From 0905166db602a72284653466e29d3241b17cf213 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Sergey Olefir Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:02:59 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Added exposure essay. --- exposure.html | 1130 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 1130 insertions(+) create mode 100644 exposure.html diff --git a/exposure.html b/exposure.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5879fb --- /dev/null +++ b/exposure.html @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ + + + + + "Concealment and Exposure" by Thomas Nagel + + + +

CONCEALMENT AND EXPOSURE

+ +

by Thomas +Nagel

+ +

 

+ +

Reproduced by permission from "Philosophy +& Public Affairs", vol. 27 no. 1 (winter 1998) pp 3-30.
+Copyright © 1998 by Princeton University Press. For permission to reproduce +and distribute this article for course use, visit the web site http://pup.pupress.princeton.edu.

+ +

 

+ +

I

+ +

Everyone knows that something has gone wrong, in the United States, with +the conventions of privacy. Along with a vastly increased tolerance for +variation in sexual life we have seen a sharp increase in prurient and censorious +attention to the sexual lives of public figures and famous persons, past +and present. The culture seems to be growing more tolerant and more intolerant +at the same time, though perhaps different parts of it are involved in the +two movements.

+ +

Sexual taboos in the fairly recent past were also taboos against saying +much about sex in public, and this had the salutary side-effect of protecting +persons in the public eye from invasions of privacy by the main-stream media. +It meant that the sex lives of politicians were rightly treated as irrelevant +to the assessment of their qualifications, and that one learned only in +rough outline, if at all, about the sexual conduct of prominent creative +thinkers and artists of the past. Now, instead, there is open season on +all this material. The public, followed sanctimoniously by the media, feels +entitled to know the most intimate details of the life of any public figure, +as if it were part of the price of fame that you exposed everything about +yourself to view, and not just the achievement or performance that has brought +you to public attention. Because of the way life is, this results in real +damage to the condition of the public sphere: Many people cannot take that +kind of exposure, and many are discredited or tarnished in ways that have +nothing to do with their real qualifications or achievements.

+ +

One might think, in a utopian vein, that we could carry our toleration +a bit further, and instead of trying to reinstitute the protection of privacy, +cease to regard all this personal information as important. Then pornographic +films of presidential candidates could be available in video stores and +it wouldn't matter. But it isn't as simple as that. These boundaries between +what is publicly exposed and what is not exist for a reason. We will never +reach a point at which nothing that anyone does disgusts anyone else. We +can expect to remain in a sexual world deeply divided by various lines of +imaginative incomprehension and disapproval. So conventions of reticence +and privacy serve a valuable function in keeping us out of each other's +faces. Yet that is only part of the story. We don't want to expose ourselves +completely to strangers even if we don't fear their disapproval, hostility, +or disgust. Naked exposure itself, whether or not it arouses disapproval, +is disqualifying. The boundary between what we reveal and what we do not, +and some control over that boundary, are among the most important attributes +of our humanity. Someone who for special reasons becomes a public or famous +figure should not have to give it up.

+ +

This particular problem is part of a larger topic, namely the importance +of concealment as a condition of civilization. Concealment includes not +only secrecy and deception, but also reticence and nonacknowledgment. There +is much more going on inside us all the time than we are willing to express, +and civilization would be impossible if we could all read each other's minds. +Apart from everything else there is the sheer chaotic tropical luxuriance +of the inner life. To quote Simmel: "All we communicate to another +individual by means of words or perhaps in another fashion -- even the most +subjective, impulsive, intimate matters -- is a selection from that psychological-real +whole whose absolutely exact report (absolutely exact in terms of content +and sequence) would drive everybody into the insane asylum."[1] As children we have to learn gradually not only +to express what we feel but to keep many thoughts and feelings to ourselves, +in order to maintain relations with other people on an even keel. We also +have to learn, especially in adolescence, not to be overwhelmed by a consciousness +of other people's awareness of and reaction to ourselves -- so that our +inner lives can be carried on under the protection of an exposed public +self over which we have enough control to be able to identify with it, at +least in part.

+ +

There is an analogy between the familiar problem that liberalism addresses +in political theory, of how to join together individuals with conflicting +interests and a plurality of values, under a common system of law that serves +their collective interests equitably without destroying their autonomy -- +and the purely social problem of defining conventions of reticence and privacy +that allow people to interact peacefully in public without exposing themselves +in ways that would be emotionally traumatic or would inhibit the free operation +of personal feeling, fantasy, imagination, and thought. It is only an analogy: +One can be a political liberal without being a social individualist, as +liberals never tire of pointing out. But I think there is a natural way +in which a more comprehensive liberal respect for individual autonomy would +express itself through social conventions, as opposed to legal rules. In +both cases a delicate balance has to be struck, and it is possible in both +cases to err in the direction of too much or too little restraint. I believe +that in the social domain, the restraints that protect privacy are not in +good shape. They are weakest where privacy impinges on the political domain, +but the problem is broader than that. The grasp of the public sphere and +public norms has come to include too much. That is the claim I want to defend +in this essay -- in a sense it is a defense of the element of restraint +in a liberal social order.

+ +

Practically, it is hard to know what to do about a problem like this. +Once a convention of privacy loses its grip, there is a race to the bottom +by competing media of publicity. What I would like to do here is to say +something about the broader phenomenon of boundaries, and to consider more +particularly what would be a functional form of restraint in a culture like +ours, where the general level of tolerance is high, and the portrayal of +sex and other intimate matters in general terms is widely accepted -- in +movies, magazines, and literature. Knowing all that we do, what reason is +there still to be reticent?

+ +

While sex is a central part of the topic, the question of reticence and +acknowledgment is much broader. The fact is that once we leave infancy and +begin to get a grip on the distinction between ourselves and others, reticence +and limits on disclosure and acknowledgment are part of every type of human +relation, including the most intimate. Intimacy creates personal relations +protected from the general gaze, permitting us to lose our inhibitions and +expose ourselves to one another. But we do not necessarily share all our +sexual fantasies with our sexual partners, or all our opinions of their +actions with our closest friends. All interpersonal contact goes through +the visible surface, even if it penetrates fairly deep, and managing what +appears on the surface -- both positively and negatively -- is the constant +work of human life.[2]

+ +

This is one topic of Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents", +the problem of constructing on an animal base human beings capable of living +together in harmony. But the additional inner life that derives through +internalization from civilization itself creates a further need for selection +of what will be exposed and what concealed, and further demands of self-presentation. +I would like to begin by discussing some of the conventions of uniformity +of surface that may seem dishonest to the naive, but that make life possible.

