Worlds without privacy are dystopian?

The idea of “Dystopia” in its more common interpretation is really just a theoretical model of society in which there is great suffering or injustice. Fictional interpretations of dystopia usually draw the conclusion that a society like this would be caused by a governing power or organization that isn’t dissimilar to one readers would understand to be present in the real world. These dystopic worlds are meant to feed on the fears the reader might have about things that could actually happen in the future or seem to be in progress today. A future without freedom or without privacy or even without lifestyle decision making, or more obscurely, a future where artificial life takes over the world. Rob McAlear offers the idea that these fictional interpretations of dystopia use “what rhetoricians call ‘fear appeal’ in an attempt to persuade their readers to understand the necessity of intervention in the present in order to avoid the possible horrors of the future.” (24). 

For this paper,  two worlds where privacy is on the brink of extinction will be compared. The novel of primary focus is that of Dave Eggers’ The Circle. With the purpose being to look at the possible future Eggers created and find where privacy is threatened or eliminated in a way readers could recognize to be preventable. Dystopic writings are meant to warn readers to take caution to certain ideas in order to help prevent them. Eggers’ novel will be compared to George Orwell’s 1984 as it is often considered to be the benchmark for dystopian fiction, with heavy-handed themes and a realistic yet largely oppressive set of circumstances to experience, Orwell’s novel offers a perspective closer to a ‘control’ of sorts for understanding what aspects of Eggers’ novel is doing “right” as a dystopic work. The mainline plot devices to evaluate will be Eggers’ concept of “going transparent” with the “SeeChange Cameras” in The Circle and Orwells “Telescreens” in 1984.

These concepts highlight the larger issue of privacy in both novels thus making them key for evaluating how a privacy-free world in the case of these two novels is dystopic. Thus the baseline understanding to have here is that both authors warn against the loss of privacy and both give an account of the effects of this loss through the experiences of their protagonist, we’ll be looking at how they do this in this paper. To do this we’ll first look at the body or power that causes or forces the shift away from privacy as well as the goals of said body or power. Then, the strategies the body or power employs in order to impose or cause the shift away from privacy as well as the effect these methods have on the protagonist of the given novels. This should give a sufficient account of the way in which the authors warn against anti-privacy practices/ powers who seek to move the real world away from privacy.

Eggers’ novel, The Circle details a future in which his protagonist Mae Holland, a college graduate looking for opportunity and self-discovery, lands a job at “The Circle.” This “The Circle” company acts as the power that shifts Eggers’ world away from privacy with their goal being a true, privacy-free world where all information of any kind is at their disposal. This lust for pseudo omniscience drives the decisions the company makes. Eggers gives the reader the initial impression that “The Circle” is a groundbreaking, next-generation, revolutionary tech company that created an all-in-one password solution and reinvented the Internet by pushing for users to only ever use their real names online. Although at a second glance the reader can start to see the issue with a system like that and the implications behind a company that pushed for it. The protagonist, Mae Holland, gives the reader a deeper dive into the inner workings of the company by being hired and quickly rising in rank and popularity. Due to this rise to fame, Holland becomes involved in the roll-out of what “The Circle” offers up to be an inexpensive, high-quality camera solution that always streams video to the Internet in order to create an age of honesty and crime-free living. This wonder device is named the “SeeChange” camera. The company reasons that people can experience each other’s lives, crimes would be stopped before they even happened, and many more wondrous things, all at the seemingly low cost of giving up any hope of individual privacy forever. Holland ends up participating in this new privacy-free lifestyle in order to promote the company's ideology to the public. “The Circle'' even modeled their corporate slogans after this idea of removing privacy with the 3 most notable slogans being “All that happens must be known.", “Privacy is theft” and “Secrets are Lies'' A very daunting sets of ideas to introduce to readers who might have fears of privacy concerns, to begin with. These kinds of claims imply a larger idea of privacy as a threat or danger, with the slogans suggesting people should caution against privacy.

Eggers makes this large-scale anti-privacy push seem well received by the people within the novel, and the protagonist Mae Holland even has many fans for her participation in the anti-privacy project. But despite Holland’s participation in the company’s ideals, this doesn’t mean Holland isn’t disadvantaged by “Going transparent.” Holland experienced a private time away from the eyes of her followers before going fully transparent by kayaking every so often without any stream or sharing. This is discovered by Holland’s superiors and she is pressed into full transparency, which is well received by the public due to how Holland presents the situation. Holland’s relationships become unstable and she appears less confident after this shift. 

Let's take a closer look at this in the text to get a better idea of how this kayaking activity was received. In the novel Denise and Josiah, two Circlers who come as a pair of company ambassadors, they are the aforementioned “superiors” to discover Holland’s private time. This happens while Holland is being asked a series of questions about her recent experiences and the nature of these questions posses some similar pressure as to her not sharing alot of what she goes through, such as a minor pseudo-seizure that her father had, causing Holland to drive hours to check in with him. Holland didn’t share this experience with her followers nor the context of the alarm and is asked if she regrets not looking at the resources the cicle offers as an alternative to panic. She was also asked if her experience could prevent alarm in other peoples lives, Holland was inclined to agree with these ideas albiet via admission rather than a native desire, Holland wasn’t prone to displaying a more vulnerable or “absent” part of herself to the circle and her followers at the drop of a dime even if she agreed that experiences like that are helpful for others.

