Privacy is...Theft? (Circle Post 3)

As we delve deeper into the world of The Circle I am constantly reminded of the dystopian future about which Orwell warned everyone nearly a century ago.  Hearing about how everything is connected to everything else reminds me of the telescreens in every home in the world of 1984 and the ever-present Thought Police.  One thing that has especially reminded me of the invasive nature of the Big Brother government are the three beliefs of The Circle: "Secrets are lies", "Sharing is caring", and "Privacy is theft". These are similar to the three phrases often repeated in 1984, "Freedom is slavery", "war is peace", and "ignorance is strength".  These slogans were repeated in 1984 to condition the citizens to believe them absent-mindedly, and it seems as if the three mantras of The Circle exist for a similar purpose.

One of the mantras that seems particularly important at this point in the novel is "privacy is theft".  The main purpose of TruYou is not only to connect every aspect of one's life to the internet for convenience reasons, but also to make every aspect of one's life available to the public.  This is further illustrated with the invention of SeeChange, the small HD cameras that pick up everything in real time.  Now, not only is all of a person's information and social media available to the public, but anyone anywhere in the world can see and hear what that person is doing.  This makes life very transparent and almost completely removes privacy.

Because everyone at The Circle is so engrossed in Circle culture, they seem to go along with whatever The Circle is doing without question.  This includes the systematic erasure of privacy.  One such circumstance occurred on pages 176-179.  Dan met with Mae to ask how she was doing at The Circle, and it was revealed that Mae went to another store rather than use the company store.  Soon, Dan was bringing up all sorts of things about Mae, like how she barely used any of the company's facilities or hadn't posted anything about a company event.  That encounter was followed by an interrogation by Denise and Josiah about why Mae wasn't broadcasting every action in her life to everyone in The Circle.  Everyone acted personally offended that Mae wasn't sharing every detail of her life with everyone.

I can somewhat see a point in the "privacy is theft" mantra.  There are some instances in which I can understand the harm of withholding information, such as a witness not giving a full story to a judge or a patient not giving a doctor all of the symptoms he or she is experiencing.  In both cases, not all information is presented and it can cause serious harm to people.  However, withholding information such as pictures from a party or telling someone you've gone kayaking is definitely not detrimental to anyone's health and it certainly doesn't put a company's reputation at risk, as Denise, Josiah and Dan seem to believe.  I do not agree that withholding each and every detail of one's life is harmful to anyone, but in a company like The Circle and with a program like TruYou, I am not in the least bit surprised that the Circlers seem to think that it is.

The Delicate Relationship Between Intimacy and Privacy (Circle Post 2)

When you hear the word, "intimacy", your mind almost undoubtedly jumps to the thought of two lovers sharing a romantic moment.  Most often, two lovers share an intimate moment when they are in a private setting.  Intimacy and privacy are inseparably linked.  Intimacy does not only mean closeness in a romantic sense, but rather it encompasses any closeness or familiarity two or more people can have among each other.

Privacy and intimacy go hand-in-hand.  As I previously stated, intimacy is any closeness shared by two or more people.  If the privacy disappears from the situation, then the intimacy also disappears, because the closeness shared by people cannot be experienced when others who do not share the same closeness are present.  For example, in The Circle, after Mae's first day on the job, there was a large campus-wide party.  After losing Annie, Mae finds a man named Francis.  Franics and Mae talk about her first day, and they share a few minutes of intimacy, escalated when Franics compliments Mae's voice.  However, this experience is sharply curtailed when Annie suddenly drops in on the two.  This is a perfect example of how lack of privacy is synonymous with lack of intimacy.

Another example of the relationship between privacy and intimacy comes later in the novel when Mae had a meeting with Dan and Alistair.  Mae had missed a brunch and the person in charge of it was very distraught.  The problem was resolved and the meeting was adjourned very quickly.  At the end of the meeting, the three Circlers hugged.  When Mae went to tell Annie about it, she discovered that Annie already knew.  Mae was not very comortable with that.  "In quick succession, two waves passed over Mae.  First, profound unease that Annie had been listening without her knowledge..." (Eggers 31).  Mae had shared an intimate moment with the two other people in the room, and when she found out that Annie had been listening in, she became uncomfortable.  This is obviously a gut reaction because intimate experiences are naturally supposed to be private experiences, too.

