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RE: Does Freedom Require Radical Transparency or Radical Privacy?

in #eos7 years ago

People who have done nothing wrong will get hurt and some may die. As Gandhi said, nonviolence requires a certain faith in the goodness of man, but so does faith in government or anarchy.

Interesting that you invoke Gandhi, who was at the same time an amazing diplomat, inspiring many revolutionary movements, and on the other a pretty terrible guy in his personal life, regarding his son whom he hated and disowned, eventually dying a drunk; his wife (I think the records are too fuzzy here but he wasn't good to here to be specific, that's for sure); and his niece or nieces whom he slept with naked in bed to test chastity (source but this is common knowledge).

However, he did this openly. Even those who defend him are forced to plead with us to basically ignore this weirdness and not let it taint his very important work:

In approaching this issue one must keep in mind that Gandhi was an eccentric character. For Gandhi, conquering carnal emotions was a way towards emancipation. His experiments with his adult neices were non-sexual and consensual in nature. We know of these experiments because Gandhi led a very open lifestyle, discussing his ventures with his followers. On this issue, Ramachandra Guha wrote the following:

“In the last year of his life, as communal riots erupted all over India, Gandhi thought it might have something to do with his own lack of moral purity. So he tested his celibacy afresh with two of his nieces.
The experiment was, admittedly, bizarre. Perhaps Gandhi used his authority to coerce the two young women into participating. Perhaps they were damaged by the experiment. Even so, against this one-off abuse of women’s rights one must set the Mahatma’s lifelong work for women’s emancipation. Gandhi campaigned against sati and child marriage. He urged women to shed the purdah and take to education. He encouraged women to participate in political movements in South Africa and India.”

In the end, it is probably best to not consider the personal lives of public people. Gandhi had his eccentricities, and if we consider every quirk and eccentricity of every leader in history, we will be left with no one in history to call a leader. Gandhi is an acclaimed moral authority, and judging him based on average human traits is redundant.

Particularly the last line is disgustingly apologetic, implying that he his above the moral code which the average human is subject. But regardless, the point is that Gandhi's transparency did not save these people from his negative influence and actions. Force and authority are not always predicated on the arbitration of information flow, it is also to do with force, psychological exploitation, and other forms of coercion.

However I will say it's very difficult to make proclamations of what a radically transparent society would look like because it's very far into science fiction. But we may all find out, and I think it will be much much worse. My position is still that in any domain, in any sphere of action, only what is relevant should be considered and therefore known.