Moral Dilemmas & Convoluted Masquerades

Say you drop in on a friend one afternoon while she is writing in her diary. At the sound of your knocking, or the chiming of the doorbell, she goes to open the door, leaving her diary wide open on the coffee table.

She opens the door, pleasantly surprised by your visit, and invites you in. She indicates that you should take a seat while she gets the both of you some refreshment in the kitchen, so you do.

You hear her bustling about in the kitchen as you glance around. Then, you spot her open diary on the coffee table in front of you.

Q: Would you read it?

A:
i) Well ... you're human after all, and your curiosity's itching like a bad rash. Besides, the book's lying in a 'public' area, and open to all and sundry: goes to reason she must have subconsciously wanted her diary to be read - if not by you, then by someone else, so you might as well read it. Anyway, she won't know, and you'll pretend like it never happened; and since ignorance is bliss, who's gonna find out, and where's the harm in that?

ii) No. Absolutely not. You immediately jump up and head into the kitchen to help your friend.

:::

Now, say you found the blog of someone you know - a friend, a sibling, or a relative - and by "found", I mean you were never given the URL to the blog by its owner; you found it by either actively looking for it, or serendipitously chancing upon it ... or maybe a combination of both.

Q: Would you read it?

A:
i) Why the hell not? First of all, it's a public blog; secondly, it's opened for comments for cryin' out loud; and, thirdly, if it weren't meant to be read, would the entries not be locked? Whatta dumbass question ...

Anyway, there's no sign of a stats counter or any sort of tracker on that page, so your sibling/relative/friend will never know of your reading it (and your digging into the archives) if you don't ever make a comment on their blog; they won't know (and, of course, will never ask - not if you are careful and smart about it), and you'll never tell.

ii) Um, maybe just the contents on the homepage and nothing beyond that. (And if the contents on that homepage are constantly being updated every time you check back, well ...)

iii) Hm. You think you'll ask the blog owner if they have a blog, and casually mention that you've accidentally come across it if they replied in the affirmative; then you'll ask if they would mind if you read it. You won't if they told you they'd rather you don't.

The truth is, when I found Ninie's blog (I was going through Blogger's list of Wellington-based blogs), I didn't even stop to think about whether or not I should be reading it. And I sure as hell didn't think about it as I perused her archives.

But I've been having an internal debate these couple of days about - not (secretly) reading Ninie's blog in particular - but (secretly) reading the blog of somebody you know who'd not given you the URL or even realized you're reading it in general.

On one hand, it's a public blog, which means the owner must realize anybody could be reading it - including family and friends: that's the risk of having a public blog, babe. You can't say, yeah, it's public, but it's only for random strangers who don't know me, and are thus 'safe' readers; you can't have it both ways.

On the other hand, if your sibling/relative/friend had meant for you to read it, would they not have told you about it? Would they not have announced they're starting (or have started) a blog, and "if you're free, you can go read it sometimes; here's the URL ..."?

You may argue: the owner of this blog reads my blog, so it's fair that I should read their blog ...

Or, even: our mutual friend X reads that blog, so why can't I?

The thing is, is there really such a thing as 'fairness' when it comes to public blogs and private thoughts? When you give somebody the URL of your blog, would - and should - you expect some sort of reciprocal response, such as receiving the URL of that person's blog? And if such reciprocity is not forthcoming, would - and should - you demand it?

Sometimes, it could be a matter of time. Maybe the blog owner isn't ready to share their blog with people they know; maybe they'd tell you about their blog when they're ready, or maybe they'd never be ready. Would you wait for them to tell you, or would you just go right ahead irregard of their consent?

The consequences of having read a blog you weren't meant to (or weren't allowed to) may range from inconsequential to 9.5 on the Ritcher scale. Reading something you weren't meant to could be pretty bad; but worse than that, you might've read something you wish you hadn't. A lot of things could change.

What if you were the one who discovered somebody you know had not only been casually reading your blog, but had spent hours going through your archives? What if it were someone whose blog you read? Would you live and let live, or would you fly into a seething rage? Would you feel disappointed by that person, or would you feel you've had your trust betrayed?

I've been thinking about it and I reckon I had been thoughtless and wrong in reading Ninie's blog. Maybe after reading her blog, I should've told her about it - wouldn't have righted things, but it would've been the decent thing to do. (I'm also inclined to think that at least it wasn't like she'd expressly refused to give me her blog address and I'd despicably ignored her reluctance in giving me access to her blog ... but I'm just making excuses for myself.)

So, you can read this blog (or not). Even if I never intended for you to, go right ahead. I'll take it as karma coming back to bite me in the ass - what goes around will come around. Now, this is fair.

Another thing that is fair: I could feel all bitter about it, but so could you; maybe I didn't like what you did, but maybe you didn't like what I'd written too.

And, as Jason'd said last night, smirking across the table at me, "You think your life's a secret, but it's not; you think we don't know, but we do."

Ah, but my evil leering friend, are we not all engaged in the 'you think I think you think I don't know, but it's only because I'm letting you think I think you think I don't know' and the 'I think you think I think we both should think we think each other doesn't know' masquerade?

(I like to think some bits of my life and some of my thoughts are completely private though ...)



(13:02 SGT)