‘It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.’ –W. C. Fields
Is the desire to know other people’s secrets a natural instinct – or a vulgar vice?
The need to maintain a barrier against the outside world may be one of our most basic human urges; but another is the lust to know the unknown, to observe and indulge in the privacy of others. In his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life the sociologist Erving Goffman demonstrates how we all perform in various guises and to different groups of people, as if we were on stage. We preserve our “backstage” selves as an essential part of our identity – and it is this protected part of our personality that we attempt to mask, while harbouring a strong desire to penetrate those of others.
photo { Man Ray }
