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The sense of invasion is not necessarily physical. For every soliciting doorbell-ringer there is his counterpart on the telephone—and few Americans can resist the imperative of a ringing phone. The TV set is a chattering presence. The mailbox is constantly flooded by printed sales pitches. How did the catering service know that a family's daughter was getting married or that they had just bought their first car?
Answer: New York State, for instance, will sell anyone a list of licensed drivers, and most city clerks are happy to supply the names of marriage-license applicants.
Many a housewife, reveling in the luxury of several charge accounts around town which she has paid off desultorily, has been shocked to discover that her record as "slow payer" can follow her to whatever state she may move to—without giving her a chance to talk back. And as Katharine Hepburn recently complained, insurance companies had asked her: "What is your income, whom do you support, how much did your house cost, do you still menstruate, are your periods regular, your bowels, do you drink?"
Still, despite all the complaints about the loss of privacy, the trend seems irresistible. In fact, few Americans seem to resist it, and many may even welcome it. A surveying agency recently found that only one out of four Americans had any reluctance about admitting what their income was —which may reflect a pride in affluence. When a team of sociologists bugged the bedrooms in a college housing project to study patterns in lovemaking, they asked permission of each couple before publishing their findings; every one consented, in the name of science.
In a survey of a Chicago suburb, William T. Whyte (The Organization Man) reported that the highly transient young-marrieds found in the nosy neighborliness of the community a substitute for the lost context of rooted families left be hind in the home town. "Outgoing" was a term of approbation, and somebody who kept to himself or put up a fence was distrusted. Says Whyte: "The group is a tyrant; so also is it a friend, and it is both at once."
Two words suggest the two limits of privacy: alone and loneliness. As a functioning individual, man demands moments when he can be alone. But he does not want to be lonely. He withdraws in order to consider his counsel. But then he wishes his counsel to be asked. If it is not asked, he is lonely. And paradoxically, at the moment that privacy is most assaulted in the U.S., Americans seem to fear loneliness more than they fear the loss of privacy.
In cities, neighbors do not know one another, and pride themselves on the fact. But the pride rings hollow. The big-city crowd offers the worst of both worlds. In its jostling closeness, it robs its members of privacy—but in its anonymity, it does not give them companionship in exchange.
Outer Thrust & Inner Fear