This excerpt from The Circle brings up some big ass concepts from the dialogue between Eamon and Mae. Topics like social media, privacy, access of knowledge and human rights. It threw a lot at me and made me really consider the idealistic world view Eamon has on these topics and basically ropes Mae into believing as well.

SECRETS ARE LIES

Eamon starts with the idea that secrets are cancerous. They can never cause more good than bad. Having them out in the open is way better than keeping them in under many circumstances. While I understand the mentality Eamon has here, sometimes secrets are complex. Everyone has their reason for keeping secrets and it goes beyond just being black and white. Overall, why I think I don’t agree with much of what Eamon says is because of how he sees things in such a broad way and not taking into account the wildly complex aspects of the human experience.

SHARING IS CARING

Eamon believes everything in life needs to be shared for the benefits of others. He brings how Mae recording her kayak trip would make Eamon’s son feel like he can share this experience too. I can’t agree with this sentiment because I don’t like a world with no privacy.  Sometimes we want moments to ourselves. Sometimes we as people want to selfish and that’s fine. Eamon wants perfection in everybody, but it’s our imperfections that make us human and getting rid of that feels wrong. Living in a world where we are always being watched and must share everything is a tragic loss of a human’s need to be with only themselves sometimes. It’s okay to put ourself above the world in certain occasions. It’s how we survive.

PRIVACY IS THEFT

Lastly, Eamon believes if we have knowledge of something, it is a basic human right that everyone else know this information too. I am totally down with knowledge available for all, but privacy is an even bigger basic human right. Privacy of what we know, how we live, and how we function makes us all special. It’s different for each person. Our knowledge on whatever we have makes us all unique. To put that all out into the world limits that feeling. It all goes back to my main point that we can all be selfish and focus on only ourselves and that’s not inherently wrong.