Privacy, The Root of All Evil

It is ordinarily supposed that money is the root of all evil; however, this is only so to the extent that money is able to purchase effective exemptions from the usual social supervision that is brought to bear upon those with less money. In short, people with more money acquire with it a greater extent of privacy. And it is that privacy which allows for all of their notorious evil.

Most Theological Philosophy attributes to God the quality of being All Knowing. Such All Knowingness would certainly make any kind of Privacy impossible. So it is that in Heaven, where God enforces His Moral Judgment, that the Blessed Souls maintain a moral perfection because they know they can keep no dark secrets from God, that they have no Privacy. While their Goodness is real enough, much Evil is probably avoided because there are no opportunities for private indulgence. Perhaps it can be compared to how anybody would behave if always in the presence of those whom one respects the most, with no slipping away to the dark side, ever.

Now, down here on Earth, we are presently going through the threshold of capabilities, in information technology, that could effectively eliminate Privacy, and with it put an end to most crimes and instances of corruption. Cash money could be made contraband and replaced exclusively by systems of monitored electronic transfer – allowing for only honest exchanges. Also, it would take relatively little to almost completely monitor, with video and audio, at least all of the Urban Areas, at least the public areas where most crimes being committed. Where all movements are tracked, no criminal could ever “get away”. If it would not quite be the same as God watching our every move, still there would be the moral comfort of knowing that we could all be watching each other, that is when in the public sphere. I suppose it would not hurt to still have our homes to ourselves… at least our bedrooms.


But the trends in this direction are not favorable. Now, especially in America, where the propaganda is so entirely relentless and pervasive, that people assume that they are quite certain of what they think, and that they are quite right to think it, it is thought that Privacy is the preferred thing. We hear endlessly of protecting our rights to Privacy. Yet, all crime and corruption relies first upon privacy. Where charity and honesty preen in the light of day, all of the worst aspects of humanity lurk in the shadows of privacy. But it is considered the first priority of Political Correctness to protect what can only lead to endless harm.

Politically, privacy is now making strange alliances. The Left is screaming for protections of Privacy, perhaps only to spite the Right. But they should consider that Socialism and the Left could very well thrive in a totally open and monitored Society, but we can only imagine what a blow it would be to the Wealthy and the Corrupt Classes if suddenly all information were to be reviewed for ethics and legality. Does it not become obvious why so much Propaganda, that only the Wealthy and Powerful Classes can so well arrange for, has gone into convincing one and all of the supposed Blessed Sacredness of ‘Privacy’. The Dark have the most to gain in this atmosphere of Darkness, and so it is odd that the Left, so charitable and enlightened in every other regard, should side with the Devil in this particular case. Yes, they may be afraid of Right Wing Governments overhearing their secret Left Wing Conspiracies, but they should well consider that the same Darkness that shields them also shields their enemies who thrive so much better in the dark than they could ever do. Complete Disclosure would be the better strategic weapon for the Left. Besides, who needs secret police when you have undercover reporters.

There would be some problems and complications with implementing a totally Open Society. As it now stands, the Status Quo relies heavily on crime and corruption, indeed, there is a complete economic subculture that funds itself on drug sales, prostitution, car theft and warehouse pilferage (up to about 40% of the household goods found in poverty level households had ‘fallen off the truck’, that is, were pilfered from warehouses and sold at discount on the street. So this practice provides effective ‘employment’ on one side of the equation while relieving poverty on the other side with prices often a mere fraction of retail). The Monetary Policy in both America and Europe defend a high level of unemployment, blithely pretending to suppose that all of these ‘unemployed’ people somehow don’t need to eat or pay rent, but if they were honest with themselves they would have to admit that the money that supports so many ‘unemployed’ people must be coming from somewhere. It is. Crime that hides in Privacy. Privacy now maintains up to about 30% of the Population. In an Honest and Open World, we would have to either provide alternatives to what is now nominally illegal, but goes on in Private, or we would have to revise the Laws. While I can never image that Theft or Burglary could ever be legalized, I could easily envision Prostitution becoming a main street service, and that Drug Traffic could easily be transferred to the domain of the ordinary Retail Stores. Perhaps even more importantly, if Privacy were to be largely suspended, we would need to review the Laws in the light of just how serious we are about insisting upon them. It is one matter to have Laws that we know are only enforced against certain target ethnic or class groups, but quite something else if we suppose all of us could be vulnerable to the certain enforcement of such laws. We know for a fact that many people do indeed engage in drug use and involve themselves in prostitution. We need to ask whether such universals should ever be illegal. We hear a great deal about Freedom while the prisons are full of people who stole nothing and hurt nobody, and who are behind bars only because their Freedom had not been respected. Where Laws are enacted only to uphold the Morals of certain select groups, remembering that Democracies are often nothing more than 51% of the people imposing tyrannical dictatorships over the other 49%, we may easily suspect that people are sent to jail not because they offended against their own personal moral standards but because they offended others, who should probably have been minding their own business. We would need to review Laws that while supporting certain Moral Judgments or uphold certain Ethic Principles impinge upon the Freedom to make neutral moral choices. In this light it becomes difficult to support laws that punish those who have not stolen anything, or hurt anybody who does not specifically complain about anything. In almost every case Households should be allowed to police themselves (“A man’s home is his Castle” is more than a quaint old saying, but is rather one of the first principles of English Law which we have gone a great distance in forgetting), and we should all realize that the small good that millions of social workers do does not offset the harm of their perpetual threats and interference or the expense of their hire and maintenance. We could cash in all those Social Workers – all those people dedicated to taking children from their families – and pay for Universal Health Care and have money left over.

