I. JAPANESE
AND WESTERN SUBJECTIVITY
One main point of Bin Kimura's analysis concerns the aspect of feeling
guilty.
European and Japanese subjectivities are similar insofar as individuals
feel
guilty vis-à-vis a higher and meta-individual dimension or
power. But
in the
case of European subjectivity, this power comes from beyond in a
vertical
sense, while in Japan
it comes from a horizontal space between us. If we consider this
experience of
feeling guilty as a basic moral experience, then we have a key for an
intercultural analysis of the Tutiura homicide as described by my
Japanese
colleagues. That is, if we operate within a (Western) society
with strong
or substantial subjectivities, which are continuous, then the meaning
of
"privacy" and respect for this "privacy" concerns basically
this individuality, i.e., as a continuous, substantial something that
should be
protected, no matter the situation and no matter what happened.
Indeed, respect for autonomy and individuality belong to the
basic moral
and legal norms in the West. On the contrary, if we are
dealing with a
(Japanese) subjectivity – one which is not
permanent, but
dependent on situations and networks of relationships – then
there is no
possibility for respecting "privacy" in the Western sense as a
permanent quality of a substantial subject. The result is a world with
clear
rules – Japanese Seken – that are not based on the respect for
permanent
identities but on the respect for the space(s) and situations between
individualities – Japanese Aida. This could be a reason
why
Western privacy rules remain Shakai to Japanese, i.e., not
related to
the structure of Japanese subjectivity. In sum, following my Japanese
colleagues’ analysis, the Japanese moral
world – or ethos
in Greek terms, i.e., the moral rules proper to a specific society –
embraces
three dimensions and their mutual relationships, beginning with Seken
and its negation Ikai; Seken in turn is contrasted with
a more Western Shakai; and
finally, Ikai contrasts
with Shakai as well. According to my colleague [N] and other
Japanese
scholars like Yoshihiko Amino and Masao Yamaguchi (this volume) Ikai
is a
dangerous but at the same time an attractive place similar to the
Dionysian
dimension of human existence as analized by Nietzsche. When we discuss
these
issues in a comparative way, we are dealing with what I call
intercultural
information ethics. (2)
II. WHERE DO
WE DWELL IN THE WEST?
One meaning of the Greek
concept ethos
is ‘to dwell" (for instance, in Heraclitus' (ca. 544-483 B.C.E.)
famous dictum, ethos anthropos daimon, or, following
Heidegger's
translation, "the (usual) place where humans dwell is the openness
where
the god (as the un-usual) can appear” (3). If the Japanese ethos
is
threefold, 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 or, in Plato’s (427-347 B.C.E.) terms, the topos
aisthetos (sensory place) and the topos noetos (rational
place). 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” (Reich
der Zwecke).
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
because we are
also “rational beings” – Kant uses the neutral term vernünftiges
Wesen –
by giving ourselves universalizable laws of action and by freely
obeying them
(4). The moral excellence of human beings consists in being capable of
acting on
the basis of such self-given, universalizable reasons or
"maxims." This capacity is grasped, following Kant, in the practical
experience of the categorical imperative. Kant postulates the
existence
of such a place, the kingdom of ends, where rational beings dwell but
which remains
theoretically unknowable.
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.
In
fact, this difference is stated mostly either as a dogmatic legal
postulate or
it is theoretically related to some presumed prerogative of human
existence
such as rationality, consciousness, or personality, making difficult to
understand the original Kantian concept of dignity (Würde).
In many
cases, a historical reason for acknowledging human dignity is given,
namely the
atrocities of World War II. In addition to philosophy and history, a
third root
of human dignity is the Judeo-Christian tradition with its conception
of an
immortal soul created by God in his own image (imago dei).
This brief overview shows
that there
is a tendency in Western thought towards a twofold dwelling – 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. In
other
words, our experiences of subjectivity and, correspondingly, of the
fundament
of privacy, are in some way also discontinuous at least with regard to
the
places where this subjectivity is supposed to be at home (whether for a
while
or forever), and with regard to the view of which of these places is
the
“common” or usual one and which is the “odd” one. We have been moving
two and a
half thousand years from one place to the other and sometimes we have
just
changed the furniture.
