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From the Individual to the Public

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Wiring the Streets, Surfing the Square

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

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Abstract

Digital technologies facilitate the formation of communities, which are distinct from the broader, more inclusive concept of the public. They are enmeshed in pronounced ways in the emergence of a “society of individuals” and a retreat from public space (and into virtual pseudo-spaces) that problematizes traditional notions of the constitution of publics and the pursuit of public life. These technologies are also implicated in the problematization of the supposed binary distinction between public and private spaces and practices. However, they also are being used in forging new modes of public interactions and relationships with different impacts on the public space of the city.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    And, it could be argued, the radio and television.

  2. 2.

    The category of private space should not be confused with the privacy of the individual, which is a right that applies in any type of space, public or private. Privacy has many facets—the right to personal secrecy, commercial activity, the defensible space of the family or community among them.

  3. 3.

    Bateson has pointed out the pervasiveness of the habit of binary thinking, such that we seek to apply it even to things that are not binary in nature. The public/private distinction could be seen as one of these relations. This raises the question of whether there is a cogent Batesonian ternary relationship to replace the public/private distinction, establishing a relationship that is, to borrow another of Bateson’s distinctions, not symmetrical, with each vying for the same dominant position, but complementary, with each defining itself in relation to the others.

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  1. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Timothy Jachna

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Jachna, T. (2021). From the Individual to the Public. In: Wiring the Streets, Surfing the Square. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66672-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66672-9_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-66671-2

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