On the importance of privacy for the public sphere: The politics and metaphor of self-authorship

Abstract

Using liberal and postmodern political theories I analyze the importance of privacy for the public sphere and politics in general. Privacy refers to a continuum of spaces both where the individual is alone with her self, or solitary privacy, and where she is united with companions in a closed, withdrawn space, or clustered privacy. In private, individuals practice self-authorship. Through deliberative activities like silent reading, journal keeping, and simple self-reflection, individuals construct self-images worn in public. These structuring metaphors result from a dramaturgical, creative process. The theory of self-authorship views the individual self as embedded in the social relations that sustain public and private. Besides authoring their selves, empowered individuals can also author private spaces. The boundaries separating public and private rely as much on metaphor as on empirical markers like walls and other physical boundaries: the public and legal recognition that "homes are like castles" structures our use and understanding of private, domestic space. Privacy provides a space where social norms and power relations can be temporarily inverted. Such private spaces play a critical role in nurturing the free and energetic discourses that sustain a democratic public sphere.