The need for privacy is felt obviously in situations where one is doing something which could be considered compromising, so why has society largely evolved to allow for people to take time away from others in order potentially do something worthy of a negative value judgement? Why is the idea that one has this right such a universal concept? (Is it actually?) Why is there the duplicity in society of the lack of public acceptance tied with a see-no-evil attitude?

I believe that the existence of idea of privacy is directly linked to humans being unconsciously aware that another’s private life will have little effect on their outward actions. But still, it would seemingly have been more logical yet for simple full on acceptance to have evolved. It would seem likely that the lust for personal privacy has developed in response to the human survival response that is discrimination for the purpose of grouping. Groups are often formed in societies on the basis of fairly superficial issues such as skin colour. Instigating a group against anything perceived as different or in a minority would be a good way to place oneself in a majority (so more powerful) group and so increase your likelihood of survival. That humans should have a response to take privacy in situations where judgment could occur is then logical.

Can all other cases when privacy is wanted then be considered to be misfirings of this self defense mechanism? Perhaps not when that privacy is just a will for separation from a group for the sake of peace or concentration but in most other situations it seems to be a worthwhile extrapolation.

None of this is to say that privacy is in anyway unnecessary but rather it is an essential response to other people’s innate, survivalist, attempts to discriminate for superficial reasons which all too often take the form of righteous morality.

I am aware that this post is a very shallow attempt at tackling a very complex topic but the subject was on my mind and struck me as interesting enough to write about.