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 (fundamentum inconcussum)
in
which we can dwell, namely the cogito or res cogitans,
as well as
our corporality or res extensa (6). But in fact, there is also
the
Christian tradition of denial of the self which means less the
dissolution of
the self as in the Japanese tradition, as the idea(l) of
submitting the
self and its will to the will of God, or, in the Kantian version, to
the
categorical imperative. In some way, the experience of the categorical
imperative is as much an experience of being exposed to something
non-natural
or odd as it is the possibility of giving oneself universal laws of
action that
are not based on physical experience and that may even contradict or at
least
transcend the personal interests of the subjectivity – where
subjectivity is supposed
to move freely into another place as its "natural house," namely, to
the place of social life of “rational beings” on the basis of mutual
acknowledgement, and therefore of respecting each other's privacy or
autonomous
being. This is the reason why privacy is such an important moral
good in
our Western societies. I would tentatively say that the moral
experience as the
experience of being able to act in a good or bad manner corresponds to
the
experience of Ikai as a "different world," i.e., as different
from the common sense world of natural experience and purely subjective
interests. The moral self can find an "asylum" in this moral world
which is totally different from the world of power, economy and
violence or the
common sense world.
I put this experience in
somewhat
simplified version in order to make the structure of Western Shakai more distinct. Morality
in the West is a dangerous
as well as an attractive place. Our literature, our works of art, and
particularly our movies show very often this ambivalence and we praise
them
particularly when human existence is re-presented in all its tragic and
antinomical dimensions, i.e., when our universal moral laws collide
with
unforeseen situations and we have the impression of being only
partially guilty
for our bad deeds, i.e., for not taking care of the other in his/her
inalienable autonomy and subjectivity by reflecting on the
universability of
our maxims. This was particularly represented in classical Greek
tragedy as the
contradiction between the Fate (moira) and the human will trying
to
master the unforeseeable and going therefore beyond its limits (hybris),
the key moral experience being the one of moderation (sophrosyne),
self-discipline, and developing the capacity of taking care of oneself (epimeleia
heautou)as stressed today for instance by Michel Foucault’s
“technologies
of the self." (7) With regard to this kind of Greek dwelling, the
ethics of love as propagated by Christianity was seen in the
Greco-Roman
civilization as primarily something alien. Christianity, on the
contrary,
managed to integrate the pagan ethos and its theoretical
foundation in a
long and varied history within its perspective.
The Enlightenment brought
about a new
conception of human equality, universality, and justice that partly
removed the
old foundations, reshaping the house(s) where many of us live
politically,
legally and morally today. Because our subjectivity is a result of
these
experiences, these changes also make it difficult from within our own
history to
place the questions of privacy and guilty within one
perspective. We
feel guilty partly with regard to God; partly with regard to the
finitude of
human existence – as Heidegger stressed through his conception of a
finite and
timely “There-Being” or Dasein that grounds as
“nothingness” the
options of human action; (7) and partly with regard to humanity as a
horizon
which is universal and autonomous, but not purely natural.
It seems to me that the
question of
privacy should be considered from a Western perspective within these
stories,
arguments, and experiences. Many of these took centuries to grow and
led to
power struggles and wars within Europe
as well
as with other cultures. Europeans became aware that the autonomous
responsibility for our actions is rooted in ourselves as individuals
capable of
transcending our selves. This experience of human autonomy and
universality,
with all its ambiguities and limitations, is at the core, it seems to
me, of
what we mean when we say that we must protect "privacy." We believe,
as my Japanese colleagues remark with regard to the homicide in
Tutiura,
that this kind of public portrayal is an attempt to question or even to
give up
the tension between the public and the private worlds in which we live.
Western
newspapers are full of such stories with all details, pictures,
interviews and
so on and this is not only a speciality of the tabloid press. Human
curiosity,
malicious joy, and other “common sense” incentives are part of our
‘normal’
dwelling
In sum, I would suggest
that we need
a more detailed analysis of the case my Japanese colleagues
refer to
by identifying differences and similarities with regard to mass media,
ethics,
and information in our cultures. According to my interpretation, for us
Westerners
– to use a very fuzzy concept – public information on such matters
as
disasters, crime, war, and illness does not come from outside our
secularized
morality or Shakai, but we are eager to find out through
ethical
reflection and legal action where the limits of such informative
actions lie,
i.e., where are the limits of using human beings just as means and not
also as
"ends in themselves"?
