The Freedom to be Left Alone

A few days ago I finally got around to starting to read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I’m less than 100 pages in, and to be honest, while it is an interesting and important read, it isn’t exactly light reading for someone who doesn’t come from the sort of family where you are discussing politics before you can walk (you know who you are). Anyways, that’s not the point.

In the context of a discussion of the central values that shape American culture, Obama describes Michelle’s reaction to her first trip to Kenya. He describes how, from an American perspective, “the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties can be [suffocating], with distant cousins constantly asking for favors [and] uncles and aunts showing up unannounced.” The trip gave Michelle a new awareness and appreciation for a specific type of freedom that is almost uniquely American; an individual’s freedom to be left alone. Obama argues that this is something that, as a general rule, Americans believe in, and tend to be “suspicious of those – whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors – who want to meddle in our business.” This value is not, in any way, normal, when you look at the rest of the world. We are the exception, not the rule.

This discussion was particularly poignant to me, given our current situation, living in a culture where life is lived in public, and the concept of privacy just doesn’t exist. People are baffled at (what seems to them) the excessive amount of time we spend in our house with the door closed, and even now, after living here a year, they call in to ask if we are ok, and/or what we could be doing in there for so long. Not to mention the fact that EVERY TIME we leave the village, EVERY PERSON we pass asks where we are going, what we will be doing there (and vice versa when we return), etc. I could go on for pages about this, but you get the idea. It’s like being in middle school again! What are you doing, where are you going, how are you getting there, who are you going with, when will you be back…you all know the script.

Obama’s book provided a much-needed reminder that in every society, there has to be a balance between the individualistic and the communal. In some cultures, the scale is tipped one way, in others, the other way. American culture is tipped towards the individualistic. Most African cultures are tipped towards the communal. As we have discovered, to transition from one extreme to the other is exceedingly difficult. It takes some of our most deeply ingrained values and turns them on their heads, which is not something the human brain deals with particularly well. Small wonder that sometimes we struggle with it!