A New Yorker Best Book of 2024
"It is a radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking."
–Ben Tarnoff, The New Yorker
A visionary reexamination of the value of privacy in today’s hypermediated world—not just as a political right but as the key to a life worth living.
The parts of our lives that are not being surveilled and turned into data diminish each day. We are able to configure privacy settings on our devices and social media platforms, but we know our efforts pale in comparison to the scale of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. In our hyperconnected era, many have begun to wonder whether it is still possible to live a private life, or whether it is no longer worth fighting for.
The Right to Oblivion argues incisively and persuasively that we still can and should strive for privacy, though for different reasons than we might think. Recent years have seen heated debate in the realm of law and technology about why privacy matters, often focusing on how personal data breaches amount to violations of individual freedom. Yet as Lowry Pressly shows, the very terms of this debate have undermined our understanding of privacy’s real value. In a novel philosophical account, Pressly insists that privacy isn’t simply a right to be protected but a tool for making life meaningful.
Privacy deepens our relationships with others as well as ourselves, reinforcing our capacities for agency, trust, play, self-discovery, and growth. Without privacy, the world would grow shallow, lonely, and inhospitable. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Hannah Arendt, Jorge Luis Borges, and a range of contemporary artists, Pressly shows why we all need a refuge from the world: not a place to hide, but a psychic space beyond the confines of a digital world in which the individual is treated as mere data.
"A radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking…takes up familiar fixations of tech discourse—privacy, mental health, civic strife—but puts them into such a new and surprising arrangement that they are nearly unrecognizable…Lawyers like to make privacy about process. Pressly makes it about power." - New Yorker
"A probing critique of a modern public sphere that overwhelms the private realm, but it goes further than that...Pressly offers a unique vision of what can be gained by stepping back from the outside world, and the screens that try to possess us." - The Atlantic
"It’s privacy that involves passing your neighbors’ homes and accepting, without much further thought, that you’ll probably never know about their first kisses or whether they pour their bacon grease down the drain. Their depth, and your own, relies on your not knowing; the whole social fabric of the world depends on it; it is beautiful, it is profound, it is robust…[Pressly] draws from a wealth of surprising sources…[and] constructs a vision of private life that needs protecting." - Harper's
Формат: Скан PDf
"It is a radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking."
–Ben Tarnoff, The New Yorker
A visionary reexamination of the value of privacy in today’s hypermediated world—not just as a political right but as the key to a life worth living.
The parts of our lives that are not being surveilled and turned into data diminish each day. We are able to configure privacy settings on our devices and social media platforms, but we know our efforts pale in comparison to the scale of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. In our hyperconnected era, many have begun to wonder whether it is still possible to live a private life, or whether it is no longer worth fighting for.
The Right to Oblivion argues incisively and persuasively that we still can and should strive for privacy, though for different reasons than we might think. Recent years have seen heated debate in the realm of law and technology about why privacy matters, often focusing on how personal data breaches amount to violations of individual freedom. Yet as Lowry Pressly shows, the very terms of this debate have undermined our understanding of privacy’s real value. In a novel philosophical account, Pressly insists that privacy isn’t simply a right to be protected but a tool for making life meaningful.
Privacy deepens our relationships with others as well as ourselves, reinforcing our capacities for agency, trust, play, self-discovery, and growth. Without privacy, the world would grow shallow, lonely, and inhospitable. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Hannah Arendt, Jorge Luis Borges, and a range of contemporary artists, Pressly shows why we all need a refuge from the world: not a place to hide, but a psychic space beyond the confines of a digital world in which the individual is treated as mere data.
"A radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking…takes up familiar fixations of tech discourse—privacy, mental health, civic strife—but puts them into such a new and surprising arrangement that they are nearly unrecognizable…Lawyers like to make privacy about process. Pressly makes it about power." - New Yorker
"A probing critique of a modern public sphere that overwhelms the private realm, but it goes further than that...Pressly offers a unique vision of what can be gained by stepping back from the outside world, and the screens that try to possess us." - The Atlantic
"It’s privacy that involves passing your neighbors’ homes and accepting, without much further thought, that you’ll probably never know about their first kisses or whether they pour their bacon grease down the drain. Their depth, and your own, relies on your not knowing; the whole social fabric of the world depends on it; it is beautiful, it is profound, it is robust…[Pressly] draws from a wealth of surprising sources…[and] constructs a vision of private life that needs protecting." - Harper's
Формат: Скан PDf
https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/the-right-to-oblivion-privacy-and-the-good-life.html