I watched God Grew Tired of Us three days ago and this post on invisibility came back to me. The movie is about the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan: 25,000 kids (ages 3 to 13) who fled villages during civil war, traveled barefoot across the sub-Saharan desert, and formed a huge surrogate family in order to survive. Just a look at their camp allows you to conclude that what we think of as privacy doesn’t operate there, and this is a positive trait of Dinka culture.

The documentary follows some of the “Boys” who are relocated to the US. In a NY Times interview, Christopher Quinn (the director) says, “The one thing that all of the guys who came to the United States were really surprised by — they ended up in this isolation that I don’t think they were prepared for. John’s roommate called me up one day about a month after they arrived. He was sitting in the apartment by himself, and he said, ‘This is the very first time I’ve ever, ever been alone.’ The most significant thing that I learned from Dinka culture is the importance, the real necessity, of family. Family not in the nuclear sense but family in this big sense, of you should always engage with your neighbors and make sure they’re O.K.”

(John is one of the Lost Boys who went to the US and later returned to Africa to build a clinic.) “John told me that if somebody got sick in his village, 12 or 18 guys would carry them to the hospital, 75 miles away. Half would lock arms and carry the person, then they would rotate, so they could always keep running.”

This tribal way of life echoes my thoughts when I said that, in the beginning, human societies had no walls, no closed doors or windows. We huddled close together for protection. Even now, we should be able to rely on our neighbors for security, not be afraid of one another. I remember a friend telling me that she was reluctant to walk around in her rich-people neighborhood, because she was sure that if she fell down and broke her leg, she could scream her lungs out and no one would come out of their homes to help. Cellphones have become walking companions. We feel terribly isolated, yet fear intrusion. I think that paranoia is also part of the Institutions of Fear that manipulate people into upholding systems that have consistently harmed lives across the planet.

This is why I thought that invisibility for the masses (not a cloak, more like an X-Men mutation and in the spirit of Damon Knight) could give us ground to knock down at least some of our fear of one another. But reading this thread, I realize it creeps people out more than it makes them curious to see what would happen.

He was a truly gifted truth-teller, able to put things into perspective without making us feel bad and instead inspiring us to act as positive change-agents in the world.

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those general and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could be the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.”
Wow.

When I was learning ASL, we had to do a project on semantics. We picked several words that had resonance in Deaf culture and then conducted interviews with both deaf and hearing people about what those words meant to them — not the dictionary definitions, but what they believed those words connoted, what emotional as well as literal meaning they carried.

And it was astonishing to find out how wide the differences were, not just between cultural groups but between individuals who seemed to have more in common.

So, I think you and I have different ideas about what “private” means. I’m not advocating for one idea or the other, just interested at how the differences play out. I don’t think that having sex in the store is “in private.” And so on some level we just don’t agree on terms. That’s cool with me, it makes me think more carefully about my own definitions.

About the beach thing, I agree with what you say, but I think it’s more interesting to turn it around, as I did: not “should I wear less than the natives wear?” but “can I force the natives to wear as much as I do?” That’s why I put it in terms of someone from a ‘conservative’ country being scandalized at an American beach. Someone might feel that his “privacy” was being invaded by all these immodest women running around showing skin.

This post is about privacy, but since that’s come up here a few times, I thought some of you might find it interesting.

Meanwhile, Duffy, you and I were hanging with the same sorts.

There was one memorable time I happened to see him on TV, though — he was on the panel of experts who discussed the TV movie “The Day After” after it aired in 1983. For those who don’t remember it, “The Day After” depicted the effects of nuclear war in a small city in Kansas. It was very controversial, denounced by right-wingers because showing how such a war would affect *us* would sap our will to fight the Evil Empire. Or something. So the network (ABC?) had to provide balance, which it did by airing a clip of Secretary of State George Schulz denouncing the movie from the White House, but looking rather green around the gills. On the panel, besides Sagan there were, I believe, General Brent Scowcroft, William F. Buckley, and I *think* Henry Kissinger. What impressed me was that Sagan was the only participant who wasn’t green around the gills and sweating nervously. He cheerfully and effectively rebutted the politicos. Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After confirms that Buckley and Sagan faced off but doesn’t mention anyone else, and I’m sure there were others. But it was 25 years ago. Anyway, Sagan thoroughly impressed me that night.