How to Be Private in Public
One thing that distinguishes the Danish character from the American character is attitudes toward privacy. In the United States we value our right to privacy and plenty of air time is devoted to protecting it. But we Americans are a very public people. Bumper stickers announce to the world where we stand politically, what churches we belong to, and what schools our chidren attend, they urge others to behave or think in ways we do, and they even tell our neighbors where to stick it if our neighbors don't meet our standards. We wear t-shirts and buttons that cover that same territory. Memoirs are among the hottest real estate in publishing--even if they're not actually true--the hunger for revelation is so strong and the earnings so tempting. American poets brought us the confessional poem. And our very own brand of revelators, Oprah et.al., make sure nothing personal is concealed.
Danes do not slap bumper stickers onto their cars, they do not wear buttons declaring allegiances, and they don't wear t-shirts that give away anything personal, anything private. Anika put me on to the t-shirt fact: she brought along a number of t-shirts declaring her feminism and pacifism, but she doesn't wear them to school because she would just stand out like a sore thumb. I can't report on memoirs, confessional poetry, or lay-it-all-out-there televisions shows in Danish culture, alas, but they don't appear to exist.
Perhaps the Danes' almost extreme private nature is a result of living in a small place. But whether it's a chicken or an egg problem, Danes' privacy serves well their living small. Most Danes do not cover their windows, so when you walk down the street it is possible to look right into most homes, even right through them into their back gardens. But it's really not culturally acceptable to look. So it's okay to have big glass windows on the front of your house and to live inside your house just as if it were all closed off to the world: no one will look in. When houses are close together and not far from the street, but when you want to get as much light from outside in to counterbalance the long dark winter, then the rule of not looking is necessary.
On the street, Danes do not look you in the eye, much less greet you in any way. To us it seems rude, this Danish reticence; to the Danes we Americans are just pushy and brusque. I've grown to like this public privacy. If I'm in a deep reverie as I walk along, and I often am, I know that little can burst in on me, I'm safe in my own portable privacy.
I wonder how much landscape has to do with it. In the United States we've got “land, lots of land under starry skies above” and we sure don't want to be “fenced in.” But if we're all spread out (and just think of the average suburb today, with houses well back from the street and well apart from the others, and no public space whatsoever, not even sidewalks) then it's easy to feel as though we are nobody, we're disconnected and immaterial. What better way to assuage our fear of total anonymity, than by making a point of saying who we are--via bumper stickers and t-shirts--, by sharing what's private so publicly that we can't be ignored?
I can't help but wonder at how the American character will evolve as gas prices rise and our landscapes change. Perhaps in my grandchildren's time Americans will have learned something about privacy.