+ +

 

+ +

II

+ +

The first and most obvious thing to note about many of the most important +forms of reticence is that they are not dishonest, because the conventions +that govern them are generally known. If I don't tell you everything I think +and feel about you that is not a case of deception, since you don't expect +me to do so and would probably be appalled if I did. The same is true of +many explicit expressions that are literally false. If I say, "How +nice to see you," you know perfectly well that this is not meant as +a report of my true feelings -- even if it happens to be true, I might very +well say it even if you were the last person I wanted to see at just that +moment, and that is something you know as well as I.[3] The point of polite formulae and broad abstentions from +expression is to leave a great range of potentially disruptive material +unacknowledged and therefore out of play. It is material that everyone who +has been around knows is there -- feelings of hostility, contempt, derision, +envy, vanity, boredom, fear, sexual desire or aversion, plus a great deal +of simple self-absorption.

+ +

Part of growing up is developing an external self that fits smoothly +into the world with others that have been similarly designed. One expresses +one's desires, for example, only to the extent that they are compatible +with the publicly acknowledged desires of others, or at least in such a +way that any conflict can be easily resolved by a commonly accepted procedure +of decision. One avoids calling attention to one's own obsessions or needs +in a way that forces others either to attend to them or too conspicuously +to ignore them, and one avoids showing that one has noticed the failings +of others, in order to allow them to carry on without having to respond +to one's reactions of amusement or alarm. These forms of tact are conspicuously +absent in childhood, whose social brutality we can all remember.

+ +

At first it is not easy to take on these conventions as a second skin. +In adolescence one feels transparent and unprotected from the awareness +of others, and is likely to become defensively affected or else secretive +and expressionless. The need for a publicly acceptable persona also has +too much resonance in the interior, and until one develops a sure habit +of division, external efforts to conform will result in inner falsity, as +one tries hopelessly to become wholly the self one has to present to the +world. But if the external demands are too great, this problem may become +permanent. Clearly an external persona will always make some demands on +the inner life, and it may require serious repression or distortion on the +inside if it doesn't fit smoothly or comfortably enough. Ideally the social +costume shouldn't be too thick.

+ +

Above all it should not be confused with the whole self. To internalize +too much of one's social being and regard inner feelings and thoughts that +conflict with it as unworthy or impure is disastrous. Everyone is entitled +to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser +infractions. There may be those who lack a good grip on the distinction +between fantasy and reality, but most people who enjoy violent movies, for +example, are simply operating in a different gear from the one in which +they engage with other people. The other consequence of the distinction +is that one has to keep a firm grip on the fact that the social self that +others present to us is not the whole of their personality either, and that +this is not a form of deception because it is meant to be understood by +everyone. Everyone knows that there is much more going on than what enters +the public domain, but the smooth functioning of that domain depends on +a general nonacknowledgment of what everyone knows.

+ +

Admittedly nonacknowledgment can sometimes also serve the purpose of +deceiving those, like children or outsiders, who do not know the conventions. +But its main purpose is usually not to deceive, but to manage the distinction +between foreground and background, between what invites attention and a +collective response and what remains individual and may be ignored. The +possibility of combining civilized interpersonal relations with a relatively +free inner life depends on this division.

+ +

Exactly how this works is not easy to explain. One might well ask how +it is that we can remain on good terms with others when we know that behind +their polite exteriors they harbor feelings and opinions which we would +find unacceptable if they were expressed publicly. In some cases, perhaps, +good manners do their work by making it possible for us to believe that +things are not as they are, and that others hold us in the regard which +they formally display. If someone is inclined toward self-deception, that +is certainly an option. But anyone who is reasonably realistic will not +make that use of the conventions, and if someone else engages in flattery +that is actually meant to be believed, it is offensive because it implies +that they believe you require this kind of deception as a balm to your vanity.

+ +

No, the real work is done by leaving unacknowledged things that are known, +even if only in general terms, on all sides. The more effective are the +conventions controlling acknowledgment, the more easily we can handle our +knowledge of what others do not express, and their knowledge of what we +do not express. One of the remarkable effects of a smoothly fitting public +surface is that it protects one from the sense of exposure without having +to be in any way dishonest or deceptive, just as clothing does not conceal +the fact that one is naked underneath. The mere sense that the gaze of others, +and their explicit reactions, are conventionally discouraged from penetrating +this surface, in spite of their unstated awareness of much that lies beneath +it, allows a sense of freedom to lead one's inner life as if it were invisible, +even though it is not. It is enough that it is firmly excluded from direct +public view, and that only what one puts out into the public domain is a +legitimate object of explicit response from others.

+ +

Even if public manners are fairly relaxed and open, they can permit the +exposure of only a small fraction of what people are feeling. Toleration +of what people choose to do or say can go only so far: To really accept +people as they are requires an understanding that there is much more to +them than could possibly be integrated into a common social space. The single +most important fact to keep in mind in connection with this topic is that +each of the multifarious individual souls is an enormous and complex world +in itself, but the social space into which they must all fit is severely +limited. What is admitted into that space has to be constrained both to +avoid crowding and to prevent conflict and offense. Only so much freedom +is compatible with public order: The bulk of toleration must be extended +to the private sphere, which will then be left in all its variety behind +the protective cover of public conventions of reticence and discretion.

+ +

One of our problems, as liberal attitudes become more prevalent, is how +to draw the line between public and private tolerance. It is always risky +to raise the stakes by attempting to take over too much of the limited social +space. If in the name of liberty one tries to institute a free-for-all, +the result will be a revival of the forces of repression, a decline of social +peace and perhaps eventually of generally accepted norms of toleration. +I think we have seen some of this in recent cultural battles in the United +States. The partial success of a cultural revolution of tolerance for the +expression of sexual material that was formerly kept out of public view +has provoked a reaction that includes the breakdown of barriers of privacy +even for those who are not eager to let it all hang out. The same developments +have also fueled the demand from another quarter for a return to public +hypocrisy in the form of political correctness. The more crowded the public +arena gets, the more people want to control it.