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. Probably in the case my Japanese colleagues refer to, the
reason
for looking at this publication of personal or "private" information
as going beyond Seken may have different roots and also
different
outcomes. It seems to me that we in Western countries sometimes think
about "privacy" in terms of a dichotomy with regard to the
public sphere or what we call in German Öffentlichkeit.
Other
dichotomies are, for instance, individual vs. community, autonomy vs.
heteronomy, and identity vs. difference. We also have the
tendency,
arising from our metaphysical traditions (at least since Descartes), to
give
primacy to the individual and not to the community, viewing the
individual as
something separate or transcendent like God himself. This is probably
one
reason why we try to protect the individual and particularly the world
it
dwells or its "privacy" and why we sometimes think about public
dwelling as a secondary phenomenon that may interfere with or even
threaten
privacy, as in the case my Japanese colleagues describe. But this is, I
guess,
only a reaction that leaves unquestioned the phenomenon we face today
with
regard to digital communication and mass media. The demarcation line
between
individuals and society is not fixed. Something that seems today like a
violation of privacy can be considered tomorrow as a normal situation.
For
example, the TV series “Big Brother” was questioned from a moral
point of
view as a threat to privacy – while in
fact, most of the time it is just boring.
III. INFORMATIONAL
AUTONOMY AND PRIVACY IN THE WEST
The information scientist Rainer
Kuhlen conceives the concept of "privacy" (Privatheit) not
primarily in the sense of data protection or of ‘the right to be let
alone’, but
of what we call in Germany “informational autonomy” (informationelle
Selbstbestimmung) that Kuhlen understands as the capacity to choose
and use
autonomously knowledge and information in an electronic environment
(8). This
idea of privacy is based on the Western concept of autonomy at least as
a
“regulative idea” (Kant) that is related at the same time to the
society in
which such autonomous individualities live. As Kant himself stresses in
his opusculum, "An Answer to the Question: What is
Enlightenment," (9) we
can
think by ourselves when we are permitted to freely communicate our
thoughts to
others and vice versa. This can be done if and only if the
(digital)
media through which we communicate and the content they transmit are
not
basically submitted to censorship – including implicit and/or explicit
censorship in the form of real or perceived violations of our data
privacy.
In fact, I believe that today we are
transforming the concepts of autonomy and individuality into what we
could
paradoxically call networked individualities. Our
being-in-the-world-with-others is basically a
being-in-the-networked-world. The
ethics of informational autonomy is being conceived as an ethics of
knowledge
sharing. The principle of solidarity is not to be separated from the
principle
of autonomy. But when we speak about privacy, autonomy, and solidarity
we do
relate explicitly or implicitly to cultural and religious traditions of
the
West instead of creating a purely analytic distinction. This is why, I
believe,
other cultures may understand similar terms in different ways or even
do no
have some of these terms at all, not in the sense of a pure relativism
of
cultural and linguistic incommensurability but in the sense that the
stories
behind the concepts are an essential part of them (11).
The legal discussion on data privacy in Germany goes back to a decision
or our
Constitutional Body (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in 1983
concerning the
so-called Volkszählungsurteil (Volkszählung =
national census)
against what was seen as excessive state interference in the
field of
personal data, but our first data protection law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz)
dates from 1978. In the US
the Privacy Act dates from 1974 and the Electronic
Communications
Privacy Act from 1986. In the European Union the Directive on
Data
Protection dates from 1995. According to Kuhlen, in Germany
we have
derived from the principle of (informational) privacy (informationelle
Privatheit) the following fundamental principles (Grundsätze):
- Principle of
legitimation (Rechtmässigkeit)
- Principle of
accuracy (Richtigkeit)
- Principle of
defining the goal (Zweckbestimmung)
- Principle of
non-discrimination (Nichtdiskriminierung)
- Principle of
data "economy" (Datensparsamkeit)
- Principle of
anonymity (Anonymität)
- Principle of
informational symmetry (informationelle Symmetrie)
- Principle of
transparency (Transparenz) and Right to get information (Recht
auf Auskunft) (12)
We still do not have something like the US Freedom of
Information Act.
