5.  The Personal is Personal
    by Wendy McElroy
    mac{at}zetetics.com

Special to TLE

Privacy rights are being battered these days, largely in response to
increased security fears. National ID, biometric identifiers, airport
screening, increased surveillance powers... all these measures ring alarm
bells for privacy advocates. But such advocates ignore a fundamental
assault on privacy, which has nothing to do with security concerns: the
belief that the Personal is Political.

This '60s feminist motto now dominates society and has severely eroded
privacy for decades, not in name of security but for the sake of
"political correctness."

What does
http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:Xkv-QUUVyCoJ:www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/c
msconference/2001/Papers/Gender/Cullen.pdf+%22the+personal+is+political%22&hl=e
n&ie=UTF-8 "the Personal is Political" mean? The theory
underlying the motto is
that all actions and attitudes, however personal they may seem, have
political significance and impact society. Therefore, almost in
self-defense, society should encourage proper actions and attitudes; it
should discourage improper ones by force of law if necessary. This is the
stripped-down core of political correctness.

PC feminist Susan Moller Okin http://www.zetetics.com/sexcor/marr.html
explains in her book Justice, Gender, and the Family
(1991). "The earliest claims that the personal is political came from
those gender feminists of the 1960s and 1970s who argued that, since the
[traditional] family was at the root of women's oppression, it must be
'smashed.'" Otherwise stated: a "just" family was considered
to be a prerequisite for a "just" social and political system.

The logic of the "Personal is Political" flows as follows:

  * Nothing is personal or "behind closed doors" because everything
    affects society. This erases the traditional distinction between
    the private and the public spheres.

  * Therefore, matters formerly in the private sphere -- from marital
    relations to religious belief -- are the proper subjects of public
    analysis and political concern.

  * "Private" actions and attitudes that are found to be negative
    should be politically discouraged; correct ones should be
    politically encouraged. In short, social control that leads to
    correct attitudes is desirable.

Sometimes the social control is iron-fisted: for example, the hate speech
laws and campus speech codes that forbid and punish ideas that are
considered to be racist, sexist, or homophobic. Sometimes the social
control has an air of being voluntary, such as "non-hostile
environment" rules in workplace, which result from the fear of
lawsuits. Often it is more subtle, such as the politically correct editing
of school textbooks to exclude "wrong" words and ideas, or the
tax funding of PC organizations and messages.

It all amounts to an attack upon the most basic privacy of all: the right
to assess reality and come to your own conclusions about what is right or
wrong.

Consider just one aspect of how "the Personal is Political" has
impacted society: the idea that everyone's sexuality is of political
concern. This means that bad sexual attitudes, like homophobia, should be
discouraged; good sexual attitudes, like acceptance of homosexuality,
should be encouraged. In short, the sexual lives and attitudes of
neighbors, co-workers, or a student in the next seat over are my business
and that of society. (I could as easily use heterosexuality for this
example. For that matter, I could use "bad" racial, gender, or
religious attitudes.)

There is a sense, and one sense only, in which the demand to accept the
sexuality of others is absolutely justified. It is this: every individual
should have same rights, regardless of his or her sexual bent. Same freedom
of speech, same right to security of person and property, same due process.

But more often than not, the "acceptance" demanded is for respect
or acknowledgement that a form of sexuality is "valid." Those who
disapprove or just don't care are accused of oppression, discrimination, or
hatred. This is when problems arise -- when accepting an activity or an
attitude doesn't mean legally tolerating it but becomes a demand for
approval or respect.

Respect is not
http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/index.html?http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/
gloss/civil_rights_civil_liberties.html a civil right; it is an attitude of
approval and admiration. No one can claim a "right" to the
emotional or intellectual approval of anyone else. Indeed, to mandate such
respect is to violate rights because human beings should be free to assess
what is right or wrong, admirable or detestable for themselves. And, then,
peacefully live according to their assessments.

If you dislike a form of sexuality and avoid those who practice it -- all
the while respecting their rights -- then you have wronged no one. If I am
utterly disinterested in my neighbor's sexuality, my indifference is not
oppression. It is indifference. I am simply living my own life according to
my own interests and values. And, historically speaking, individuals who
mind their own business have been safeguards for both privacy rights and
sexual freedom.

There is a door that rightfully closes to protect the peaceful individual
from the scrutiny of society and government. People call this protection by
different names: the Bill of Rights, the private sphere, individual rights.

Those who crusade for http://www.cpsr.org/program/privacy/privacy.html
privacy rights in an ever more public world should begin with the
reconstruction of a crumbling concept: the private sphere. This sphere
belongs to the individual and family; PC advocates have intruded into it
like neo-Puritans on a witchhunt. They should be heaved out with the door
slammed in their faces.

Everyone today is concerned about privacy. Whatever disagreements may exist
on how to balance
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Sep/09072003/public_f/90177.asp security with
privacy rights, perhaps it is possible to agree on one issue: namely, your
sexuality is none of my business. The Personal is Personal. It is a start.


--
Visit my home page and blog at http://www.zetetics.com/mac
drop by ifeminists.com http://www.ifeminists.com
For photo (05/02/02) http://www.zetetics.com/mac/vesuvio.jpg

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