+ +

Variety is inevitable, and it inevitably includes elements that are in +strong potential conflict with one another. The more complicated people's +lives become, the more they need the protection of separate private domains. +The idea that everything should be out in the open is childish, and represents +a misunderstanding of the mutually protective function of conventions of +restraint, which avoid provoking unnecessary conflict. Still more pernicious +is the idea that socialization should penetrate to the innermost reaches +of the soul, so that one should feel guilty or ashamed of any thoughts or +feelings that one would be unwilling to express publicly. When a culture +includes both of these elements to a significant degree, the results are +very unharmonious, and we find ourselves in the regressed condition of the +United States.[4]

+ +

This is not an easy subject to treat systematically, but there is the +following natural three-way division. Some forms of reticence have a social +function, protecting us from one another and from undesirable collisions +and hostile reactions. Other forms of reticence have a personal function, +protecting the inner life from a public exposure that would cause it to +wither, or would require too much distortion. And as a modification of both +these forms of reticence, selective intimacy permits some interpersonal +relations to be open to forms of exposure that are needed for the development +of a complete life. No one but a maniac will express absolutely everything +to anyone, but most of us need someone to whom we can express a good deal +that we would not reveal to others. There are also relations among these +phenomena worth noting. For example, why are family gatherings often so +exceptionally stifling? Perhaps it is because the social demands of reticence +have to keep in check the expression of very strong feelings, and purely +formal polite expression is unavailable as a cover, because of the modern +convention of familial intimacy. If the unexpressed is too powerful and +too near the surface, the result can be a sense of total falsity. On the +other hand, it can be important what spouses and lovers do not say to one +another. The calculated preservation of reticence in the context of intimacy +provides Henry James with some of his richest material.

+ +

 

+ +

III

+ +

The social dimension of reticence and nonacknowledgment is most developed +in forms of politeness and deference. We don't want to tell people what +we think of them, and we don't want to hear from them what they think of +us, though we are happy to surmise their thoughts and feelings, and to have +them surmise ours, at least up to a point. We don't, if we are reasonable, +worry too much what they may say about us behind our backs, just as we often +say things about a third party that we wouldn't say to his face. Since everyone +participates in these practices, they aren't, or shouldn't be, deceptive. +Deception is another matter, and sometimes we have reason to object to it, +though sometimes we have no business knowing the truth, even about how someone +really feels about us.

+ +

The distinction between mendacity and politeness is blurry, in part because +the listener contributes as much to the formation of the resulting belief +as does the speaker, in part because the deceptiveness of any particular +utterance depends on its relation to a wider context of similar utterances. +A visitor to a society whose conventions he does not understand may be deceived +if he takes people's performance at face value -- the friendliness of the +Americans, the self-abnegation of the Japanese, the equanimity of the English. +Sensitivity to context also operates at the individual level. Indeed, if +someone consistently and flagrantly enough fails to tell the truth, he loses +the capacity to deceive, and becomes paradoxically less dishonest than someone +who preserves a general reputation for probity or candor and uses it to +deceive only on rare occasions. (People who don''t wish to be believed, +and who cultivate a reputation for unreliability, are not so rare as you +might think; the strategy must have its usefulness.)

+ +

What is the point of this vast charade? The answer will differ from culture +to culture, but I believe that the conventions of reticence result from +a kind of implicit social contract, one that of course reflects the relations +of power among elements of the culture, but that serves to some degree (though +unequally) the interests of all -- as social conventions tend to do. An +unequal society will have strong conventions of deference to and perhaps +flattery of superiors, which presumably do not deceive the well-placed into +thinking their subordinates admire them, except with the aid of self-deception. +My interest, however, is in the design of conventions governing the give +and take among rough social equals, and the influence that a generally egalitarian +social ideal should have on conventions of reticence and acknowledgment. +Does equality support greater exposure or not? One might think a priori +that in the absence of strong hierarchies, we could all afford to tell each +other what we think and show what we feel; but things are not so simple. +While an egalitarian culture can be quite outspoken (this seems to be true +of Israel), it need not be, and I believe there is much to be said for the +essentially liberal, rather than communitarian, system whereby equality +does not mean that we share our inner lives, bare our souls, give voice +to all our opinions -- in other words become like one huge unhappy family. +The real issue is how much of each person's life is everybody else's business, +and that is not settled by a conception of equality alone. Equality can +be combined with greater or lesser scope for privacy, lesser or greater +invasion of personal space by the public domain.

+ +

What then is the social function of acknowledgment or nonacknowledgment +with respect to things that are already common knowledge? I believe the +answer is this: The essential function of the boundary between what is acknowledged +and what is not is to admit or decline to admit potentially significant +material into the category of what must be taken into consideration and +responded to collectively by all parties in the joint enterprise +of discourse, action, and justification that proceeds between individuals +whenever they come into contact. If something is not acknowledged, then +even if it is universally known, it can be left out of consideration in +the collective social process, though it may play an important role separately +in the private deliberations of the individual participants. Without such +traffic control, any encounter might turn into a collision.

+ +

A and B meet at a cocktail party; A has recently published an unfavorable +review of B's latest book, but neither of them alludes to this fact, and +they speak, perhaps a bit stiffly, about real estate, their recent travels, +or some political development that interests them both. Consider the alternative:

+ + + +

At the same party C and D meet. D is a candidate for a job in C's department, +and C is transfixed by D's beautiful breasts. They exchange judicious opinions +about a recent publication by someone else. Consider the alternative:

+ + + +

The trouble with the alternatives is that they lead to a dead end, because +they demand engagement on terrain where common ground is unavailable without +great effort, and only conflict will result. If C expresses his admiration +of D's breasts, C and D have to deal with it as a common problem or feature +of the situation, and their social relation must proceed in its light. If +on the other hand it is just something that C feels and that D knows, from +long experience and subtle signs, that he feels, then it can simply be left +out of the basis of their joint activity of conversation, even while it +operates separately in the background for each of them as a factor in their +private thoughts.

+ +

What is allowed to become public and what is kept private in any given +transaction will depend on what needs to be taken into collective consideration +for the purposes of the transaction and what would on the contrary disrupt +it if introduced into the public space. That doesn't mean that nothing will +become public which is a potential source of conflict, because it is the +purpose of many transactions to allow conflicts to surface so that they +can be dealt with, and either collectively resolved or revealed as unresolvable. +But if the conventions of reticence are well designed, material will be +excluded if the demand for a collective or public reaction to it would interfere +with the purpose of the encounter.