A third time intimacy and privacy were stripped from a situation was when Franics and Mae went to the Friday innovation talk.  Francis and Mae were sitting together in the audience enjoying the talk when Francis volunteered to help the speaker and revealed that he wanted to date Mae.  (Eggers 118-122).  Mae was utterly embarrassed when he admitted to the whole audience that he wanted to date her, because until then, their relationship had been very intimate and private.  After he told the whole room he wanted to date her, the privacy was gone and the intimacy was gone because everyone knew that there was something between them; they were no longer sharing a moment together, they were sharing the moment with everyone in the room.

Intimacy and privacy are very closely related to each other; without privacy, intimacy cannot exist.  This notion was exemplified throughout the first pages of The Circle, most obviously present in moments shared between Francis and Mae.  When one is tken away, the other is also lost.

An Outsider's Perspective: Penn State v. The Circle (Circle Post 1)

The thought of starting a virtually new life in a bigger, better place than where one grows up is definitely exciting and somewhat daunting at the same time.  It's exciting to think about all of the new things to experience and the new people to meet, but it's also scary to think about these things.  The overwhelming sense of excitement and nervousness is enough to drive anyone over the edge.  Mae Holland experienced all of these feelings and emotions as she embarked on her journey as a Circler, and I also experienced these same feelings as a began my journey as a Nittany Lion.

Penn State and The Circle are very similar.  Both are huge, modern, creme de la creme institutions.  Everything is so advanced and seemingly better than anything you could possibly get anywhere else.  One thing I noticed was that everyone at The Circle seemed to have an absolute love for The Circle; there was nothing wrong with The Circle, nor could anything bad ever come from it.  I kind of get the same impression from Penn Staters.  The atmosphere is almost cult-like.  Don't get me wrong, I've fully embraced the Penn State cult and I love Penn State, but it's something I noticed before I got to campus and I definitely have been noticing since I arrived.  There are also wild parties thrown both at Penn State and The Circle, and everyone seems to have a great time whether they are actually working or having fun.

There are obviously some differences between Penn State and The Circle, too.  For example, Penn State is a university and The Circle is a workplace.  There are some other small differences, like at The Circle, one receives upgraded versions of their laptops, tablets, phones, etc.  Penn State doesn't provide that luxury for its students.  However, so far in my reading, I haven't really noticed many differences between Penn State and The Circle other than the small distinguishers between a university and a workplace.

So far, The Circle and Penn State seem like pretty similar experiences.  If The Circle truly is like Penn State, then I can understand why Mae must love it so much.

"The Good Old Days"...were they really that good, and are they really that long gone?

When I signed up for Rhetoric and Civic Life at New Student Orientation, I didn't know what rhetoric was.  After about a week and a half in this class, I still don't really know what rhetoric is.  All I knew was that I had to take this class to fulfill my Paterno Fellows requirements.  That's pretty much still the only thing that I know regarding this class.  Writing isn't exactly my forte, so when I heard we had to write a blog, let alone two blogs, the eye rolling and groaning ensued.  I had no idea what I was supposed to write about for the Passion Blog, and I really didn't want to think about writing every single week.

As I mentioned before, I don't know what rhetoric is.  I don't know how it relates to civic life, and I certainly don't know how to adequately blog.  However, I do know that I love history.  I've had a real passion for history for about a year and a half now.  As I learned more about history, I discovered that the people of the past are pretty similar to us in 2016.  Grant it, they obviously went about their daily lives in a different fashion and they probably held things to different standards of importance than we do now, but the same basic human nature was there.  In general, most people seem to regard past civilizations as erudite and grand, or at the very least better than us, but that isn't always the case.

For my Passion Blog, I would like to write about history.  History can be really interesting, I promise.  Each week, I will write about a different interesting historical moment, and then I will go on to explain a human trait or "life lesson", for lack of a better term, that we can derive from these points in history.  I hope to show you that the "good old days" never really existed, in a way, because we're living them.