Mayssa Chehata, Blog #9: Public v Private

I think that while there can be a vast difference between the public and the private, in today’s world, the two are becoming more and more converged. While this can, in some cases, facilitate nation and community building, it can also lead to negative outcomes. For example, we learn from Anderson about the role the printing press played in nation building and bringing people closer together. Here, we see something that used to be concealed, or somewhat private (the texts), now becoming public on a very large scale. In this case, this allowed people to feel connected with one another, share thoughts and ideas, and spread nationalism. Another example of this is the Arab Spring, in which people took their hatred of their leaders, which had previously only been private for fear of going to jail or worse, and made those thoughts public through protests and over social media. Here you see nation/community building thanks to the convergence of the private and the public.

However, there is another side to this. In today’s world, things that used to be private, such as a diary or personal photographs, can now easily be sharedn with millions of people with the click of a button. Again, this can play a role facilitating nation building, as it can let you connect and feel closer to your community or your nation, however sometimes the things that are moving from the private to the public space can lead to trouble for the owner of those materials. For example, we’ve seen many news stories recently of photos of rape incidents being leaked online, and leading to life-changing detrimental outcomes for both the victim and the perpetrator(s). While this is good because it can lead to justice for those who committed the crime, it can also lead to very negative emotional outcomes for those innocent people who have had something very private now made extremely public.

Another instance where we see this effect is when people share their views (taking them from private to public) and can get in a lot of trouble. This makes me think of a recent new story of two teenage girls who posted an extremely racist rant on youtube, and faced a lot of backlash, including death threats, because of it. We also see this with people being scrutinized because of thing posted on their social media pages, possibly losing out on a job or an acceptance to a university because of it. But the truth behind that is that there are probably other candidates who do the same things (whether it be party, use foul language, etc.) but they simply kept it in the private rather than sharing it with the public.

So where is the halfway line? It is good to share things because we want to be part of communities and nations, and also sharing can help open one’s soul and mind. However, clearly there can be negative consequences of putting things into the public sphere, and once they are they, they can never be taken back. So how much do we share, and how much do we keep private? Today, unlike in the past, there is literally no limit on how much of yourself you can share, but how much you will share is certainly puzzling.