PrivacyAn Intercultural Perspective

Rafael CapurroStuttgart Media University

www.capurro.deUniversity of Pittsburgh

2006http://www.capurro.de/Privacy_Pittsburgh1.ppt

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Content

Introduction• Looking into Japanese Minds• Looking into Our MindsConclusion

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Introduction

Two recent origins of the private debate in Western societies:

• 9/11• Developments in IT (ubiquitous computing,

mobile devices, etc.)

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Introduction

Why is privacy as a moral value not so important in Japan as it is in the West?

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Introduction

The debate presupposes basic concepts such as:

• Subjectivity• Autonomy• Human Dignity• Private / Public Sphere• Media

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Introduction

• How did these concepts become part of our moral and legal self-understanding in Western countries?

• How far this view of ourselves and our selves can be better understood by way of intercultural comparison for instance with the Japanese perspective?

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Introduction

• This comparison started as an online dialogue with Makoto NAKADA and Takanori TAMURA (Univ. of Tsukuba, Japan)

• See: Ethics & Information Technology (2005) 7 (Guest Editor: Charles Ess)– Makoto Nakada, Takanori Tamura: Japanese

Conceptions of Privacy. (pp. 27-36) (NT)– Rafael Capurro: Privacy. An intercultural perspective.

(pp. 37-47) (RC) Online: http://www.capurro.de/privacy.html

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Introductionhttp://www.logos.tsukuba.ac.jp/%7Enakada/regis/

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Introduction

ReGIS-HdM Workshop, Tuskuba June 2003

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Introduction

Japanese and Western subjectivity:• The classic Western view of subject and

identity as something permanent and even substantial

vs.• The structure of Japanese subjectivity as a

„discontinuous identity“ = effect of a network of relations and situations

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Introduction

Where do we dwell?Downtown Pittsburgh (Source: http://www.pitt.edu/~roztocki/Pittsburgh.html)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

The Tutiura HomicideNewspaper report about a homicide that

happened in October 2004 in Tutiura (near Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture): a 28-year-old jobless son killed his parents and his elder sister.

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„What surprised us was the public portrayal in Asahi Shimbun (viewed as a quality newspaper in Japan) of what we might otherwise expect to be private details about the victim‘s family.“ (NT, 28)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

I. Seken, Shakai and IkaiII. Aida and MusiIII. Ohyake and Watakusi

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

I. Seken, Shakai and Ikai

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds– Seken „is the aspect of the world that consists

of traditional and indigenous world views“– Shakai „includes modernized worldviews and

ways of thinking influences in many respects by the thoughts and systems imported from ‚Western‘ countries.“

– Ikai „is the aspect of the world from which evils, disasters, crimes, and impurity – along with freedom and the sources and energy related to art and spiritual meanings – seem to emerge.“ (NT 27)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds„To summarize:

– In terms of Shakai – in fact, the ‚bad‘ aspects of ‚victims‘ are not revealed in the newspaper account, and in this way, a Western-like ‚privacy‘ is indeed respected and protected.

– In terms of Seken – from this indigenous standpoint, with its emphasis on human relations (…) people need information about the victims‘ personalities and relationships in order to understand the meanings of this homicide (…)

– In terms of Ikai – people likewise understand that some evils come from and are explained by Ikai.“ (NT 30)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

II. Aida and Musi

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„Bim Kimura refers to Aida or ‚in-between‘ in his books. Aida means ‚between‘ and this word refers to the hidden „basement“ on which our surface subjectivty is probably based.“ (NT 29)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds„In our Japanese culture, Musi is a very

important word. Mu means ‚nothing‘ or ‚denial‘ and ‚si means ‚self‘ or ‚subjectivity‘. So Musi means ‚denial of (surface) subjectivity.‘ In our culture it is often said that Musi, denial of subjectivity, is the best – but ‚hidden‘ and difficult way to learn fine arts, martial arts and so on.“ (NT 29)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„The Tutiura homicide suggests the complexity of our concepts of ‚privacy‘. (…) It is clear that our notion of ‚privacy‘ is mainly limited to Shakai. But the denial of Shakai is not necessarily Ikai.The relationships between Shakai, Seken, Ikai seem to be a bit more complicated.“ (NT 30)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„But one thing is clear: privacy is not something like „intrinsic good“ – to use a term by Deborah Johnson – for us. For example, expressing or sharing (parts of) one‘s privacy seems to be a popular and traditional way to get good personal friends in Japan.“ (NT 30)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„In short, to betray one‘s dirty privacy – is to view oneself from the point of view of Buddha.“ (NT 30)

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http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Kamakura_Budda_Daibutsu_front_1885.jpg

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„(…) we have attempted to determine the validity of this claim by way of empirical research and evidence for a number of years. (…) It is clear to us that Japanese people live in a world that consists of values or worldviews that fundamentally derive from their own, indigenous culture.“ (NT 30)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„In the traditional and original views and perspectives of Japanese culture, harmony between people, along with trusted human relationships, seem to have been the most valuable virtues. In contrast, privacy or individualism still remain outside the lists of the most important values for Japanese.“ (NT 31)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