Moreover, when people are willing at least partially to give up their
rights to
information privacy, because they will be compensated in return by a
greater
ability to pursue their economic interests – informational privacy,
understood
as data protection in the electronic environment, is not being
considered by
such stakeholders as a presupposition for an autonomous life. This can
be
considered as a tendency of current e-commerce, in contrast to our data
privacy
laws, and as a relativization of the privacy principle – and with it,
of our
basic (modern) ideas/ideal of an autonomous subject as well as of
liberal
democracy.
We can also notice that
there is a
difference between:
- distribution
data as exchanged for instance through e-mail, in forums or
chats – in which (State) surveillance on formal data as well as
on content is possible;
- interaction
data created during navigation in the network – particularly
accessible by Internet providers;
- and
transaction data as stored by internet providers particularly with
regard to economic transactions. (12)
In all three cases, however, is possible to undertake all kinds of
"data
mining" without any possibility of protecting a right to privacy
(although
savvy users may seek to protect their anonymity, e.g., by using
software such
as Anonymizer, Rewebber, or Steganos). And some
authors
such as Jeremy Rifkin consider the traditional concept of privacy as a
relic of
bourgeois 19th century society. (13) The concept of privacy is being
replaced,
or better: displaced, by the one of transparency. Be transparent!
and
then you are a good citizen.
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. Notwithstanding its being
radically
questioned, privacy is (legally) protected at least in Germany
by the
principle of informational autonomy (informationelle Selbstbestimmung)
which implies a right to data protection against asymmetric situations,
as in
the case of the electronic environment. But at the same time, the
West is
paradoxically approaching a less strict conception of privacy as
an
"intrinsic good" in order to see it as an "instrumental
good." (14) This situation may derive from the fact of the shift to
what I
call our being-in-the-networked-world. This does not mean, I believe,
that
Western subjects are now becoming "Japanized" – but that our view of
autonomy is changing, as well as our concepts of being a "subject"
and a "data subject" altogether. We now speak of "privacy"
in reference to communities, not just to isolated subjects. I do not
know if
the concept of "community privacy" is a good philosophic and legal
concept, but certainly it would be worth exploring it to see if this
also the
case when we deal with different views of community and privacy in the
West and
in Japan.
IV. "DENIAL
OF SELF" IN JAPAN AND IN THE WEST
As my Japanese colleagues
make clear
in their article in this volume, while we in the Western world think
that the
self is something to be protected because it is the most precious
"thing" we have – in Japan,
it makes no sense to protect something that has only a negative value.
On the
contrary, as we see there, this something called "self" should be
denied, not protected. From a Japanese perspective, according to the
well-known
author Hideo Kobayashi, the basis of criticism is the denial of
self (musi).
For us in the West, by contrast, the self is the basis of criticism and
therefore it should be protected. This also includes the idea of
self-criticism
as a moral virtue, and, more basically, the idea that we should let
others
criticize us. (Indeed, there is in German culture the sensibility, "If
you
do not criticize me you are not taking me seriously!") According to the
French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas, contrary to the traditional
idea that
criticism and particularly moral judgement belong to the autonomous
"ego," this view of criticism from the perspective of the other
is in fact the basic moral situation. (15) In this sense,
Lévinas' ethics is a
heteronomic "ethics of the other" that goes beyond the traditional
(Kantian) ethics based on the autonomous self.
Indeed, we have the
impression that if we suppress the subject we are unable to
be critical. (16) In fact, the German educational system, similarly to
other
Western systems, is oriented towards the formation of a critical self.
We encourage
our students to develop an own ‘personal’ view of scientific and moral
matters.
We distinguish this critical formation from a mere ‘subjectivist’ one.
To have
just one's own opinion is not necessarily a sign of being a critical
subject.
This educational emphasis on developing a critical subjectivity
reflects
Kant's view of the subject as highly objectivist as it states
boundaries
to the metaphysical imagination of a subject that is uncritical with
regard to
the boundaries of his/her knowledge. These boundaries correspond to the
“objects of experience” (Gegenstände der Erfahrung).