Also, when we think about Laws that end in tossing people into prison, not the least consideration should be that it costs a great deal to keep people in Prison. Every Prison Guard costs Society the price of a Nurse, and every Prosecuting Lawyer could have been a Doctor. We need to ask ourselves what is really important. Our Society has more lawyers than Doctors and Engineers put together. Is it any wonder we live in a Sick Society?

Anyway, if Privacy were to be eliminated, even if there were a reform of the Laws, still, employment opportunities would have to be significantly increased. And here I have an idea. Now people are given a distribution of Society’s Wealth in exchange for their labor, that is, for their contribution to Production. But honestly, with modern automation and ‘labor saving’ devices we certainly do not need everybody to work… or not all week long as is now done. We can see that practically all the manufacturing for the entire World can be accomplished in just a few urban areas in China. If we were really to refuse a Distribution of the Wealth to everybody not strictly needed for their labor, then we are heading for trouble (I cite a book from almost a decade ago – “End of Work” by Jeremy Rifkin). The way I see it, People should now be paid for their compliance. If people follow all the rules, they should be paid for it. And the more enthusiastically they go along with the program, the more they should get. It would be the perfect means for achieving the ends of Social Engineering – people could be paid to be the Perfect Society. As it is now, people are paid haphazardly to advance the ends of the Wealthiest 1%.

Oh, and one last concern. Freedom of Speech had once been something of an Ideal. But now in our National Security Societies, people can be silenced by imposing Confidentiality Restrictions upon information. In America today upwards of 20% of the Population are working under Security Clearances of some kind or another and so have been stripped of the right to speaking about their Jobs, what they do, and what they know. Doesn’t this render meaningless the whole idea of Freedom of Speech? And it’s not just a few key areas where there are Secrets. Now EVERYTHING has been made secret. It simply suits them to work in the Dark, and so every potentially embarrassing facet of Truth is hit with the Big Red Stamp. Indeed, there can be made something of a Logical Aphorism that can be applied here, call it the Leo Principle, that anything the Government tells us must be a Lie, because if it were true, it would be classified. You can’t Classify something that never happened, or that is purely imaginary, and so any politician is free to talk endlessly on and on, as long as they keep it fictional. But if it crosses the line into any area of Reality, then some Government Office would have already classified it, cutting it off from permissible Public Discourse. So Lies are the only thing they can ever really give us. The Truth is Secret.

Now Corporations impose their own policies of Secrecy and Confidentiality. And the Courts and the Judicial System that should be protecting Freedom of Speech are often the worst transgressors – imposing hush orders, and severely restricting what can and cannot be said during a Public Trial. For instance, it is widely known that the Jury of the O. J. Simpson Trial would have voted for guilty if only the same information had been available to them as was going to everybody else – anybody with a TV set – the
restriction of Speech and Information came back to haunt Society with this regrettable verdict. Then the Courts uphold agreements predicated upon Corporations contracting for Secrecy – people are given money to NOT tell anybody else about poison ground water and such, and it is the Courts that are brokering such Deals with the Devil.

Anyway, just as Privacy provides a shielding darkness that can foster corruption in the general public, so also it must not be forgotten that in regards to Governments and Government Agencies, Corporations, public or private, and the Courts, that if they can hide information, then we can only anticipate the same kind of moral degeneracy and corruption. If People or Governments are allowed to act in secrecy, what else can we expect but that they will do exactly what they would be ashamed to do in the open? All facets of our Society should stand in the pure light of day.