We Look at You When You Look at Everyone

Jean-Leon Gerome, The Large Pool Of Bursa

In 1885, French painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme produced "The Large Pool of Bursa." When Gérôme visited Bursa, Turkey, in 1552, he took pictures of the inside of the New Baths (Yeni Kaplica), which served as inspiration for his later works. The artwork shows women relaxing around an octagonal hot pool in a Turkish bath in a calm and private situation beneath the caldarium's huge dome.

In "The Large Pool of Bursa," Gérôme combines academic idealism and archaeological accuracy in his painting style. The attention to detail in the surrounding architecture and accessories indicates his devotion to realism, while the stances and naked finishes maintain their academic idealism. This artwork presents a vision of privacy and freedom during the Enlightenment.

The concept of privacy is relatively new—about 150 years old. It is true that people are naturally drawn to privacy. But for three millennia, societies have almost universally valued politics, desire and supremacy over privacy; of the terrible effects of lust, intemperance, malice, and envy.

Privacy may possibly be an anomaly. The majority of privacy thieves get joy from successfully stealing the privacy of others.

The concept of privacy as we know it now is only 150 years old. In their little societies, the majority of humans throughout history had little idea what privacy was. In front of friends and relatives, people openly engaged in sexual activity, breastfed, and took baths.

The lesson from 3,000 years of history is that privacy has virtually always been a secondary concern. When money, prestige, policy or convenience compete with a yearning for isolation, humans always choose the former.

Patterns of Sexual Behavior,1951

While rare in traditional societies, privacy may be instinctive. In primitive societies, 9 out of 12 people prefer to have sex indoors, indicating a need for privacy. In civilizations without homes with separate rooms, sex is more frequently preferred outdoors. Evidence research (Patterns of Sexual Behavior,  1951, by anthropologist Clellan S. Ford and ethologist Frank A. Beach) from primitive societies suggests that humans prefer to make love alone. (In 9 of 12 societies with separate bedrooms for parents, people prefer to have sex inside.) In civilizations without homes with separate rooms, sex is more frequently preferred outdoors.

However, in fact, the need for survival frequently outweighs the need for privacy. For example, in the modern American culture, a longing for isolation can appear deeply embarrassing.

The Greeks, like their tribal ancestors, expressed a yearning for privacy. And, unlike their ancient ancestors, the Greeks had the resources to address the situation. Samantha Burke of the University of Leicester, England discovered that the Greeks used their excellent understanding of geometry to design homes that had the mathematically minimum exposure to public view while maximizing available light.

Athenian philosophy was significantly more popular than its architecture. In Rome, Greece's far less egalitarian successor, the landed nobility erected their villas with expansive gardens. Transforming one's home into a public museum was an excessive display of wealth. However, the rich appeared self-aware of their show-off.

Sightline Analysis, Burke (2000)

The majority of Romans lived in crowded apartments, with walls thin enough to hear every noise. “Think of Ancient Rome as a giant campground,” writes Angela Alberto in A Day in the life of Ancient Rome.

And, with Rome's embrace of public sex, there was less incentive to make it taboo—especially given the benefits of liberalization.

In the Early Middle Ages (4th century AD–1,200 AD), early Christian saints invented seclusion, the contemporary definition of solitude. The idea that morality was not only the result of doing evil deeds but also the intention to cause harm was made popular by the Christian Bible. The most devoted followers of this idea, known as monks, withdrew from society and dedicated their lives to confronting their inner demons without the distractions of civilizations.

Early Renaissance/Late Medieval Period (1300–1600) The Building Blocks of Privacy

The powerful Fourth Council of Lateran, also known as the "Great Council," ruled in 1215 that public confessions were to be required. The idea of internal morality was immediately introduced to a large portion of Europe by this powerful Catholic move.

Religious writer Peter Loy observed, "The apparatus of moral governance was shifted inward, to a private space that no longer had anything to do with the community." Isolation had a strong ally.

100% loneliness leads to the polarization of privacy and human communication, yet we can push against that one conclusion is called radical transparency.

Privacy and liberalism are in conflict.

By American history, the first time that citizens asked that the law start keeping up with the growing necessity for covert actions was immediately before the industrial revolution. On August 20, 1770, revolutionist and future US President John Adams expressed his respect for privacy in this early handwritten letter.

More for practical reasons than anything else, the first American Census was made public despite shifting public perceptions of privacy. The best method to guarantee that any citizen could check it for correctness was through Transparency.

The 1710 Post Office Act, which forbade postal workers from sorting through mail, may have been America's first privacy regulation, and it did give rise to greater popularity among privacy-conscious citizens. So is it legal when a government official hacks someone's email?

Remarkably, the justification for the right to privacy was the same as the ones that have made it so popular today: the invasion of personal data by technology.

America had not benefited historically from privacy. Encroachments into private correspondence had played a crucial role in the Civil War's victory.

This letter, written on the back, is from Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, asking for extensive control over telegraph lines. Lincoln only wrote, "The Secretary of War has my authority to exercise his discretion in the matter within mentioned." Lincoln, A. The sector didn't have information privacy legally regulated until it infuriated a subsequent president.

The wife of President Grover Cleveland was attractive. It was also perfect for commercial use because her face was easily accessible. The frequent use of Frances, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, in commercial advertisements finally resulted in one of the first privacy laws in the country. In 1903, the New York Assembly established a $1,000 penalties for using someone else's likeness for commercial gain. In fact, privacy was essentially protected for the majority of the 19th century in order to preserve a man's dominance over his wife's public and private life, including physical violence.

Privacy in the United States has historically always been kidnapped from the hazy interaction between politicians and commercial liberalists.

The Individualistic Technology from the postcard to the telephone, information technology has advanced rapidly during the first 150 years of American history. Every new communication technology allowed Americans to see into the personal lives of their neighbors and strangers, therefore they frequently (and grudgingly) opted for the one that was more convenient or less expensive.

The rise of Individualism is an incipient vaccine for the protection of the right to privacy. Any individual action in which an individual participates can be referred to as privacy. When a person's personal behavior is to steal the privacy of others, his／her privacy can be called radical transparency.

Hence, when someone else looks at you in an offensive way, you can look back at them in the same way. We're looking forward to seeing public nude swimming, public sex, and public pee from privacy thieves; we live in a radical transparency society because of them.

We look at you, when you look at everyone.

Leonie Schewe

Berlin, Germany

Writing Co-edited by Artpendix Team

21:50 PM Saturday

31 August 2024

Artpendix Press