+ +

In a society with a low tolerance for conflict, not only personal comments +but all controversial subjects, such as politics, money, or religion, will +be taboo in social conversation, necessitating the development of a form +of conversational wit that doesn't depend on the exchange of opinions. In +our present subculture, however, there is considerable latitude for the +airing of disagreements and controversy of a general kind, which can be +pursued at length, and the most important area of nonacknowledgment is the +personal -- people's feelings about themselves and about others. It is impolite +to draw attention to one's achievements or to express personal insecurity, +envy, or the fear of death, or strong feelings about those present, except +in a context of intimacy where these subjects can be taken up and pursued. +Embarrassing silence is the usual sign that these rules have been broken. +Someone says or does something to which there is no collectively acceptable +response, so that the ordinary flow of public discourse that usually veils +the unruly inner lives of the participants has no natural continuation. +Silence then makes everything visible, unless someone with exceptional tact +rescues the situation:

+ + + +

In a civilization with a certain degree of maturity people know what +needs to be brought out into the open where it can be considered jointly +or collectively, and what should be left to the idiosyncratic individual +responses of each of us. This is the cultural recognition of the complexity +of life, and of the great variety of essentially ununifiable worlds in which +we live. It is the microscopic social analogue of that large-scale acceptance +of pluralism that is so important an aspect of political liberalism. We +do not have to deal with the full truth about our feelings and opinions +in order to interact usefully and effectively: In many respects each of +us can carry on with our personal fantasies and attitudes, and with our +private reactions to what we know about the private reactions of others, +while at the same time dealing with one another on a fairly well-defined, +limited field of encounter with regard to those matters that demand a more +collective reaction.

+ +

The liberal idea, in society and culture as in politics, is that no more +should be subjected to the demands of public response than is necessary +for the requirements of collective life. How much this is will depend on +the company, and the circumstances. But the idea that everything is fair +game and that life is always improved by more exposure, more frankness, +and more consensus is a serious mistake. The attempt to impose it leads, +moreover, to the kind of defensive hypocrisy and mendacity about one's true +feelings that is made unnecessary by a regime of reticence. If your impure +or hostile or politically disaffected thoughts are everyone's business, +you will have reason to express pure and benevolent and patriotic ones instead. +Again, we can see this economy at work in our present circumstances: The +decline of privacy brings on the rise of hypocrisy.

+ +

Reticence can play an enabling role at every level of interaction from +the most formal to the most intimate. When Maggie in The Golden Bowl +lets the Prince know that she knows everything, by letting him see the broken +bowl, and describing her encounter with the antiquary from whom she has +bought it, still they do not explicitly discuss the Prince's affair with +her stepmother Charlotte. They do not "have it out," as would +perhaps have been more likely in a novel written fifty or a hundred years +later; the reason is that they both know that they cannot arrive at a common, +shareable attitude or response to this history. If their uncombinable individual +feelings about it are to enable them to go on together, those feelings will +have to remain unexpressed, and their intimacy will have to be reconstructed +at a shared higher layer of privacy, beneath which deeper individual privacies +are permitted to continue to exist. Maggie imagines what lies behind her +husbands silence after she lets him know that she knows:

+ + + +

It is not enough that the affair should not be acknowledged among all +four of the concerned parties -- something that would be hard to imagine +even in a novel written today. It is essential that it should not be taken +up, though known and mutually known to be known, between Maggie and the +Prince. If they were really together faced with it, if it were out +there on the table between them, demanding some kind of joint response, +the manifestation of their reactions would lead to a direct collision, filled +with reproaches and counterreproaches, guilt and defiance, anger, pity, +humiliation, and shame, which their intimacy would not survive. By leaving +a great deal unsaid, they can go on without having to arrive together at +a resolution of this extreme passage in their lives -- without the Prince +having either to justify or to condemn himself, and without Maggie having +either to condemn or to excuse him.

+ +

What we can tolerate having out in the open between us depends on what +we think we can handle jointly without crippling our relations for other +purposes. Sometimes the only way to find out is to try, particularly when +an unacknowledged fact threatens to be crippling in any case. But in general +it's not a bad idea to stick with the conventions of reticence that have +developed to govern social, commercial, and professional interactions in +normal circumstances. It is best not to overload the field of interaction +with excess emotional and normative baggage.

+ +

On the other hand politeness sometimes excludes material which, though +disruptive, is relevant to the matter at hand and whose exclusion affects +the results, often in a consistent direction. This is the kind of case where +deliberate obstreperousness can make a difference, as a form of consciousness-raising. +Politeness is also a disadvantage where one party to a situation takes advantage +of the conventions of mutual restraint to make excessive claims whose excessiveness +he knows cannot be publicly pointed out without impoliteness. Politeness +leaves us with few weapons against grasping selfishness except exclusion +from the society, and that is not always an available option.

+ +

It is possible to imagine things being arranged differently, with greater +frankness nevertheless not causing social breakdown. But this would require +that people not take up disagreements or criticisms when they surface, and +just let them lie there unpursued. It seems more efficient to make explicit +acknowledgment function as a signal that something must be collectively +dealt with or faced. So the more likely significance of greater frankness +would be that one was in a society of busybodies, who thought everything +an individual did was the community's business, and that the opinions of +others had to be taken into account at every turn. While this may be necessary +in certain extreme circumstances, the more desirable development, as social +arrangements come to function smoothly, is to permit different tracks of +decision and discourse, from most public to most private, with the former +requiring no more than the input strictly needed for the purpose, and the +latter (finally, the individual's purely individual inner life) taking everything +on board, and perhaps even expanding to admit material lurking in the unconscious.

+ +

This last is a particularly important aspect of a culture of selective +reticence: It permits the individual to acknowledge to himself a +great deal that is not publicly acceptable, and to know that others have +similar skeletons in their mental closets. Without reticence, repression +-- concealment even from the self -- is more needed as an element in the +civilizing process. If everything has to be avowed, what does not fit the +acceptable public persona will tend to be internally denied. One of Freud's +contributions, by analyzing the process of internal censorship, is to have +made it less necessary.

+ +

 

+ +

IV

+ +

The public-private boundary faces in two directions -- keeping disruptive +material out of the public arena and protecting private life from the crippling +effects of the external gaze. I have been concentrating on the former, social +function of reticence and nonacknowledgment. I now turn to the latter.

