Intercultural Aspects of Digitally Mediated Whoness, Privacy and Freedom

1. Intercultural Aspects of Digitally Mediated Whoness, Privacy and Freedom Rafael Capurro, ICIE and ANIE 14th Annual IS Conference Department of Information Studies University of Zululand, South Africa11 4th-6th September 2013 http://www.capurro.de/zululand.ppt

2. Introduction • Rafael Capurro, Michael Eldred and Daniel Nagel: ‘IT and Privacy from an Ethical Perspective: Digital Whoness: Identity, Privacy and Freedom in the Cyberworld’. In Johannes Buchmann (ed.) Internet Privacy. Acatech Studie, Berlin: September 2012, pp. 63-142. http://www.acatech.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Baumstruktur_nach_Website/Acatech/root/de/Publikationen/Projektberichte/acatech_STUDIE_Internet_Privacy_WEB.pdf Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

3. Introduction Abridged version of Rafael Capurro, Michael Eldred and Daniel Nagel: Digital Whoness: Identity, Privacy and Freedom in the Cyberworld. Frankfurt: Ontos 2013. See preview: http://books.google.de/books?id=6VBLrAVkXfIC&dq=digital%20whoness&hl=de&source=gbs_book_other_versions Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

4. Introduction • Recent research in information ethics shows that the notion and practices of privacy vary in different cultural traditions, thus having an impact also on digitally mediated whoness and freedom. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

5. Introduction • This intercultural discussion is still in its initial stages with regard to the ‘Far East’ and also African and Latin American cultures, just as it is in comparative studies between, for instance, Europe and the United States as addressed, for instance, by Helen Nissenbaum and Beate Rössler. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

6. Introduction • How and as whom we reveal and conceal ourselves and our selves is not just an abstract conceptual matter, but is always concretized and rooted in cultural traditions. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

7. Introduction • What is common and what is different shines forth from different perspectives that in some cases appear to be incompatible, although not necessarily contradictory. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

8. Introduction • But even in these cases, as we shall see in the following analyses, various options for common practices and regulations are possible. The emphasis on the latter should not overlook, however, the deeper cultural layers as well as the foundational narratives on privacy and publicness. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

9. Introduction • We are still far from a global digital culture of mutual respect, validation and appreciation based on trust with regard to such cultural differences. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

10. Introduction • Trust is engendered by an understanding of the otherness of the other(s) self/selves, enabling new forms of interplay between personal and socio-cultural whoness and opening new spaces of freedom to show ourselves and our selves off and also withdraw from such selfdisplay in both the cyberworld and the physical world. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

11. The Far East • Japan Before addressing the key issue of ‘denial of self’ (Musi), Nakada and Tamura analyze the framework that enables a proper understanding of the Japanese self or “Japanese minds”, and of the view of privacy and publicness from this Japanese perspective. They start by explaining “a dichotomy between Seken and Shakai in Japanese minds.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

12. The Far East • Shakai means the principles and values adopted from the ‘Far West’, i.e. from Western modernity, • Seken means the traditional Japanese customs as shaped by Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism. • Ikai which is “the aspect of the world from which evils, disasters, crimes, and impurity” emerge. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

13. The Far East • Thailand In Hongladarom’s view, the fact that Buddhism rejects the individual self does not mean that it rejects privacy. • Privacy as practised in everyday life is not denied in Buddhism. It is in fact justified as an instrument for the end of living harmoniously in line with democratic ideals. • But “from the ultimate perspective of a Buddha, privacy just makes no sense whatsoever.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

14. The Far East Violations of privacy are based on the three “mental defilements” (kleshas), namely greed, anger and delusion, the antidote being to cultivate love and compassion. Compassion is the basic mood of Buddhist experience of the uniqueness of the world and our existence that we have to care for. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

15. The Far East • China The Chinese ethicist, Lü Yao-Huai, writes, “In the Chinese cultural tradition, ethicists pay special attention to the concept of ‘Shen Du’. […] ‘Shen Du’ means that ‘a superior man’ must be watchful over himself when he is alone.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

16. The Far East According to Lü, Shen Du is a key notion when dealing with the question of the self, particularly within the context of the cyberworld, since it addresses the question of reducing “proactively […] the number of online activities that violate legal frameworks.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

17. The Far East Lü points to the influence of Western individual-oriented thinking on privacy with regard to respect and informed consent, while at the same time the right to privacy from a traditional Chinese perspective is conceived as being based on social requirements (security of society, stability of the social order). Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

18. The Far East A basic issue common to Far East cultures involves the practice of indirect speech, i.e. of the self concealing and at the same time revealing herself through language or, more precisely, through silence. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

