More things change

http://www.kansas.com/2010/03/01/1204128/work-key-to-long-life-for-102.html

I love this article. And not just because Judge Brown reinforces my not-retirement plan. I also love his comment about privacy laws. I had never really thought about it in that way. Our expectations of privacy really are pretty new in human history if you really think about it.

We think sex is something private. But until well into the 20th century, many people in western society lived as a family group in a one-room set-up. If you were a farm kid living in a sod house, or an immigrant living in a one-room tenement in a big city, you probably had no questions about where babies came from. You were more than likely present when your baby sister was conceived. And if you were wealthy, you probably had some sort of hired help who saw what you threw away, cleaned your dirty linen or coughed discreetly before they entered a room.

The fact that we are more mobile as a society has given us some illusion of privacy too. If you are born in a town and live there until the day you die, more than likely everyone will know every little thing you’ve ever done. Hard to have secrets when someone can say “You know those Joneses. Cheap as can be, every last one of them.” And though it’s much rarer to live your entire life in one place, we’re starting to create our own villages on the internet. You can live 5,000 miles from your hometown, but one posted picture of you doing body shots off of a waiter named Jaime on Facebook and suddenly everybody you’ve ever known once again knows your business.

I think the judge is probably right – the more we push each other away as a society, the more we find ways to draw each other close again.