Earlier today -- a few hours ago, in fact -- I published a post here about confrontation, conversation, and a problem that I was having with a friend. I've deleted it because, upon reflection, I felt that it violated a promise that I made with that person not to air our dirty laundry online. When I wrote the post, I tried to avoid that, and focus on the bigger issues of confrontation in conversation, and on the potential loss of a close friend; but, really, I was bitching about him. I was taking our disagreement to a forum in which he isn't an equal participant. On a second look, I was embarassed at myself for being so childish and for violating that promise.Usually, I'm pretty bloodthirsty when it comes to mining my life for stories. "My life, my stories," I say. "Get your own damn blog if you object, or don't act the fool." I use my pseudonymity to protect the innocent, which is not me.
My understanding of secrets and privacy has always been almost sociopathically absent. Private and public were always blurred in my life because, growing up, everything in our house seemed to be on display. I did not have a real sense of "private," although I did know about secrets. Secrets are different from privacy, and if you wanted them kept, you kept them. You didn't tell anyone because they would tell someone else; and, then, no more secret. It's kind of perverse. (Secrets themselves are another story for another time.)
Blogging has made me aware of privacy. Privacy still blurs into public, but I'm learning that, the more public I make myself -- pseudonym or not -- the more responsibility I have toward those who did not agree to the publicity. My brothers were probably my first awareness of this. I have told a lot of their stories here, and they will never know about this blog because of that. This is pretty unethical on my part in regard to them, and demonstrated a lot of disrespect toward their own privacy and secrets.
Fortunately, I learned from others before I violated any students' privacy. Our classroom may be a semi-public forum, but, after reading some comments on Tenured Radical's blog, I became aware that students consider it a semi-private forum. They have agreed to a certain measure of publicity among a group of peers, not the whole world. So, I respect their individual privacy and their specific behaviors in the classroom, although I do comment on them in general.
I still wonder about where the line is between what information is mine to post in whatever way I would like, and what information is more commonly held. I'm still working out how I can separate out my information from others', or how I can discuss my information around others'. How do I tell my life and my stories, without violating someone else's privacy? Is that even completely possible?<
In regard to this friend, I fucked up. I broke a promise for more petty reasons than I care to examine right now, and I violated his privacy. I crossed that line, and I'm beginning to understand where. So, I took the post down.
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7 comments:
Ya' did the right thing. I find it a constant struggle to balance not hurting feelings, not discussing close relationships and their frustrations, not embarassing the children unduly (any more than I normally would), and so on. It's a constant balancing act.
The way I look at it, we bloggers develop our own set of ethics, much like those of journalists. Only thing, based on what I know, we are working at a much higher standard these days.
If it is any comfort, I think that this is a struggle for writers everywhere, and it is instructive to look at hte world of print publishing for answers. Part of what gets us snagged as bloggers is that the blog often feels like a conversation with sympathetic peers -- the kind of conversation you might have iin the hall. So many of us tell stories online that we would tell at lunch -- forgetting that it isn't the same thing at all.
But my writer friends (not ot mention my anthropologist partner, who said right off hte bat that she did not want to be in my blog) have also talked to me usefully about using others in my writing - they show things to people, and have to be willing to alter things or take them out when people are offended.
You may have noticed I have also pretty much stopped writing about my nephew too, mostly because I think he is too young to really handle this kind of negotiation with me, and because he is too old not to find me on line.
But the other thing I learned this spring is that if you fell you have screwed up -- or someone claims to be hurt, even though you don't see why -- all you have to do is apologize and take the post down. Like you did.
TR
Thank you both, and thank you Tenured Radical for commenting.
You are right in that this blogging all feels like a conversation among friends, but it is in a public place, like sitting at a restaurant or in a park, and who knows who might overhear.
That is an interesting point about your nephew, which I will have to keep in mind given that I have two that I adore and might one day feel compelled to blog about them.
Fortunately, my family does not think that I am sophisticated enough to be on the internet (it's that anti-intellectual strain that says that people with PhDs have no actual abilities to do anything but maybe read musty old books), so they probably won't go looking for me! If they do, well, apologize and delete is really all that I can do.
P.S. to Lori. Just after I hit "post" I came across a note here at work about a journalist in the 19th century who forged a lot of letters for his stories. Blogging is, really, in its infancy, and we are negotiating the ethics of the whole craft or art or profession or whatever you could call the whole deal. Just like journalism has, and still is.
Hi, again, Clio. I may be late to this conversation, but I've been reading a lot of your posts today. My first thought is: You know what the definition of a secret is? It's something you tell only one person at a time. Ha ha.
And as for your interesting question, "How do I tell my life and my stories, without violating someone else's privacy? Is that even completely possible?"
Well, I have a master's in journalism and have worked for newspapers, magazines and a newswire, and now I'm blogging and writing a memoir. I have been very aware during this process that other people figure in my story, and I certainly think about how my words may affect them. I agree that an apology works best if you step on someone's toes--and speaking of toes, I also use the "what if I were in their shoes?" test. But I'm also willing to risk hurting other people's feelings. It sucks, but that's a writer's lot, and I just try to deal with it.
Another thing I decided to do right at the start of my blogging career was to use my own name. Not wearing the cloak of anonymity makes me more accountable for what I say. That's one of the cardinal rules of good journalism--identify your sources, and that includes yourself.
Hi Joyce, thank you for your perspective. I think we have discussed this before, too (your cousin, I think?). That shoes test is probably the best, and probably the best way to explain why I took the post down. Some of this goes back to that issue of having the power by controlling the narrative.
Hi again, Clio. Yes, my cousin. Oh god. I got some comments on that post, where clearly some of my cousin's immediate family members were annoyed and defensive because I called him a "fop," or something. Oh god. But I think my cousin still loves me. Of course he still loves me! Right? So as you can see, I'm good at giving advice, but not so good at following it.
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