A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

"It is a radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking."
-Ben Tarnoff, The New Yorker

A visionary reexamination of the value of privacy in today's hypermediated world-not just as a political right but as the key to a life worth living.

The parts of our lives that are not being surveilled and turned into data diminish each day. We are able to configure privacy settings on our devices and social media platforms, but we know our efforts pale in comparison to the scale of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. In our hyperconnected era, many have begun to wonder whether it is still possible to live a private life, or whether it is no longer worth fighting for.

The Right to Oblivion argues incisively and persuasively that we still can and should strive for privacy, though for different reasons than we might think. Recent years have seen heated debate in the realm of law and technology about why privacy matters, often focusing on how personal data breaches amount to violations of individual freedom. Yet as Lowry Pressly shows, the very terms of this debate have undermined our understanding of privacy's real value. In a novel philosophical account, Pressly insists that privacy isn't simply a right to be protected but a tool for making life meaningful.

Privacy deepens our relationships with others as well as ourselves, reinforcing our capacities for agency, trust, play, self-discovery, and growth. Without privacy, the world would grow shallow, lonely, and inhospitable. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Hannah Arendt, Jorge Luis Borges, and a range of contemporary artists, Pressly shows why we all need a refuge from the world: not a place to hide, but a psychic space beyond the confines of a digital world in which the individual is treated as mere data.

About the Author
Lowry Pressly is Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, Political Theory, and Public Books.

Reviews
A radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking...takes up familiar fixations of tech discourse-privacy, mental health, civic strife-but puts them into such a new and surprising arrangement that they are nearly unrecognizable...Lawyers like to make privacy about process. Pressly makes it about power. -- Ben Tarnoff * New Yorker *
A probing critique of a modern public sphere that overwhelms the private realm, but it goes further than that...Pressly offers a unique vision of what can be gained by stepping back from the outside world, and the screens that try to possess us. -- John Kaag * The Atlantic *
It's privacy that involves passing your neighbors' homes and accepting, without much further thought, that you'll probably never know about their first kisses or whether they pour their bacon grease down the drain. Their depth, and your own, relies on your not knowing; the whole social fabric of the world depends on it; it is beautiful, it is profound, it is robust...[Pressly] draws from a wealth of surprising sources...[and] constructs a vision of private life that needs protecting. -- Dan Piepenbring * Harper's *
We all feel beset by mechanized claims on our attention. If you feel like your very self is losing its coherence, this book will help you understand why. With grace and aplomb, Pressly shows that, under conditions where we are never fully alone and never fully with others, the basic terms of being are dissolving. And he gives us the materials for building shelter. -- Matthew B. Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft
One of the most important books on privacy that the age of information has produced. With a rare blend of philosophical rigor and literary grace, Lowry Pressly shows that privacy is above all about making space for the unaccountable aspects of a life worth living. This stunning work draws from our anxiety about privacy an illuminating meditation on the human condition. -- Michael J. Sandel, author of Democracy's Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times
Technologists say that we have no privacy, and we should get over it. Philosophers say that privacy is a concept in disarray. Lowry Pressly brings boldness and clarity where there has been confusion. Ranging widely from the history of photography to the advent of artificial intelligence, Pressly reframes privacy as the right to be unknown rather than a right to control what is known. His insistence that zones of oblivion are essential for human flourishing is not just powerful but inspiring. -- Rob Reich, coauthor of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot
Pressly's book presents a trio of brilliant revelations: seeing privacy as the legal right to control information has serious limitations; technological challenges from photography to the digital age alter the meaning of privacy; and a deep, interior, unknowable self is a vital source of creativity and action in the world. The Right to Oblivion will change how political theorists, philosophers, and psychologists of the self alike understand privacy. -- Nancy L. Rosenblum, coauthor of A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
We can never know everything, not even about ourselves. Lowry Pressly beautifully argues that unknowability is a source of great pleasure and promise. The Right to Oblivion calls us to resist the lures of nonstop self-documentation, not just to protect our privacy but to cultivate our ineffable creativity and untold potential. Indeed, human well-being depends on it. This is an exciting, important, and provocative book. -- Elisabeth Anker, author of Ugly Freedoms



Book Information
ISBN 9780674260528
Author Lowry Pressly
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 545g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 17mm