There's a tangle of reasons for this phenomenon. One reason is social and multi-generational. In a misguided effort to boost self-esteem, we as a society have jettisoned the concept of "shame." We no longer teach children to be ashamed of the bad, dumb, and stupid things they do. Fear of feeling shame used to be an effective weapon in the fight to get us all to self-regulate our behavior. No more. People no longer seem to realize that there's a difference between bad attention and good attention. They care only about getting attention, of any kind, and the longer, the better.
Another reason is technological. Between the ubiquitous presence of cell phones and the proliferation of Internet sites such as MySpace and YouTube, and the ease with which we now can take and disseminate pictures or videos of just about anything or anyone, the norm has shifted from living in privacy to living in a fishbowl. So our expectations of privacy are reduced . . . if not destroyed.
I remember when airports had bank upon bank upon bank of phone booths--into which one could slip to place a personal call on a land line, with little fear of being overheard and no expectation of the call being wiretapped. Over twenty-five years ago, booths disappeared in favor of kiosks, which made it impossible to converse in private--one had to rely on everyone else's willingness not to overhear. Now, with cell phones, people don't think of using kiosks anymore, even if they could find them. Kiosks have gone the way of the buffalo.
But I wonder--is it that people no longer care that they have no privacy, or do they not realize that they have no privacy? Do they just expect people to respect their privacy while they blurt out the most personal details of their lives for all to hear? Or does it not even occur to them that while they are on their cell phones, they can be overheard not just by the people in the same room, but by anyone who has a receiver on the same frequency? I have heard people telling others their bank account numbers, their credit card numbers, and other information not usually so cavalierly bandied about. I try very hard not to listen, or if that cannot be helped, not to remember what I've heard. I am sure not everyone else would be so circumspect.
Still, it doesn't matter whether people no longer expect privacy or expect it in theory but abrogate it in fact by the way they behave. In either case, privacy disappears. Those who don't defend their rights not only don't keep them, they don't deserve to keep them. Alas for those of us who do care. Our attempts to preserve not just our privacy, but the privacy of all Americans, are overwhelmed by the mere weight of those who just don't care one way or the other. So let the telecoms off the hook for their illegal behavior, and let the members of the Dubya administration who encouraged the warrantless wiretaps off the hook, too. None of it matters anymore, and we're all going to die sooner or later anyway.
Here endeth the American Dream.
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