title: AW Episode 26: Fuck Privacy
show: Adventures Within
aired: 11/16/2014
artists/guests: Jennifer Moon, Robert Watkins
venue: KCHUNG
description: The concept of universal individual privacy is a modern construct associated with Western culture, British and North American in particular, with roots in capitalism. The earliest legislative development of privacy rights began under British common law, which protected "only the physical interference of life and property." Privacy rights gradually expanded to include a "recognition of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and his intellect." Eventually, the scope of those rights broadened even further to include a basic "right to be let alone", and the former definition of "property" would then comprise "every form of possession—intangible, as well as tangible" (Privacy, Information, and Technology, pp. 9-11). We go through great lengths to protect our privacy as our right, our property, our possession, our essence as an individual, but what is it that we are really protecting? What is it that we are really afraid of? It's time to adventure within privacy, notions of security, safety, protection, and, ultimately, our shame. We fight for our right to privacy but are we really fighting for our own repression? As Mary Lambert sings in TSWST, "I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are!" Robert's privacy playlist.
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