Exposed

4A Case Against Privacy: An End to Shame

“It's called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine.”

—David Mamet, House of Games¹

A side from security protections, you only need privacy for things you are ashamed of.

Shame has two general flavors.

• Being ashamed of who you are/what you do, yourself, because of how it makes you feel
• Being ashamed of who you are/what you do, because of how others will treat you

I'll call these two versions of shame self-shame and context-shame. A person can feel both types of shame about a single behavior, or one or the other.

Self-shame generally requires a larger context; it cannot be produced in the absence of other people or the larger fabric of a social construct. A person who had never experienced interaction with other people would simply do whatever was necessary to bring satisfaction or pleasure and to avoid pain. They would have no reason to act otherwise. A person must learn that a natural behavior is unappealing to other humans in order for the person to feel shame about that behavior.

As with self-shame, context-shame exists due to the dynamic of a larger social interaction. This isn't a uniquely human trait, either. It is shared with any animal that has enough capacity to learn rules. Anyone who has ever had a pet dog has seen this type of reaction: the dog will gladly do something it knows to be against your rules, because that is the dog's nature. However, once the dog realizes you, ...