On privacy

Saturday, October 28th., Cadogan Square, London.

The feature of gossip, chit-chat, scandal, is still growing in the press. I know rather intimately several journalistic gossipers, and I never hide from them my dislike of the feature. (Which dislike does not prevent me from reading the feature when I happen to see it - there are at least two persons in all of us, even in the righteous and the self-righteous, one who on principle objects to an evil, and another who in practice often yields to the temptation of the same evil.) I have entreated the gossipers never to refer to me in their string of paragraphs. But they frequently do. When I upbraid them they reply that they have to live, and that copy is copy and much more important than promises.

All this set me thinking about privacy, essentially my own, but by extension people in general. It is ironic, I thought, that as a successful man of mature years I seem to have much less privacy than I had when a poor clerk attempting to make a way in life with my pen. In those days nobody in London knew me, contact with my family was by letter, and I could more or less do as I liked without exciting any sort of social comment. Similarly when I was first in Paris. I was, for example, able to avail myself of the services of 'actresses' so as to expand my sexual horizons. Nobody noticed. Imagine if I did the same now!

So what is privacy? Clearly it is a dynamic concept, by which I mean that it is "in the eye of the beholder". I am inclined as a first attempt to define it as "the avoidance of unwanted intrusion". I may be prepared to surrender privacy in exchange for wealth and influence. Indeed I have done so. But my satisfaction with this state of affairs varies from day to day and depends on things like mood, context and incentives. The gossipers intrude and I may say that their intrusion is unwanted, but if it really mattered to me I would give up my social status, move to the country, and live out my days in peace. I do not expect to do so.