 'terrorist' stopped in the name of protecting us, an ungodly sum of intellectuals are driven from their capacity to achieve self-actualization, many out of fear, and many more around the world by death itself. A poetic, but undeniably evil, circle of populism.
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