<p>PROMPT:
Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide ones thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse.</p>
<p>Adapted from J. David Velleman, "The Genesis of Shame"</p>
<p>Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>MY ESSAY:</p>
<p>J. David Velleman clearly possesses a distorted view of the relationship between privacy and culture. He is correct in his assertion that our culture has become increasingly public over the centuries, with the rise of modern technology and globalization. However, a proper analysis of the effect of this diminished privacy will render Velleman's assertion inherently wrong; human culture has exponentially benefited from the eradication of privacy and this claim is firmly grounded in philosophical, historical, and didactic evidence.</p>
<p>There is concrete philosophical backing to the claim that the absence of privacy has in fact benefited our society and our world. Members of a society devoid of privacy and secrecy will be prone to think in a more communal and humanitarian sense. A decrease in privacy will lessen the growth of maliciousness and ill intent in society. People would be forced to live and abide in a strict ethical and moral sense, as all their actions would be publicized. An absence of privacy would also knit a more compact and harmonized society.</p>
<p>At the Paris Peace Conferences after World War I, President Roosevelt made a firm attempt to impose his belief of honesty and integrity among all nations of the world. He did this through his advocation of the asbolute abolition of all secret treaties among nations. He believed that if such a sacred pact were to be established between all nations, the world would be much more peaceful and cooperative. However, at the Peace Conference, he was unfortunately forced to concede many of his Fourteen Points that he had originally planned on pursuing. Because of this, no concrete plan or international law prohibiting secret treaties was established. This was to have severe consequences in the coming decades. Hitler, the architect of Nazism and World War II, would exploit secret treaties in his rise to power and world domination. Clearly, this privacy and secrecy had greatly endangered many nations and the various peoples of the world. If there was some sort of decree forbidding secrecy among nations,a more harmonized and cooperative world would be born.</p>
<p>An absence of privacy in our world also has didactic benefits. An example of this is the famous Jane Briacco. In her diary, which was publicized after her fatal overdose, the heroin addict reflects and explores the psychology of the addicted mind. Readers of her diaries will derive not only sympathy but also wisdom, as their will truly realize the ramifications that go along with partaking in such activities as excessive drug use. Such publicization would undoubtely have great benefits to society.</p>
<p>Velleman's claim that the absence of privacy has had harmful effects on our society is inherently wrong and unfounded. An analysis of the major historical events of the twentieth century and a meditation on the philosophical and didactic implications of the lack of privacy will thoroughly refute Vellman's claim.</p>
<p>THANKS</p>