personal relationships.
In the nineteenth century, according to historian Alain Corbin, there was a strong and steady current toward individualism in France, and it expressed itself in a number of ways. For one thing, there was an increase in the acquisition and use of Christian names. People also began to acquire domestic mirrors and have their portraits taken by commercial photographers, and theycontinued a practice, dating from the late sixteenth century, of keeping a diary in which they wrote about
themselves
, including their own thoughts and feelings. 27 In the same period, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that individualism was becoming a goal in America. 28
People were obviously spending more time thinking about themselves. “For the individual,” wrote Howard Gadlin, a “separation of the public from the private leads to a great expansion of personal consciousness,” and in ways that would have enriched interpersonal methods of relating. “Individualism and intimacy,” Gadlin concluded, “are the Siamese twins of modernization.” 29
The private self
Individualism implies a division of one’s self from the selves of others, but privacy also caused deeper fissures
within
each person. The external life of an individual, the life led in the company of others, is his public self. “Behind every man’s external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart,” wrote English sage Walter Bagehot over a century and a half ago. “We see but one aspect of our neighbour, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.” 30
In the past, people had lived
out
—in nearly continuous sensory contact with practically everyone they knew. When they achieved an interior space, they had two spaces—one that was public, the other private. Each day, individuals ventured into public space and returned home. In time, it was predictable that these broadly different niches would cultivate two broadly different ways of being.
The insider believes that he—unlike those on the outside of his walls—is the only one who knows what he is doing, or habitually does; that no one will see or judge him for any acts that he carriesout. He believes that if he does something—anything—he alone will know about it. It is possible to locate antecedents of conscience and morality here, things that were virtually impossible when the public eye prevented individuals from making their own choices. At home, there were opportunities to live a more self-guided life.
On the inside, a person lived within a few feet of everything he owned. These things would bring back memories of the day he made or found them, or received them as gifts, and this would affect the way the insider thought about himself. Private possessions may be counted among our secrets, since they silently remind us of what makes us different from everyone else. They not only “concern nobody else,” wrote Georges Duby, they “may not be divulged or shown because they are so at odds with those appearances that honor demands be kept up in public.” 31 Studies of domestic burglary suggest that the inviolate nature of personal possessions contributes to the inviolacy of their owner’s unique “personality.”
Having their own niche, filled with their own things; having no possibility of scrutiny by, or negative reactions from, external others, the insiders would come to discover—or to invent—a deeper and more contemplative form of themselves, and this form would almost certainly contrast, in specific details, with their public persona. They would have a private self. Today, according to psychologist Roy Baumeister, people think of this self as “the way the person
really
is.” This created an object of endless fascination and, for those who would eavesdrop, new temptations. For behind the walls there
In the nineteenth century, according to historian Alain Corbin, there was a strong and steady current toward individualism in France, and it expressed itself in a number of ways. For one thing, there was an increase in the acquisition and use of Christian names. People also began to acquire domestic mirrors and have their portraits taken by commercial photographers, and theycontinued a practice, dating from the late sixteenth century, of keeping a diary in which they wrote about
themselves
, including their own thoughts and feelings. 27 In the same period, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that individualism was becoming a goal in America. 28
People were obviously spending more time thinking about themselves. “For the individual,” wrote Howard Gadlin, a “separation of the public from the private leads to a great expansion of personal consciousness,” and in ways that would have enriched interpersonal methods of relating. “Individualism and intimacy,” Gadlin concluded, “are the Siamese twins of modernization.” 29
The private self
Individualism implies a division of one’s self from the selves of others, but privacy also caused deeper fissures
within
each person. The external life of an individual, the life led in the company of others, is his public self. “Behind every man’s external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart,” wrote English sage Walter Bagehot over a century and a half ago. “We see but one aspect of our neighbour, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.” 30
In the past, people had lived
out
—in nearly continuous sensory contact with practically everyone they knew. When they achieved an interior space, they had two spaces—one that was public, the other private. Each day, individuals ventured into public space and returned home. In time, it was predictable that these broadly different niches would cultivate two broadly different ways of being.
The insider believes that he—unlike those on the outside of his walls—is the only one who knows what he is doing, or habitually does; that no one will see or judge him for any acts that he carriesout. He believes that if he does something—anything—he alone will know about it. It is possible to locate antecedents of conscience and morality here, things that were virtually impossible when the public eye prevented individuals from making their own choices. At home, there were opportunities to live a more self-guided life.
On the inside, a person lived within a few feet of everything he owned. These things would bring back memories of the day he made or found them, or received them as gifts, and this would affect the way the insider thought about himself. Private possessions may be counted among our secrets, since they silently remind us of what makes us different from everyone else. They not only “concern nobody else,” wrote Georges Duby, they “may not be divulged or shown because they are so at odds with those appearances that honor demands be kept up in public.” 31 Studies of domestic burglary suggest that the inviolate nature of personal possessions contributes to the inviolacy of their owner’s unique “personality.”
Having their own niche, filled with their own things; having no possibility of scrutiny by, or negative reactions from, external others, the insiders would come to discover—or to invent—a deeper and more contemplative form of themselves, and this form would almost certainly contrast, in specific details, with their public persona. They would have a private self. Today, according to psychologist Roy Baumeister, people think of this self as “the way the person
really
is.” This created an object of endless fascination and, for those who would eavesdrop, new temptations. For behind the walls there
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