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   %PRIVACY RIGHTS HONESTY CONTROL OPEN EXPRESS SEE 910507

     It is important to protect people's rights to privacy
when  some people are preoccupied with issues of  informal
conformity, control, and proper behavior.

     People who are preoccupied with issues of conformity,
control  and  proper behavior act as though they have  the
right to ask any question they wish to ask of anybody they
wish to ask; and expect to get an honest answer regardless
of  how intrusive their questions are.   They often assume
that  a refusal to answer their intrusive questions  is  a
sign of hidden improper behavior; rather than a defense of
everybody's right to privacy.

     Honesty  does  not  demand  that   everybody   reveal
everything  about their private lives;  or be  willing  to
reveal  all aspects about their private lives upon demand.
Some people try to make people feel that such demands  are
reasonable, for if such demands are regarded as reasonable
then  it is easier to control people with cleverly  chosen
intrusive     questions,    and   with   suggestions    of
impropriety designed to elicit denials or confessions.

     When an intrusive person asks one of their  intrusive
questions which shows lack of respect for people's  rights
to  privacy an effective way to respond is with a pleasant
and  polite return question,  "Why do you ask?"   If  they
have legitimate reasons for needing to know the answer  to
the question and if your relationship is such that it is a
reasonable  question,  then they should have no reason for
not revealing what the legitimate needs to know are.    If
they  have  no  legitimate need for knowing the answer  to
their  question,    then the burden is on them to  explain
themselves and their behavior.

     If the intrusive person persists, it may be useful to
ask  "Why  are you focusing so much of your  attention  on
these  questions?    Don't you have other  more  important
things to be doing?"   It is useful to shift the focus  of
attention  to  the overt behavior of the intrusive  person
and  to  charitably  ask  for the  overt  behavior  to  be
explained;   as it is not private behavior.   There is  no
constitutionally  guaranteed  right  to  get  answers   to
questions asked of others, and intrusive people need to be
reminded of that fact in gentle ways.

     If  intrusive  people are not overt in  their  prying
then it  is  probably best to be implicit in responding in
the above spirit; letting them know that their prying does
not  fall   within  the range of appropriate  behavior  by
indirect responses to their indirect questions.    In this
way  there is  no need to accuse them of impropriety in  a
direct way. Neither is there any need to give satisfaction
to them  by answering their intrusive implicit questions.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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