+ +

It is very important for human freedom that individuals should not be +merely social or political beings. While participation in the public world +may be one aspect of human flourishing, and may dominate the lives of certain +individuals, it is one of the advantages of large modern societies that +they do not impose a public role on most of their members.

+ + + +

And the inner life, in all its immense variety, requires a social protection +of pluralism that can be effective only if much of what is idiosyncratic +to the inner fantasies and obsessions and personal relations of individuals +remains out of sight.

+ +

But it isn't just pluralism that demands privacy. Humans are, so far +as I know, the only animals that suffer from self-consciousness -- in the +ordinary sense, i.e. inhibition and embarrassment brought on by the thought +that others are watching them. Humans are the only animals that don't as +a rule copulate in public. And humans clothe themselves, in one way or another, +even if it is only with paint, offering a self-presentation rather than +their nakedness to the public gaze. The awareness of how one appears from +outside is a constant of human life, sometimes burdensome, sometimes an +indispensable resource. But there are aspects of life which require that +we be free of it, in order that we may live and react entirely from the +inside. They include sexual life in its most unconstrained form and the +more extreme aspects of emotional life -- fundamental anxieties about oneself, +fear of death, personal rage, remorse, and grief. All these have muted public +forms, and sometimes, as with collective grief, they serve an important +function for the inner life, but the full private reality needs protection +-- not primarily from the knowledge but from the direct perception of others.

+ +

Why should the direct gaze of others be so damaging, even if what is +seen is something already known, and not objectionable? If newspapers all +over the country published nude photographs of a political candidate, it +would be difficult for him to continue with the campaign even if no one +could charge him with any fault. The intrusive desire to see people in extremis +with their surface stripped away is the other side of the human need for +protection from such exposure.

+ +

In some respects what is hidden and what is not may be arbitrary. We +eat in public and excrete in private, but the obvious fantasy of a reversal +of these natural functions is memorably brought to life in Bunuels film, +The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. I am also reminded of this +rather chilling passage from Gide. He and his wife are in a restaurant in +Rome:

+ + + +

Learning to eat in a way that others can witness without disgust is one +of our earliest tasks, along with toilet training. Human beings are elaborate +constructions on an animal foundation that always remains part of us. Most +of us can put up with being observed while we eat. But sex and extreme emotion +are different.

+ +

Ordinary mortals must often wonder how porn stars can manage it. Perhaps +they are people for whom the awareness of being watched is itself erotic. +But most of us, when sexually engaged, do not wish to be seen by anyone +but our partners; full sexual expression and release leave us entirely vulnerable +and without a publicly presentable "face." Sex transgresses these +protective boundaries, breaks us open, and exposes the uncontrolled and +unpresentable creature underneath; that is its essence. We need privacy +in order not to have to integrate our sexuality in its fullest expression +with the controlled surface we present to the world. And in general we need +privacy to be allowed to conduct ourselves in extremis in a way that serves +purely individual demands, the demands of strong personal emotion.

+ +

The public gaze is inhibiting because, except for infants and psychopaths, +it brings into effect expressive constraints and requirements of self-presentation +that are strongly incompatible with the natural expression of strong or +intimate feeling. And it presents us with a demand to justify ourselves +before others that we cannot meet for those things that we cannot put a +good face on. The management of one's inner life and one's private demons +is a personal task and should not be made to answer to standards broader +than necessary. It is the other face of the coin: The public-private boundary +keeps the public domain free of disruptive material; but it also keeps the +private domain free of insupportable controls. The more we are subjected +to public inspection and asked to expose our inner lives, the more the resources +available to us in leading those lives will be constrained by the collective +norms of the common milieu. Or else we will partially protect our privacy +by lying; but if this too becomes a social norm, it is likely to create +people who also lie to themselves, since everyone will have been lying to +them about themselves since childhood.

+ +

Still, there is a space between what is open to public view and what +people keep to themselves. The veil can be partly lifted to admit certain +others, without the inhibiting effect of general exposure. This brings us +to the topic of intimacy. Interpersonal spheres of privacy protected from +the public gaze are essential for human emotional and sexual life, and I +have already said a good deal about this under the heading of individual +privacy: Certain forms of exposure to particular others are incompatible +with the preservation of a public face.

+ +

But intimacy also plays an important part in the development of an articulate +inner life, because it permits one to explore unpublic feelings in something +other than solitude, and to learn about the comparable feelings of one's +intimates, including to a degree their feelings toward oneself. Intimacy +in its various forms is a partial lifting of the usual veil of reticence. +It provides the indispensable setting for certain types of relations, and +also a relief from the strains of public demeanor, which can grow burdensome +however habitual it has become. The couple returning home after a social +evening will let off steam by expressing to one another the unsociable reactions +to their fellow guests which could not be given voice at the time. And it +is quite generally useful to be able to express to someone else what cannot +be expressed directly to the person concerned -- including the things that +you may find difficult to bear about some of your closest friends and relations.

+ +

Intimacy develops naturally between friends and lovers, but the chief +social and legal formalization of intimacy is marriage in its modern bourgeois +form. Of course it serves economic and generational purposes as well, but +it does provide a special protection for sexual privacy. The conventions +of nonacknowledgment that it puts into force have to be particularly effective +to leave outside the boundary children living in the same household, who +are supposed not to have to think about the sex lives of their parents.

+ +

Marriage in the fairly recent past sanctioned and in a curious way concealed +sexual activity that was condemned and made more visible outside of it. +What went on in bed between husband and wife was not a fit topic for comment +or even thought by outsiders. It was exempt from the general prurience which +made intimations of adultery or premarital sex so thrilling in American +movies of the fifties -- a time when the production code required that married +couples always occupy twin beds. Those who felt the transgressive character +of even heterosexual married sex could still get reassurance from the thought +that it was within a boundary beyond which lay the things that were really +unacceptable -- where everything is turned loose and no holds are barred.

