Book contents
- Life after Privacy
- Life after Privacy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Confessional Culture
- 2 Defending Privacy
- 3 Big Plans for Big Data
- 4 The Surveillance Economy
- 5 Privacy Past and Present
- 6 The Borderless, Vanishing Self
- 7 Autonomy and Political Freedom
- 8 Powerful Publics
- Conclusion
- Index
8 - Powerful Publics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2020
- Life after Privacy
- Life after Privacy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Confessional Culture
- 2 Defending Privacy
- 3 Big Plans for Big Data
- 4 The Surveillance Economy
- 5 Privacy Past and Present
- 6 The Borderless, Vanishing Self
- 7 Autonomy and Political Freedom
- 8 Powerful Publics
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
People have long sought out the public realm because of a desire for transcendence. The ancient Greeks sought it out because they wanted more than the oikos, or the family home, had to offer. Accordingly, the private realm was long deemed ‘privative’ in some essential way – it deprived us of what it means to be uniquely or distinctly human.1 In Classical times, the oikos was the realm of function and hierarchy. It was hierarchical because of the task at hand, the business of survival. But things were otherwise in the public realm, where men were free – for those lucky enough to be citizens, that is.2 When they entered the public realm, the realm of politics where freedom was exercised, people were released somewhat, or temporarily, from the tyranny of necessity, and could entertain higher matters and higher concerns – uniquely human concerns.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Life after PrivacyReclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society, pp. 137 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020