19. Latin America Latin American cultures came about through the violent encounter between indigenous traditions and nascent European modernity. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

20. Latin America Indigenous collectivism faced premodern, particularly scholastic thinking, that praised the individual as a person no less than liberal traditions do, which are based on the idea(l)s of work, private property, competition and technology. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

21. Latin America As the Argentinean philosopher, Rodolfo Kusch, writes, “The ways of life of the Indian and the well-off city dweller are impermeable to each other. On the one hand, the Indian retains the structure of an ancient form of thinking, a thousand years old, and on the other, the city dweller renews his way of thinking every ten years.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

22. Latin America This “ancient form of thinking can be grasped with regard to the concept of ‘reciprocity’. Indigenous people were not properly remunerated for their work, “because everything was taken by the cacique (or mallkus) […] the indigenous worker is only repaid with food.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

23. Latin America The equivalent of “reciprocity” in Aymara is ayni, “which means ‘the one obligated to work for another who worked for him Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

24. Latin America If the indigenous worker was obliged to give everything he produced to the Inca, but not to the Spaniards, there was nevertheless a reciprocity from the side of the Inca, namely the obligation “to refrain from interfering with the stockroom of the domestic sphere.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

25. Latin America This dichotomy between the public and the private sphere in Inca culture has a parallel in the Greek dichotomy between agora and oikos., objectified’ world. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

26. Latin America The ‘domestic sphere’ of the Inca worker was no less important for his self that the obligation to give his powers and the products of his work to the mallku, or chief. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

27. Latin America The system underlying this ‘reciprocity’ was not contractual, but based on the pacha or mother earth as something prior to the separation of a ‘subject’ from an ‘outside’. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

28. Latin America The Latin American ‘who’ is just as much an indigenous person as an urban inhabitant. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

29. Africa The African philosopher, Mogobe Ramose, maintains that ubuntu is “the central concept of social and political organization in African philosophy, particularly among the Bantu-speaking peoples. It consists of the principles of sharing and caring for one another.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

30. Africa Ramose interprets two maxims “to be found in almost all indigenous African languages,” namely: “Motho ke motho ka batho” and “Feta kgomo tschware motho”. The first maxim means that “to be human is to affirm one’s humanity by recognizing the humanity of others and, on that basis, to establish humane respectful relations with them. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

31. Africa Accordingly, it is ubuntu which constitutes the core meaning of the aphorism.” The second maxim signifies, “that if and when one is faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation of life of another human being, then one should opt for the preservation of life.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

32. Africa A detailed analysis of the relationship between ubuntu and privacy was provided by Olinger et al. They write, “The African worldview driving much of African values and social thinking is ‘Ubuntu’” (Broodryk, 2004). Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

33. Africa The Ubuntu worldview has been recognized as the primary reason that South Africa has managed to successfully transfer power from a white minority government to a majority-rule government without bloodshed (Murithi, 2000). Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

34. Africa The South African government will attempt to draft a Data Privacy Bill and strike an appropriate balance within the context of African values and an African worldview.” Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

35. Africa According to Broodryk, ubuntu is an African worldview “based on values of intense humaneness, caring, respect, compassion, and associated Africa is culturally a complex continent. The issue of privacy in Africa from an ethical and intercultural perspective is only now being put on the agenda. This applies especially to the Arab countries in North Africa. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

36. Conclusion Homi Bhabha, director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University, has proposed a “global ethics that extends ‘hospitality’ to all those who lost their place where they belong due to an historical trauma, injustice, genocide or death”. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

37. Conclusion Privacy understood from the perspective of whoness in the digitized cyberworld calls for an ethics of reciprocal hospitality, not only with regard to diverse ethical norms and principles, but also with regard to those who are marginalized in a global society in which digital technology has a dominating presence. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

38. Conclusion Intercultural information ethics adopts a critical stance toward all kinds of destruction of the human habitat in the world, particularly such ways of thinking and life-practices that exclude others from their use or impose on them a particular way of playing out the interplay of whoness, thus thwarting their becoming free selves. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

39. Conclusion The thoughtful and practically oriented search for common values and principles should not overlook or ‘forget’ the complexity and variety of human cultures that are a genuine expression of humaneness, and not something to be overcome. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

40. Conclusion This concerns, in particular, the notion of privacy conceived as what is proper to human self-understanding in being able to withdraw from others’ gaze and lead one’s own life shared with certain freely chosen others. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects

41. Conclusion An intercultural view of privacy must pay attention to what is in between cultures, allowing the individually and socially moulded self to transform and enrich its identity through the cultural interplay both within and between cultures. Capurro: Intercult.Aspects