+ +

We are now in a more relaxed sexual atmosphere than formerly, but sex +remains in essence a form of transgression, in which we take each other +apart and disarrange or abandon more than our clothes. The availability +of an officially sanctioned and protected form of such transgression, distinguished +from other forms which are not sanctioned, plays a significant role in the +organization of sexual life. What is permitted is for some people still +essentially defined and protected from shame by a contrast with what is +forbidden. While the boundaries change, many people still seem to feel the +need to think of themselves as sexually "normal," and this requires +a contrast. Although premarital sex is by now widely accepted, the institution +of heterosexual marriage probably confers a derivative blessing on heterosexual +partnerships of all kinds. That is why the idea of homosexual marriage produces +so much alarm: It threatens to remove that contrastive protection, by turning +marriage into a license for anyone to do anything with anybody. There is +a genuine conflict here, but it seems to me that the right direction of +development is not to expand marriage, but to extend the informal protection +of intimacy without the need for secrecy to a broader range of sexual relations.

+ +

The respect for intimacy and its protection from prurient violation is +a useful cultural resource. One sign of our contemporary loss of a sense +of the value of privacy is the biographical ruthlessness shown toward public +figures of all kinds -- not only politicians but writers, artists, scientists. +It is obligatory for a biographer to find out everything possible about +such an individual's intimate personal life, as if he had forfeited all +rights over it by becoming famous. Perhaps after enough time has passed, +the intrusion will be muted by distance, but with people whose lives have +overlapped with ours, there is something excruciating about all this exposure, +something wrong with our now having access to Bertrand Russell's desperate +love letters, Wittgenstein's agonized expressions of self-hatred, Einstein's +marital difficulties. A creative individual externalizes the best part of +himself, producing with incredible effort something better than he is, which +can float free of its creator and have a finer existence of its own. But +the general admiration for these works seems to nourish a desire to uncover +all the dirt about their creators, as if we could possess them more fully +by reattaching them to the messy source from which they arose -- and perhaps +even feel a bit superior. Why not just acknowledge in general terms that +we are all human, and that greatness is necessarily always partial?

+ +

 

+ +

V

+ +

After this rather picaresque survey of the territory, let me turn, finally, +to normative questions about how the public-private boundary or boundaries +should be managed in a pluralistic culture. Those of us who are not political +communitarians want to leave each other some space. Some subgroups may wish +to use that space to form more intrusive communities whose members leave +each other much less space, but the broadest governing norms of publicity +and privacy should impose a regime of public restraint and private protection +that is compatible with a wide range of individual variation in the inner +and intimate life. The conventions that control these boundaries, while +not enforced in the same way as laws and judicial decisions, are nevertheless +imposed on the individual members of a society, whose lives are shaped by +them. They therefore pose questions of justifiability, if not legitimacy. +We need to figure out what conventions could justifiably command general +acceptance in a society as diverse as ours.

+ +

My main point is a conservative one: that we should try to avoid fights +over the public space which force into it more than it can contain without +the destruction of civility. I say "try," because sometimes this +will not be possible, and sometimes starting a cultural war is preferable +to preserving civility and the status quo. But I believe that the tendency +to "publicize" (this being the opposite of "privatize") +certain types of conflict has not been a good thing, and that we would be +better off if more things were regarded as none of the public's business.

+ +

This position could be called cultural liberalism, since it extends the +liberal respect for pluralism into the fluid domain of public culture. It +is opposed not only to the kind of repressive intolerance of private unconventionality +usually associated with conservative cultures. It is opposed also to the +kind of control attempted through the imposition of any orthodoxy of professed +allegiance -- the second best for those who would impose thought control +if they could. I do not think the vogue for political correctness is a trivial +matter. It represents a strong antiliberal current on the left, the continuation +of a long tradition, which is only in part counterbalanced by the even older +antiliberalism of the right.

+ +

This is the subject of endless fulminations by unsavory characters, but +that doesn't make it illegitimate as an object of concern. It shouldn't +be just a right-wing issue. The demand for public lip-service to certain +pieties and vigilance against tell-tale signs in speech of unacceptable +attitudes or beliefs is due to an insistence that deep cultural conflicts +should not simply be tolerated, but must be turned into battles for control +of the common social space.

+ +

The reason this is part of the same topic as our main theme of reticence +and concealment is that it involves one of the most effective forms of invasion +of privacy -- the demand that everyone stand up and be counted. New symbols +of allegiance are introduced and suddenly you either have to show the flag +or reveal yourself as an enemy of progress. In a way, the campaign against +the neutral use of the masculine pronoun, the constant replacement of names +for racial groups, and all the other euphemisms are more comic than anything +else, but they are also part of an unhealthy social climate, not so distant +from the climate that requires demonstrations of patriotism in periods of +xenophobia. To some extent it is possible to exercise collective power over +people's inner lives by controlling the conventions of expression, not by +legal coercion but by social pressure. At its worst, this climate demands +that people say what they do not believe in order to demonstrate their commitment +to the right side -- dishonesty being the ultimate tribute that individual +pride can offer to something higher.

+ +

The attempt to control public space is importantly an attempt to control +the cultural and ideological environment in which young people are formed. +Forty years ago the public pieties were patriotic and anticommunist; now +they are multicultural and feminist. What concerns me is not the content +but the character of this kind of control: Its effect is to make it difficult +to breathe, because the atmosphere is so thick with significance and falsity. +And the atmosphere of falsity is independent of the truth or falsity of +the orthodoxy being imposed. It may be entirely true, but if it is presented +as what one is supposed to believe and publicly affirm if one is on the +right side, it becomes a form of mental suffocation.

+ +

Those who favor the badges of correctness believe that it is salutary +if the forms of discourse and the examples chosen serve as reminders that +women and minorities can be successful doctors, lawyers, scientists, soldiers, +etc. They also favor forms for the designation of oppressed or formerly +oppressed groups that express, in the eyes of members of those groups, an +appropriate respect. But all this is dreadfully phony and, I think, counterproductive. +It should be possible to address or refer to people without expressing either +respect or disrespect for their race, and to talk about law without inserting +constant little reminders that women can be judges. And it ought to be possible +to carry out one's responsibilities in the role of a teacher of English +or philosophy or physics without at the same time advancing the cause of +racial or sexual equality or engaging in social consciousness-raising.

