Wanting to look into 'privacy' some more I asked a few friends about the long roots of the modern idea. Where does it come from and what conceptions of privacy did previous ages entertain? Of course, this is a vast subject and the very term even as used today is complicated. The OED's definitions run (I've put the first cited date of usage in square brackets after each definition):
The state or quality of being private.
1. a. The state or condition of being withdrawn from the society of others, or from public interest; seclusion. [c 1450]
b. The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention, as a matter of choice or right; freedom from interference or intrusion. Also attrib., designating that which affords a privacy of this kind. [1814]2. a. pl. Private or retired places; private apartments; places of retreat. Now rare. [1678]
b. A secret place, a place of concealment. Obs. [1686]
3. a. Absence or avoidance of publicity or display; a condition approaching to secrecy or concealment. [1598]
4. a. A private matter, a secret; pl. private or personal matters or relations. Now rare. [1591]
6. The state of being privy to some act; = PRIVITY. rare. [1719]
For the etymology, we go to private (a.) — and this immediately tells us so much:
ad. L. pr
v
t-us withdrawn from public life, deprived of office, peculiar to oneself, private; as n. a man in private life; prop. pa. pple. of pr
A friend who's a medievalist recommended A History of Private Life and a classicist friend recommended the same ('though it only starts from Rome'). I've been meaning to make a start on those volumes (five?) for some time.
Another classicist friend, a Latin specialist, came straight back with: Andrew M. Riggsby, " 'Public' and 'private' in Roman culture: the case of the cubiculum," Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997), 36–56. I'm going to have to go the Bodleian for that, but I did find Riggsby's university homepage and also this:
Riggsby describes the Roman conception of privacy as “not so much a right as a mandate: ‘If you are going to behave that way, you must do it in a certain restricted area. Keep it out of our view.’” … Keeping Riggsby’s interpretation of the Roman “right to privacy” in mind, the obligation to sequester morally questionable behavior outweighs any right to unmonitored freedom of action within the confines of “private space.” … Citing the anti-democratic tendencies of Roman society, Riggsby points out that, “The state does not permit a protected private sphere to go unwatched and allow it to become a potential source of disruption.” … According to Riggsby, “[Roman] Aristocratic moral tradition dictated that any act…is subject to the moral evaluation of the community. In one sense, then, there was no generally accepted norm of privacy, no legitimate moral claim to freedom from judgment of certain kinds of activity or activity within certain social or physical regions.”
Nearer our own times, there's masses of material, but I liked this for its broad sweep — suggestive as a springboard to more reading and research, and for its focus on how space described possibilities for privacy:
English 792X: Seminar: The Invention of Privacy in the Renaissance Prof. Elsky T 6:20-8:00
The premise of this course is that the modern imagination of everyday life began in the Renaissance. This interdisciplinary course examines how a social and intellectual revolution led to the invention of privacy as a cherished and sometimes feared value. We will look at new methods of analyzing literature based on an understanding of material culture, particularly the everyday life of the times. Our starting point will be a look at the way people lived in their homes and houses, and the way people's living spaces were completely redesigned in this period to include a variety of private withdrawing rooms. We will consider examples of new spaces designed for men, women, and families, and how these spaces affected family relations and relations between men and women. We will then turn to an exploration of how these new spatial structures actually altered the structure of the imagination as reflected in the major writers of the period. Literary works will include lyric, drama, and prose, as well as personal diaries written by both men and women. We will emphasize how the great writers of the period used the settings of privacy to reveal deep personal and spiritual fulfillment, on the one hand, but also the threat of social subversion, betrayal, illicitness, revenge, and murder.
Technorati tags: privacy, cubiculum, private life