Critical thinking
means, according to Kant, to be able to see this basic limitation of
human
subjectivity as far as it deals with theoretical knowledge. In
particular, the categorical
imperative means that the subject freely accepts a practical or moral
law which
is "in" the subject but which at the same time compels the subject to
act according to a universal measure beyond his/her individual or
private
interests. In this way – at least within Germany but increasingly
within the
European Community – the concept of "privacy" can be interpreted as not
primarily a way of protecting an isolated individual with his/her
subjective needs and preferences, but as concerning this individual as
far as
he/she "re-presents" humanity. While for Japanese "denial of
self" means "approval of the group" or, perhaps more
basically, to give rise to that which is "in between" us, i.e.,
nothingness – in the German case (at least as far as we are Kantians),
the
"denial of self" means denial of the individual preferences in favour
of a universal interest. We may even say that prima facie the
categorical imperative looks like a Western version of "denial of
self".
On the other
hand, there is a
much more trivial interpretation of "privacy," which ideed collides
with the Japanese view: this is the idea of protecting the self as a
bearer of
individual preferences and beliefs as well as a representative of
humanity. We
could call this idea the individualistic foundation of privacy, in
contrast
with the Kantian version, a universalistic one, as discussed above.
In
both cases we have to do with the concept of respect that plays an
important
role in everyday relations between human beings. This concept plays
also an
important role in the constitution of Japanese subjectivity and
correspondingly
in the notion of privacy. (17) But what is important from a
Japanese
perspective is to protect the Seken rules – not the
"privacy" of the individual with his/her subjective preferences and
beliefs of his/her self as representing humanity. The key difference
with
regard to the Western conceptions of privacy seems to be that the self
within Seken
is something that should be denied, not protected while in the
West the
self is the basis for critical thinking and moral action. When speaking
about
protection of privacy from a Japanese perspective we are not addressing
the
moral issue from a Seken but just from a Shakai
perspective.
But this contrast in terms
of
positive and negative evaluations of "self" gets even more
complicated: the conception of the self as something to be denied
echoes in
some regards the psychoanalytic discovery that we are not masters in
our own
house, as critically analized by Bin Kimura.
V. PRIVACY IN CYBERSPACE:
ARE WE MASTERS IN OUR OWN HOUSE?
Our present discussion on privacy within
the context of the digital “infosphere” (L. Floridi) (18) includes the
danger
that both spheres, the private and the public one, disappear. The
question is,
of course, which are the (cultural) alternatives to this situation or
how
different cultural traditions will react practically and pragmatically,
i.e.,
by ways of networking new and old meanings which is no more and no less
as what
we are trying to do with this common reflection. What Tamura says
about
the Japanese attitude towards cyberspace as a kind of private sphere
(e.g., in
the example of web diaries in which personal secrets are intentionally
revealed) is very interesting indeed. In the West we have, I
believe, the
feeling that a personal website is an opportunity for making public
some
(private) aspects of one’s life. Weblogs are very popular in the West,
too, and
they are viewed, I believe, also as a kind of making public one's
feelings and
ideas. This could be interpreted as a "post-modern" Western reaction
against
a bourgeois view of the private sphere as something that should not be
publicly
disclosed and as the "container" of whatever we might be ashamed
about in the event others were to reveal these aspects of our lives
without our
permission. I wonder whether the Japanese feelings about cyberspace as
part of
the private sphere are related to the fact that, as Tamura himself
remarks, the
Japanese society is not individualistic? Cyberspace is just an
enlargement of
the space between us (Aida), to use Bin Kimura's words – a space
that is
"private," but in a collective, non-individualistic way. Another
reason for this perception could be that cyberspace is viewed primarily
as a
Japanese cyberspace at least as far as weblogs are in Japanese and
therefore
normally not accessible to strangers – the number of netizens who
can
understand Japanese being probably very small. But, in fact, the
relations
between cyberspace and (old) mass media in Japan
seem to be more complicated.