+ +

The avoidance of what is offensive is one thing; the requirement to include +visible signals of respect and correct opinion is another. It is like pasting +an American flag on your rear windshield. We used to have a genuinely neutral +way of talking, but the current system forces everyone to decide, one way +or the other, whether to conform to the pattern that is contending for orthodoxy +-- so everyone is forced to express more, in one direction or another, than +should be necessary for the purposes of communication, education, or whatever. +One has to either go along with it, or resist, and there is no good reason +to force that choice on people just in virtue of their being speakers of +the language -- no reason to demand external signs of inner conformity. +In the abyss at the far end of the same road one finds anticommunist loyalty +oaths for teachers or civil servants, and declarations of solidarity with +the workers and peasants in the antifascist and anti-imperialist struggle.

+ +

The radical response to orthodoxy is to smash it and dump the pieces +into the dustbin of history. The liberal alternative does not depend on +the defeat of one orthodoxy by another -- not even a multicultural orthodoxy. +Liberalism should favor the avoidance of forced choices and tests of purity, +and the substitution of a certain reticence behind which potentially disruptive +disagreements can persist without breaking into the open, and without requiring +anyone to lie. The disagreements needn't be a secret -- they can just remain +quiescent. In my version, the liberal ideal is not content with the legal +protection of free speech for fascists, but also includes a social environment +in which fascists can keep their counsel if they choose.

+ +

I suspect that this refusal to force the issue unless it becomes necessary +is what many people hate about liberalism. But even if one finds it attractive +as an ideal, there is a problem of getting there from a situation of imposed +orthodoxy without engaging in a bit of revolutionary smashing along the +way. It is not easy to avoid battles over the public terrain which end up +reducing the scope of the private unnecessarily. Genuine pluralism is difficult +to achieve.

+ +

The recent sexual revolution is an instructive case. The fairly puritanical +climate of the 1950s and early 1960s was displaced not by a tacit admission +of sexual pluralism and withdrawal of the enforcement of orthodoxy, but +by a frontal public attack, so that explicit sexual images and language, +and open extramarital cohabitation and homosexuality became part of everyday +life. Unfortunately this was apparently inseparable from an ideology of +sexual expressiveness that made the character of everyone's sexual inner +life a matter of public interest, and something that one was expected to +want to reveal. This is undesirable in fact, because sexual attitudes are +not universally compatible, and the deepest desires and fantasies of some +are inevitably offensive to others.

+ +

Not only that, but sex has unequal importance to different people. It +is now embarrassing for someone to admit that they don't care much about +sex -- as it was forty years ago embarrassing for someone to admit that +sex was the most important thing in their lives -- but both things are true +of many people, and I suspect that it has always been the case. The current +public understanding, like that of the past, is an imposition on those whom +it does not fit.

+ +

We should stop trying to achieve a common understanding in this area, +and leave people to their mutual incomprehension, under the cover of conventions +of reticence. We should also leave people their privacy, which is so essential +for the protection of inner freedom from the stifling effect of the demands +of face. I began by referring to contemporary prurience about political +figures. President Clinton seems to have survived it so far, but the press +remains committed to satisfying the curiosity of the most childish elements +of the public. Outside of politics, the recent discharge of a woman pilot +for adultery, and then the disqualification of a candidate for chairmanship +of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on grounds of "adultery" committed +thirteen years ago while separated from his wife on the way to a divorce, +are ridiculous episodes. The insistence by defenders of the woman that the +man be punished just to preserve equal treatment was morally obtuse: If +it was wrong to punish her, it was also wrong to penalize him.

+ +

A more inflammatory case: Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme +Court could have been legitimately rejected by the Senate on grounds of +competence and judicial philosophy, but I believe the challenge on the basis +of his sexual victimization of Anita Hill was quite unjustified, even though +I'm sure it was all true. At the time I was ambivalent; like a lot of people, +I would have been glad to see Thomas rejected for any reason. But that is +no excuse for abandoning the private-public distinction: This sort of bad +personal conduct is completely irrelevant to the occupation of a position +of public trust, and if the press hadn't made an issue of it, the Senate +Judiciary Committee might have been able to ignore the rumors. There was +no evidence that Thomas didn't believe in the equal rights of women. It +is true that Hill was his professional subordinate, but his essential fault +was being personally crude and offensive: It was no more relevant than would +have been a true charge of serious maltreatment from his ex-wife.

+ +

But consider the situation we are in: The only way to avoid damage +to someone's reputation by facts of this kind, in spite of their irrelevance +to qualification for public office, is through a powerful convention of +nonacknowledgment. If this is rejected as a form of male mutual self-protection, +then we are stuck with masses of irrelevant and titillating material clogging +up our public life and the procedures for selection of public officials, +and shrinking the pool of willing and viable candidates for responsible +positions. I'm not objecting to the regulation of conduct at the individual +level. It is a good thing that sexual coercion of an employee or a student +should be legally actionable, and that the transgression of civilized norms +should be an occasion for personal rebuke. What is unfortunate is the expansion +of control beyond this by a broadening of the conception of sexual harrassment +to include all forms of unwelcome or objectionable sexual attention, and +the increasingly vigilant enforcement of expressive taboos. Too much in +the personal conduct of individuals is being made a matter for public censure, +either legally or through the force of powerful social norms. As Mill pointed +out in On Liberty, the power of public opinion can be as effective +an instrument of coercion as law in an intrusive society.

+ +

Formerly the efforts to impose orthodoxy in the public sphere and to +pry into the private came primarily from the forces of political and social +conservatism; now they come from all directions, resulting in a battle for +control that no one is going to win. We have undergone a genuine and very +salutary cultural revolution over the past thirty years. There has been +an increase in what people can do in private without losing their jobs or +going to jail, and a decrease in arbitrary exercises of power and inequality +of treatment. There is more tolerance of plurality in forms of life. But +revolution breeds counterrevolution, and it is a good idea to leave the +public space of a society comfortably habitable, without too much conflict, +by the main incompatible elements that are not about to disappear.

+ +

Before the current period we had nearly achieved this in the area of +religion. Although national political candidates were expected to identify +themselves as belonging to some religion or other, loud professions of faith +were not expected, and it was considered very poor form to criticize someone's +religion. In fact, there was no shortage of silent anticlericalism and silent +hostility between communicants of different religions in the United States, +but a general blanket of mutual politeness muffled all public utterance +on the subject. The political activism of the religious right has changed +all that, and it is part of the conservative backlash against the sexual +revolution. We would be better off if we could somehow restore a state of +truce, behind which healthy mutual contempt could flourish in its customary +way.

