ABSTRACT
This chapter draws attention to the main enemies of privacy in own time. One is Community. The other is Political Mobilization, either in a humane cause or a repressive and destructive one. Political Mobilization is an aspect of economic and social conflict. The near absence of a public draws attention to the fact that privacy is an evolutionary product of social development. The chapter looks at some of the forces that have created specifically Western theories and practices about privacy. It discusses some of the general sources of public authority. In simple nonliterate societies the search for privacy, where it exists, amounts to a withdrawal or escape from other people or, in some cases, a more or less tolerated evasion of a diffuse public opinion about proper behavior. The achievements, however, fell far short of private security through public means. The technological threat to privacy from electronic surveillance and similar devices will probably increase.
