ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that in many individuals, the public realm has historically evoked and continues to evoke the emotions of fear and loathing and that, especially in the contemporary setting, those feelings may contribute to a penchant for privatism. It examines the conditions that might make its existence possible, and evaluating evidence for the reality of that existence. The chapter shows that individual "feelings" that, given the possibility of privatism, might make it desirable and considers the possibility that privatism—as a life-style choice that some individuals make—may, in part, be a creature of antiurbanism and may, once created, loop back and feed the cultural theme that helped give it birth. It reviews evidence that contemporary American outcasts such as the homeless with loathing. More commonly, any possible association between the categories goes unremarked as the fearful focus upon their individual nightmares.
