By Rob Killick, European Conservative. (Photo: Mark Jones, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
“We used to guard the private sphere. Now we livestream it.”
Why are we so eager to bare our souls in public? From confessional podcasts to viral therapy sessions, privacy is out—and oversharing is in. In her provocative new book Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life, sociologist Dr. Tiffany Jenkins, a writer and cultural historian, explores how we lost the private sphere—and why it matters. Speaking with Rob Killick, she traces the collapse of the boundary between public and private, arguing that it wasn’t technology that broke it down, but politics—and that unless we relearn how to keep parts of ourselves hidden, we risk forgetting what it means to be human.
What first drew you to the subject of private life—and what questions were keeping you up at night as you planned the book?
I wanted to know how and why a division between public and private life emerged, because I knew it was not a natural phenomenon. And I also wanted to know how and why the divide between the two dissolved. And most books talk about privacy in a very narrow way, and they talk about it as eroded by technology. I knew that could not be the case. I also wanted to account for why those discussions did not really touch on the private sphere and aspects of privacy which have been given up easily, around the family, for example.
When and why did Western societies start carving out a space called ‘private life’? What was the spark?
It emerges first in Europe in the 17th century. But it does not begin as privacy. It begins as a separation from authority out of the religious wars. A private sphere was created really to allow freedom of worship. Religious conflicts had become so destructive, the battles over faith had caused bloodshed throughout Europe. So, it was a pragmatic and tactical thing that then erupted in the 17th century in a division between public and private. And the private sphere took shape, but also became valued. You can see this in things like the emergence of the novel, which discusses the values of the private sphere, about intimacy and domesticity.
Why does privacy matter—not just politically, but emotionally and culturally? What do we lose when it disappears?
It is important because it is a space for the individual and their family to develop an inner life—to repossess themselves, as John Stuart Mill would put it, to experiment in living. To just relax and mess around. So, it is important for that. It is important for intimacy because without it, you cannot have an intimate life. At the beginning of every relationship, there is a point when you tell something private as a way of being vulnerable, and that creates trust and loyalty and protection. And without privacy, you cannot have that. And it is essential for a public square, for politics. When you have some time away from everybody else, away from the scrutiny of others, and you go back into the public realm, you can be better citizens. So, for those three reasons, it is essential.