III. Ohyake and Watakusi

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„In Japanese, Ohyake and Watakusi are used as if they were equivalent to ‚public‘ and ‚private,‘ respectively. However, Ohyake, means originally ‚big house‘: Oh means big and yake means house. Later on, Ohyake refers to the imperial court, the government, the nation, society, as well as to making things open and to being impartial.“ (NT 32)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„Watakusi means ‚not Ohyake‘ – i.e., partial, secret and selfish. As we might expect now, things related to Watakusi are less worthy than things related to Ohyake.“ NT 32)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„And this means that Watakusi is not respected as much as ‚privacy‘ is in Western cultures and societies: this further means that Watakusi is not equivalent to ‚individualism‘ or ‚private.‘“ (NT 32)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„We have a hypothesis that there are two ‚axes‘ defining ‚public‘ and ‚private‘ issues currently in Japan. One is the ‚public‘ and ‚private‘ axis (i.e., as anchored on the loan word puraibashii) and the other is the Ohyake / Watakusi axis. They are intermixed.“ (NT 33)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„Japanese society may thus be seen to have intermixed realm of private/privacy‘ and Watakusi. This mixture is a feature of the privacy issue in Japan.“ (NT 34)

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1. Looking into Japanese Minds

„Japan is a complicated country – even for Japanese people themselves.“ (NT 27)

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„One meaning of the Greek concept ethos is „to dwell“ (…) If the Japanese ethos is three-fold, I would say that the traditional Western dwelling is two-fold or „meta-physical“, namely the world of sensory experience and the world of sensible experience.“ (Plato: „topos aisthetos“ and „topos noetos“). (RC 38)

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2. Looking into Our Mindshttp://mms.uni-hamburg.de/meyer/seminare/truman/referate/Hoehlengleichnis.htm

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„The modern version of this division is the Kantian conception that we are dwellers of two worlds, namely the physical world which is strictly deterministic and the world of „ends in themselves“ or the „kingdom of ends.“ (RC 38)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„The latter is the basis of what he calls „human dignity“ (Würde) as different from things that have just a value (Wert). Human dignity is grounded in the human capacity of going beyond our natural being (…) by giving ourselves universalizable laws of action and by freely obeying them.“ (RC 38)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„In today‘s Western secularized and naturalized societies, it is difficult to make plausible this topical division between the physical and the metaphysical, even in its Kantian version.“ (RC 37-38)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„In many cases, a historical reason for acknowledging human dignity is given, namely the atrocities of World War II.“

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2. Looking into Our Minds http://www.lilano.de/catalog/index.php/cPath/21_32/language/de

Holocaust Mahnmal, Berlin

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„In addition to philosophy and history, a third root of human dignity is the Judeo-Christian tradition with its conception of an inmortal soul created by God in his own image (imago dei).“ (RC 38)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„This brief overview shows that there is a tendency in Western thought towards a two-fold dweling – but due to different kinds of criticisms, the two places have been given different names, and they also look different, according to what the names refer to.“ (ibid. 39)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„At the first sight, we are at the opposite of what my Japanese colleagues call „denial of subjectivity“ (Musi), particularly since Descartes discovered a firm foundation in which we dwell, namely the cogito“ (RC 38)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„Given that we live today in a digital environment – to protect individual privacy means primarily to protect our digital data. In doing this, we want to protect what we consider a fundament of Western civilization, namely the conception of a stable, free and autonomous subjectivity.“ (RC 40)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„We also have the tendency, arising from our metaphysical traditions (…), to give primacy to the individual and not to the community, viewing the individual as something separate or transcendent like God himself. (…) The demarcation line between individuals and society is not fixed.“ (RC 40)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„I believe that today we are transforming the concepts of autonomy and individuality into what we could paradoxically call networked individualities. (…) The principle of solidarity is not to be separated from the principle of autonomy.“ (RC 40)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„Some authors such as Jeremy Rifkin consider the traditional concept of privacy as a relic of bourgeois 19th century society. The concept of privacy is being replaced, or better: displaced, by the one of transparency. Be transparent! And then you are a good citizen.“ (RC 41-42)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„The right to privacy is also turned into its opposite through a right to information, particularly since 9/11 in the US: the right to privacy collides now with the right to security. But „privacy,“ understood as a human right, cannot be conceived apart from its essential connection with Western economic and democratic ideas and ideals“ (RC 42)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„Nothwithstanding its being radically questioned, privacy is (legally) protected at least in Germany by the principle of informational autonomy, which implies a right to data protection against asymmetric situations, as in the case of the electronic environment.“ (RC 42)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„We live in a big European house or a European Ohyake, or a public sphere, but we do not think that Watakusi things are per se bad things, or somehow less worthy than the public ones. Our only problem is that we do not know exactly what to consider as public or as private.“ (RC 45)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

„Our house is ambiguous (…) not only with regard to how we live within this house, but also with regard the ways we behave when we are guests in, for instance, a Japanese house or in a US House.“ (RC 45)

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2. Looking into Our Minds

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Conclusion„Comparing apparently similar or dissimilar

concepts that were coined in different historical and cultural settings is dangerous in at least two ways:

• one danger is that we remain satisfied with merely juxtaposing such concepts;

• the second is that we thereby remain in such an early stage of an intercultural dialogue, defined by what may only look like a common ground or an incompatible view.“ (RC 45)

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Conclusion

„We, Westerners, or at least some of us, still live in the house of Platonic metaphysics or in its derivatives, such as the Kantian one, with their „two worlds“ metaphor. (…) Japanese people (or at least some of them) live in a three-fold world.“ (RC 45)

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Conclusion

„Since the Enlightenment, Western morality is based on the idea of the individual as an autonomous being, having dignity, i.e., „representing“ humanity in his Person. (…) This dwelling in our „personal“ selves is what we mean when we say that our „privacy“ should be protected.“ (RC 46)

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Conclusion

„Japanese and Western morality are not necessarily incompatible or contradictory – but with regard to privacy, it seems as if opposite or contrary perspectives are at stake.“ (RC 46)

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Conclusion

„While Japanese morality stresses the value of the community and the dimension of „in-between“ (Aida) human beings, Westerners (at least some of us) underline individualism and autonomy.“ (RC 46)