According to my colleague [N], Japanese weblogs are considered to be
media or
communication tools for promoting individualism. But at the same time
with
regard to topics and readers "the Japanese weblogs are the media of
reflecting the values and meanings of Seken." In other words,
"Japanese weblogs are a continuation of private diary opened to the
public
(or people in Seken) in the Internet." (19)
Moreover, common
definitions of
privacy as "the right to be let alone" and "the right to control
one's personal information" are indeed subject to different
interpretations
according to different cultural backgrounds. In the West, these views
are based
on the opposition between the "public" and the "private,"
while in Japan
the question of "privacy invasion" concerns the sphere of mass media,
and particularly of newspapers. It is a problem for newspapers
regarding
how far they "invade" privacy, which is no less than what
people regard normally in their Seken perspective as already
public or ordinary life or common sense, but not as something to
be exposed
to the kind of "publicity" as created by the mass media. So the
"crisis of privacy issue" is viewed, logically, as a Shakai
issue. This implies that Japanese do not identify cyberspace with mass
media,
although there is a strong tendency of the latter to "invade"
cyberspace by giving users the impression that this is just another
channel to
receive (and not to exchange) information and that they should
therefore remain
as passive or at least as dependent of the senders as they were in the
past.
Nothing is more dangerous for mass media than the opportunity given to
users or
receivers to become senders. Viewed as an interactive space,
cyberspace is
then, particularly for Japanese, an enlargement of their ordinary
Seken
in-between. According to my colleague [N], what is a threat for the
(Japanese)
in-between "is the mistaken belief that we Japanese can solve
fundamental
social problems, including problems of privacy, through the plans or
thoughts
based on Shakai as well as the mistaken belief that Japanese Watakusi
is the same thing as Western individualism." (20)
According to Bin Kimura, Japanese culture makes a strong difference
between the
‘private’ sphere within one's own house and the ‘public’ sphere outside
the
house. But as we see in the article by Nakada and Takamura, Watakusi
is
indeed not the same thing as Western individualism. Is this difference
only a
correlation and not, as in the West, an opposition? I mean, do Japanese
consider their public life as a kind of "big family" within which
there is the sphere of the "small family"? This would correspond in
some way to the description given by Hannah Arendt of the relation
between the
public and the private an ancient Greece
and Rome.
(21) But according to my Japanese colleague, contradictory views
of
"Seken, Shakai, Ikai (and probably of Ohyake and
Watakusi)" can be found everywhere in Japanese mass media. He
writes:
It is very
popular that while
protection of privacy and human rights are reported somewhere in a
newspaper,
moderate or dramatic (i.e., disguised as tragedy) violations of privacy
can be
found somewhere in the same newspaper. Or, likewise, a homicide is
dealt with
in different ways by the same TV channel; formal portrayals reflect the
values
of Shakai, and "popular" portrayals reflect values of Seken
and sometimes part of values of Ikai. (22)
Our Western media are,
indeed, no
less contradictory with regard to, say, legal and moral norms,
religious
beliefs, and self-given codes of ethics. But these contradictions within
both Western and the Japanese cultures, cannot be simply correlated or,
even
worse, identified. As my colleague [N] remarks, "both common
definitions
of privacy as 'the right to be left alone' and 'the right to
control
one's personal information' are indeed subject to different
interpretation
according to different cultural backgrounds. In the West these views
are based
on the opposition between the 'public' and the 'private' while in Japan
the
questions of 'privacy' or 'privacy' invasion are more complicated
because of
the influence of the plurality of Seken, Shakai, Ikai or the
plurality
of the Ohyake-Watakusi axis and the private-public axis.
Sometimes the
problems of privacy belong to Shakai and sometimes they belong to
Seken."
(23)
As well, according to Bin Kimura, Japanese subjectivity is a weak
one,
i.e., it rests on the in-between (aida) and not on a strong
"ego" as in the West. He concludes from this that when they leave
their homes, Japanese persons thus need some kind of mask or ritual Seken
(though I do not know if he uses this word as such) in order not to
"lose
their faces." According to my colleague [N], for Japanese people,
"the right to be let
alone" means different things according to
different frameworks: "in cyberspace, there sometimes seems to be a
kind
of resistance against the confusion that might be brought about by
transferring
some contents in a certain area with a certain framework into another
area with
a different framework. Just as Bin Kimura suggests, most of Japanese
feel that
they need different 'faces' in different occasions, even in
cyberspace."