+ +

There are enough issues that have to be fought out in the public sphere, +issues of justice, of economics, of security, of defense, of the definition +and protection of public goods. We should try to avoid forcing the effort +to reach collective decisions or dominant results where we don’t have +to. Privacy supports plurality by eliminating the need for collective choice +or an official public stance. I believe the presence of a deeply conservative +religious and cultural segment of American society can be expected to continue +and should be accommodated by those who are radically out of sympathy with +it -- not in the inevitable conflicts over central political issues, but +in regard to how much of the public space will be subjected to cultural +contestation.

+ +

In culture as in law, the partisans of particular conceptions of personal +morality and the ends of life should be reluctant to try to control the +public domain for their own purposes. Even though cultural norms are not +coercive in the way that law is, the public culture is a common resource +that affects us all, and some consideration of the rights of members should +operate as a restraint on its specificity. We owe it to one another to want +the public space to preserve a character neutral enough to allow those from +whom we differ radically to inhabit it comfortably -- and that means a culture +that is publicly reticent, if possible, and not just tolerant of diversity. +Pluralism and privacy should be protected not only against legal interference +but more informally against the invasiveness of a public culture that insists +on settling too many questions.

+ +

The natural objection to this elevation of reticence is that it is too +protective of the status quo, and that it gives a kind of cultural veto +to conservative forces who will resent any disruption. Those who favor confrontation +and invasion of privacy think it necessary to overthrow pernicious conventions +like the double standard of sexual conduct, and the unmentionability of +homosexuality. To attack harmful prejudices, it is necessary to give offense +by overturning the conventions of reticence that help to support them.

+ +

Against this, my position is in a sense conservative, though it is motivated +by liberal principles. While we should insist on the protection of individual +rights of personal freedom, I believe we should not insist on confrontation +in the public space over different attitudes about the conduct of personal +life. To the extent possible, and the extent compatible with the protection +of private rights, it would be better if these battles for the soul of the +culture were avoided, and no collective response required. Best would be +a regime of private freedom combined with public or collective neutrality.

+ +

The old liberal distinction between toleration and endorsement may be +applicable here. One case where I think it supports restraint is the issue +of public support for the arts. Even though art that is extremely offensive +to many people should certainly not be censored, it is entirely reasonable +to withhold public financial support from the more extreme productions of +Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and Karen Finley. Even where the allocation +of public funds is delegated to experts, there has to be some rough political +consensus in the background about the kind of thing that is worthy of government +support, and it is inappropriate to storm the barricades by insisting that +the National Endowment for the Arts repudiate that consensus. The trouble +with public support is that it increases the importance of public agreement +in artistic domains where individualistic pluralism is essential. The consequence +may be unexpected, but the liberal defense of the public-private boundary +should not be limited to cases that favor broader liberal sympathies.

+ +

What I have offered is not legal analysis but social criticism -- trying +to describe desirable and undesirable ways of handling the conflicts that +pervade our society through conventions of reticence and acknowledgement +and management of the limited and easily disrupted public space in which +we must encounter all those with whom we may differ profoundly. It is an +anticommunitarian vision of civility. And it is entirely compatible with +the strict protection of the individual rights of persons to violate the +conditions of civility in the context of collective political deliberation, +i.e. a strong legal protection of freedom of expression.[8] Finally, the same public-private division that tries +to avoid unnecessary clashes in the public sphere leaves room for the legal +protection of enormous variety in the private, from pornography to religious +millenarianism. It is wonderful how much disagreement and mutual incomprehension +a liberal society can contain in solution without falling to pieces, provided +we are careful about what issues we insist on facing collectively.

+ +

Communitarianism -- the ambition of collective self-reaization -- is +one of the most persistent threats to the human spirit. The debate over +its political manifestations has been sustained and serious. But it is also +a cultural issue, one whose relation to the values of political liberalism +has been clouded by the fact that some of those values seem such natural +candidates for collective public promotion. My claim has been that liberals +should not be fighting for control of the culture -- that they should embrace +a form of cultural restraint comparable to that which governs the liberal +attitude to law, and that this is the largest conception of the value of +privacy. No one should be in control of the culture, and the persistence +of private racism, sexism, homophobia, religious and ethnic bigotry, sexual +puritanism, and other such private pleasures should not provoke liberals +to demand constant public affirmation of the opposite values. The important +battles are about how people are required to treat each other, how social +and economic institutions are to be arranged, and how public resources are +to be used. The insistence on securing more agreement in attitudes than +we need for these purposes, and on including more of the inner life in the +purview of even informal public authority, just raises the social stakes +unnecessarily.

+ +

 

+ +

+ +

Footnotes

+ +

1. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Kurt H. Wolff, +ed., (New York: The Free Press, 1950), pp. 311-12; translated from Soziologie +(1908).

+ +

2. Surface management is wonderfully described by Erving +Goffman. See for example "On Face-Work," in his collection of +essays, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967).

+ +

3. Paul Grice once observed to me that in Oxford, when +someone says "We must have lunch some time," it means "I +don't care if I never see you again in my life."

+ +

4. In France, a postadolescent civilization, it is simply +taken for granted that sex, while important, is essentially a private matter. + It is thought inappropriate to seek out or reveal private information against +the wishes of the subject; and even when unusual facts about the sexual +life of a public figure become known, they do not become a public issue. + Everyone knows that politicians, like other human beings, lead sexual lives +of great variety, and there is no thrill to be got from having the details +set out. In the U.S., by contrast, the media and much of the public behave +as if they had just learned of the existence of sex, and found it both horrifying +and fascinating. The British are almost as bad, and this too seems a sign +of underdevelopment.

+ +

5. Henry James, The Golden Bowl, chapter 35 (Penguin +Modern Classics, p. 448).

+ +

6. "De la Liberté des Anciens Comparée +a celle des Modernes" (1819), in Benjamin Constant, De la liberté +chez les modernes: Ecrits politiques (Livres de Poche, 1980) pp. 511-12. +

+ +

7. André Gide, Ainsi Soit-Il (Paris: Gallimard, +1952), pp. 49-50. The Italian poet and critic Giosuè Carducci was +awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1906.

+ +

8. See Robert C. Post, Constitutional Domains +(Harvard University Press, 1995), pp.146-7, on what he calls the "paradox +of public discourse" -- that the law may not be used to enforce the +civility rules that make rational deliberation possible.
+ +