We always want what we can’t have. It’s something inevitable, a trait that we must all possess. But what’s the point of stating this? We want comfort and safety from those near us. We long for emotional, mental, and moral support. We seek attention, to be showered by love and respect. But at the same time, we crave privacy and solitude, in hopes to not become the next topic to be gossiped about. In Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, this paradox is evident within the interactions between the citizens of major cities and the democracy of the typical life in American society.
A social worker in East Harlem, Ellen Lurie, emphasizes the extremes of sharing too much or nothing at all, “…many adults either don’t want to become involved in any friendship-relationships at all with neighbors, or, if they do succumb to the need for some form of society, they strictly limit themselves to one or two friends, and no more.” (Jacobs 66) Lurie is focusing on the concept of how neighborliness is essentially a component of this structure of moral identity, something that is uninhibited by the restraints of contracts, rules and regulations, amongst the various criterion driven by “Corporate America.” There becomes a clear distinction between neighbors and friends: neighbors are individuals who are living in residential proximity to one another, with the occasional small talk. Unlike friends, neighbors do not need to be involved with the intimacies of friendship, for that would require a deeper trust and expression of vulnerability which would unavoidably lead to the oh-so-terrifying result of gossiping and judgment, and thus, the hopes for privacy is shattered.
With the lack of privacy, comes an increase in external expectations, and on top of that, how these expectations mold into the already preconceived notion of a given neighborhood. According to Jacobs when she visited the North End, a backward-heading community in Boston (aka. Your typical slummy neighborhood), in the ’30s and again in 1959, there was a significant amount of progression. The North End went from being over-crowded, dilapidated, and poor to lively and open, fresh and healthy, and friendly and safe. Jacobs and a Boston planner had a conversation about the North End, the planner was completely flabbergasted by the mere thought of Jacobs going there in the first place despite the fact that he is aware of its fantastic improvement, “Why, that’s the worst slum in the city…I hate to admit we have anything like that in Boston, but it’s a fact.” (Jacobs 10)
Even if there were to exist this ultimate privacy, the consequences of that would be loneliness, regression, and perhaps, an increase in indifference and self-centeredness. We, humans, are social creatures. Despite how anti-social we are at times, we need to be stimulated by human interacting in order to survive. It becomes a life necessity rather than something that we want. If you think that going through all the hassle of security checks, setting up surveillance cameras, constant supervision by a higher authority…you’re still being watched. You’re still being judged, just “professionally” and unknowingly. Is it better to have these “professionals” know, quite frankly, more about your life, private or not, than you know about theirs? Wouldn’t it be better to have direct control over how much you’d like to share about yourself and with whom? Mr. Jaffe, the owner of a candy store in New York City, for example, purposefully leaves spare keys to his store in other stores. He is aware of the potential risks that may entail with this act, but because he makes this service known by the public, no one really thinks about the keys’ presence consciously (Jacobs 60-61).
The matter-of-fact is essential that privacy is an ideal, or rather, the complete privacy that city dwellers deeply crave for. So rather than being tripped into the paranoia of irrational worries, fears, and doubt, befriend your neighbors and build a trust system.
Questions:
- Does changing demographic patterns make it more likely that we will only extend the precepts of reciprocity, civility, and live and let live and the disposition to see neighbors as “decent folks” to people just like us?
- What is the ethos that makes a neighbor good?
- Is there an optimal balance between private life and public life? Or is privacy simply a hoax to ease our worries?
