The Unobserved Life
“The problem is a culture of exposure that is far more advanced than any efforts to combat online cruelty. Bullying feeds on weakness, anger, and lately, the systemic undervaluing of privacy. … Young people discovering their identity and their desires need a zone of privacy where they can be who they are, perhaps in the company of another human being, without feeling that somebody else might be tweeting it, filming it, or blogging about it, or that maybe they themselves ought to be—there’s such a thing as violating your own privacy, too. The unobserved life is so totally worth living.”
— Pride and Prejudice: Margaret Talbot, writing on tolerance and gay rights in this week’s New Yorker. (Print. Sorry.)
I think Talbot’s position is at least tangentially related to Maria Bustillo’s bit on hipsters, published just a couple of hours ago in The Awl, Being a Hipster Is an Excellent and Wonderful Thing!. Work that one out for yourself.