(24)
In the West, in contrast, personal
data are viewed as something permanent that should be basically
protected
independently of the framework in which they are used. One important
instrument
for this protection is the principle of informed consent. The concept
of
person,
which is derived from the Latin persona, i.e. mask or
character, has a
long and rich semantic tradition. Nevertheless, modern information
technology
has brought about different kinds of (digital) identities and
interfaces. It is
becoming more and more difficult to define what kind of "personal
data" and in which situations should be protected. We are becoming, as
I
mentioned above, networked individualities.
All this brings us to the question of what do we mean in different
cultures by
"shame" (aidos in Greek) – which was a central
concept of ancient Greek society. It is useful to remember that Sigmund
Freud
said that due to the realm of the unconscious in our lives, the “ego” (Ich)
is “not even master in his own house” (daß es nicht einmal
Herr ist im
eigenen Hause), but remains dependent on “spare messages” coming
from
unconscious processes in our spiritual life. (25) Freud’s remark
questions a
very popular expression in Western languages like in German: “Jeder ist
Herr in
seinem Haus” or in French: “être maître chez soi” or in
English: “a man is king
in his own home" or “a man’s house is his castle.” We use to say that
it
is not possible to serve two masters (Niemand kann zwei Herren dienen).
Freud’s remark calls for a more detailed discussion on the question of
the
places where we live in or on our ethos. The Greek heritage
provided us
with the dichotomy between the physical and the metaphysical world that
we
translated into a secularized language by giving to human beings an
absolute
priority with regard to all other things. Since then, and particularly
since
Kant, we live in the house of ‘human dignity’ as well as in the
physical world,
the only bridge between these two houses being the categorical
imperative.
(26)
In light of this complex
genealogy,
we have to ask, where do we, as Europeans, live today? I would say that
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.
In other
words, our house is ambiguous and the spirit of the time or Zeitgeist
seems to be such that this situation is not just negative but that it
allows us
to be more flexible – not only with regard to how we live within this
house,
with its complex history and architecture, but also with regard to the
ways we
behave when we are guests in, for instance, a Japanese house or in
a US house. Even so, it does seem clear that in Japan
(and China) the
views about
private rights and public policy may be even more community oriented
than in Europe.
CONCLUSION
To summarize some of the
most
important points of contrast and similarity between Western and
Japanese views on privacy is not an easy task
– not only because this intercultural dialogue is at its
beginning, (27)
but also because 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 – a common ground or incompatible
view
that in light of further dialogue, however, will dissolve into far more
complex
inter-relationships, just as we have seen here.
Nevertheless, such
dialogues must
begin somewhere – and so here is my overview:
1. 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. As my
Japanese colleagues argue, however, Japanese people (or at least some
of them)
live in a three-fold world.
2. Some Westerners
believe in a
Christian theology which introduces the personified idea of the evil
with its
own house, Hell. Ikai is not the same but it creates a similar
polarization with our normal ethos or morality (as parallel
with
Japanese Seken).
3. Since the
Enlightenment,
Western morality is based on the idea of the individual as an
autonomous
being, having dignity (Würde), i.e., “re-presenting”
humanity in his
Person (die Menschheit in seiner Person) as stressed by Kant in The
Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen
Vernunft, A 155). According
to Kant, human dignity, as implying freedom and autonomy, is
grounded on
our belonging to the noumenal world and not just to (deterministic but
phenomenal) nature. This dwelling in our “personal” selves is what we
mean when
we say that our “privacy” should be protected. It is the basis of our
democratic system.
4. Given the fact that in
Japanese
Buddhist traditions the "self" is "nothing" (musi)
– this idea of Western subjectivity, especially with all its
political
and scientific-technical ramifications, is difficult to understand. The
moral,
social and political questions arising from it, and particularly the
notion of
privacy, belong to Shakai. Thus, Japanese and Western morality,
Seken
and Shakai, are not necessarily entirely incompatible or
contradictory – but with regard to privacy, it seems as if
opposite or
contrary perspectives are at stake.
5. 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.
As a result, the Japanese conception of privacy, if we want to use this
Shakai
term, is community-oriented and corresponds in some way to our ancient
Greek
(and Roman) ethos tradition, as analyzed by Hannah Arendt.