Holland is essentially pressured into posting about the experience with he father and joining an “MS club” the ambassador Denise follows up after reviewing the father experience by saying "This is when someone like you, with a low Participation Rank, might be able to improve that, if she wanted to. But yours actually dropped--two thousand points. Not to get all number-geeky, but you were on 8,625 on Friday and by late Sunday you were at 10,288." she says this to bring the status system the circle measures people by into play and apply more pressure onto Holland in order to move her closer to full transparency, this works of course due to Hollands own desire to move up the ladder and become something more than vulnerabilities paint her to be. This prompts a short "I didn't know it was that bad," form Holland with Eggers noting that Holland was “hating herself, this self who couldn't seem to get out of her own way.” making more of a direct reference to the more insecure or vulnerable side of Holland that may not be “present” with the inclination to share every experience with everyone. This leads to a conversation about Hollands having watched womens baseketball but choosing not to share it with anyone due to a lack of passion towards the sport.

The ambassador Josiah discovers Holland hadn’t seen anything of his WNBA discussion group, Eggers notes this leaves the ambassador “looking hurt, even bewildered” suggesting a dependency on the idea that people like Holland would always participate in social media groups like that one, the idea that Holland never had was hurtful all on its own. This kind of dependency is one the version of Holland that she herself hates wouldnt be inclined to adopt from the circle. The ambassadors even remind her of one of the company modos of “PPT” or “Passion, participation, and Transparency” suggesting full transparency as the baseline, not the goal. This scene climaxes with Holland talking about her private kayaking the ambassadors note a shared interest in the kayaking and even a recorded “2,331” others nearby who share this interest and the importance of interacting with people who share her passions. However Holland notes to them that “its just kayaking” with a certain level of unimportance associated with something she regularly enjoys. This sparks another reference to “PPT” in the idea that Holland isn’t even engaging with her fellow circlers by not sharing interests like this. Holland presses for a recognition of how insignificant her activities would be in the lives of other circlers to the point where she responds to the question “How do you think they feel?” with “I don’t know. I don’t think they’d feel anything.” This leads to the ambassadors claiming Holland doesn’t value herself or her experiences and may have an inherent lack of self-esteem. This finally leads with the conclusion of Holland agreeing to participate in the full transparency SeeChange program. Holland even monologes with herself in disgust at her performance for not meeting the expectations of her superiors and and “doing the bare minimum” and being a “deadbeat friend”. Showing a progressed deterioration in self worth and massive early showings of relationship instability even before undergoing SeeChange.

Eggers seems to focus on the social effects of privacy and how influence and status can manipulate the general public into being swindled out of their personal freedoms. “The Circle” as a company isn’t written to be outwardly menacing and their ideas are meant to sound convincing and reasonable in some way, while of course being largely heavy-handed and imposing. If the reader considers the company to be similar to a cult in nature then the behavior and strategies they employed make perfect sense. Cult followers are typically lulled in by a desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves, these kinds of people usually have low self-confidence and can find great admiration for a ‘Cult leader’ of sorts. These kinds of people are typically willing to throw away personal freedoms because they find it justifiable due to the great nature of the cause, sometimes to the degree where their own lives are just tools for the purposes of the cult. In the case of The Circle let’s say Mae Holland functions as the true ‘Cult leader’ and “The Circle” as a company functions as the ‘God’or ‘grand power’ in this case. By preaching the companies ideology and influencing others to follow their beliefs, Holland acts as a role model for the anti-privacy ideal, her fans admire her dedication and follow in her footsteps, thus spreading the ideal. Eggers likely warns of what influence like this can do to the world if left unchecked.

With all of what we’ve discussed in mind, we can see how Eggers’ The Circle stacks up to 1984. Orwell’s novel has “The Party” which is written to be the governing power of 1984. The concept of “going transparent” in Eggers The Circle in comparison to Orwells “Telescreens” in 1984 is a lot less oppressive. These “telescreens” are devices that live in every home and all around the world of 1984. This device was made to receive and transmit both audio and video information simultaneously. According to the novel, any sound would be picked up by it, and so long as someone remained within its field of vision they could be seen as well. Most importantly there was never any indication to tell the people of 1984 that they were being watched at any given moment the telescreens were merely present at all times. Orwell's “Telescreen” functions almost identically to Eggers’ “SeeChange” idea as both are made out to be the perfect anti-privacy device. But even with this similarity, “Going transparent” as described in Eggers The Circle is more of a social movement whereas, in Orwell’s novel, the people don’t have a say, they can’t turn off the telescreens, they don’t know who’s watching or hearing or when. It’s a power strategy meant to condition human behavior and control desire. The implications are very different between the two novels, rather than the people moving towards a pseudo perfect world in Eggers’ novel, the desires of the people are suppressed by an unchecked power fueled by humanity’s own lust for power and capacity to become cold and ruthless in Orwell’s world. This could have implications about the kind of fear each writer wanted their readers to experience and to what extent, but the messages remain the same.

In conclusion, Both novels are dystopian in that they tap into a lot of the reader’s fears about the loss of privacy as a personal freedom. Eggers leads a charge of caution against the oppressive nature of social influence. He does this by warning readers against the willing surrender of privacy justified by respect or admiration for an individual, group, or even an ideal. Orwell leads his readers to understand the reality of unchecked power in government and how without proper checks and balances, privacy and personal freedom will be stolen away. The novels largely contrast in how they warn their readers as both sought to highlight different powers as problematic to the continuation of privacy. 

References

McAlear, R. (2010). The Value of Fear: Toward a Rhetorical Model of Dystopia. Interdisciplinary Humanities, 27(2), 24–42

Eggers, D. (2004). The Circle. Penguin Books.

Orwell, G. (2021). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin Classics.