Since
Modernity, however, Westerners live in a dichotomy of the private
and the
public sphere that, as my Japanese colleagues argue, only loosely
parallels the
Japanese distinction between Ohyake (public) and Watakusi
(private). In particular, for Japanese, private things are less
worthy
than public things. This is related to the negation of the self (musi).
6. The concept
of privacy as
"the right to control one's personal information" arises in Japan,
on the one hand, with the arrival of the information society and
particularly
with the ‘invasion’ of privacy by some mass media. But, on the other
hand, as
our Japanese colleague [T] has shown, Japanese newspapers have been
reporting
about privacy issues as news, i.e., trying to protect privacy
by
following the values of Shakai. Japanese society seems to have
imported
only some aspects of the Western concept of privacy and particularly
not the
‘individualistic’ perspective that ascribes privacy to the dignity of
the
person. This only partial importation is probably the reason for the
ambivalent
attitude towards the question of privacy not only with regard to mass
media,
but also with regard to the Internet as well – and of the Japanese mass
media
themselves. This ambivalence reflects the different places in which
Japanese
dwell, namely, Seken, Shakai, and Ikai, as well
as Watakusi
and Ohyake.
7. There
seems to be
fundamental differences between the Japanese and Western culture(s)
regarding the
concepts of autonomy and privacy. Our dichotomies (public/private,
public/privacy, individual/society, "noumenal"/material worlds,
dignity/value etc.) do not correspond to Japanese trichotomy of Shakai,
Seken
and Ikai as well as to some key insights on the self, the
community, and
the "in-between."
8. With the advent of
psychoanalysis,
i.e., with Sigmund Freud’s discovery of the unconscious, as well as
with
today’s brain research, the Western concept of the "Ego" has been
radically criticized. There is an ongoing debate on the concepts of,
for
instance, autonomy and free will as well as a tendency to dwell, so to
speak,
only in our ‘natural’ house. At the same time, all our official
political basic
statements, for instance in our constitutions, stress the traditional
view of
human dignity and its derivatives, on which the idea of privacy (and
private!)
is grounded.
9. We Westerners seem to
live
simultaneously in different worlds according to different traditions
that
partly overlap and partly contradict themselves. This makes the
dialogue with
the Japanese culture even more difficult because what they import or
perceive
as Shakai concerns only some of these stories of our Western
houses.
This is particularly the case when we take into account the differences
between Europe – which again an
oversimplification! –
and the United
States.
We have partly contradictory traditions and stories within our own
European
house(s). To ‘protect privacy’ may mean, in the US,
particularly since 9/11 and with a long and strong individualistic
tradition,
something very different as, say, in Germany or in other
countries.
10. In a very general way
we can say
that the concept of privacy in the West is oriented towards the
individual,
while Eastern countries – and also other cultures like the African
ones, for
instance – stress the concept of community and give privacy at least
partly a
negative connotation. In case they tackle this question in a more or
less
positive sense, it seems that it loses its strong roots in Western
anthropology
and becomes a practical question of, say, how to deal or how to protect
personal (digital) data in the information society.
A discussion of these
deeper roots of
the question of privacy belongs to an intercultural dialogue that aims
not only
at solving common practical problems when we use information technology
but
also at trying to understand how we became who we are and what is going
on with
our selves and the houses in which we live in this new digital and
global
environment. Beyond the current discussion, this further dialogue
should
include concern with particularly two topics:
1) The invasion of the
public sphere
by the private one. This is very paradoxical but we need to protect the
public
sphere no less than the private one, particularly in the Western
countries (in
all of them?), e.g., when people use their cellular phones everywhere
and speak
loudly about their very private affairs.
2) The question of the body,
particularly as it is the object of digitization in its different
parts. This
means that what is originally most private, i.e., our own body, is
becoming
more and more object of digital analysis. What was philosophically
perceived as
a unity in the Middle Ages – anima forma corporis, i.e.,
the soul
as form of the body – is now becoming more and more digitally
fragmented.
Privacy is not just related to the physical but to the physical body as
digitally grasped. In this case, the question of privacy understood as
data
protection is expanded from the idea of digital data about the person to the body conceived as an
information system. This conception then leads to further questions of
security
and identification concerning all kinds of data, such as genetic data,
biometric data etc.(28)
As I hope these questions
suggest,
our dialogues have only just begun.