Books in Brief

The Naked Society, by Vance Packard (McKay, $5.95). This voluminous but indiscriminate essay on the decline of personal privacy deserves to be read, and on both counts. The Packard system (jot everything down on note pads, then publish the note pads) has the virtue, at least, of bringing odd things to light such as (in this case) the surreptitious traffic in government dossiers, the proliferation of snooping devices, and the rotten practices of “psychological” testing from school to business office. But Packard, in his uncritical worship of the open society, overlooks two basic distinctions: 1) as to the source of the question, whether the asker merely asks or whether he has the power to compel a response—i.e., whether it is an interview or an official interrogation; and 2) as to the object of the question, whether it is mere prurient snooping on law-abiding citizens or prudential investigation of presumptive malefactors—i.e., whether it is for gossip or for G-2. My right to be let alone in my house does differ, absolutely, from the “right” of a Communist to shelter in the house he works to topple, and Vance Packard degrades an unusually provocative essay by failing to identify some of his characters (e.g., Frank Donner) for what they really are. But the question is “up” now, thanks largely to Packard; let’s hope his work will bring the Liberals to see that the omnicompetent state must claim our personal privacy as one of its first victims. w. f. Rickenbacker

Suicide of a Nation, edited by Arthur Koestler (Macmillan, $4.95). This is a hard-cover reprint of the July, 1963 issue of Encounter, being the papers of eighteen English writers concerned with the fate of England. But only in the title is there a suggestion that national suicide (let alone national murder) is even a possibility. The writers are aware that the British Empire was once a great power, built and preserved by military strength, economic power, scientific excellence, and by similar unpopular developments (as all of them were at the time). However, the writers are now certain that their undemocratic past is ended and that England will hereafter be governed by the popular will—that is, by conscious popular approval of each act of government. This is correctly seen to mean welfare at home and pacifism abroad since these goals are both universally approved and are also the only ones that command the backing of the English élite. The last is a curious development, after two great wars whose only tangible British objective was the preservation of this empire that is now assumed to have been morally deplorable. If they were going to reach this conclusion, it is perhaps unfortunate that the English élite did not do so in 1914. l. r. brown

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The Naked Society, by Vance Packard (McKay, $5.95). This voluminous but indiscriminate essay on the decline of personal privacy deserves to be read, and on both counts. The Packard system (jot everything down on note pads, then publish the note pads) has the virtue, at least, of bringing odd things to light such as (in this case) the surreptitious traffic in government dossiers, the proliferation of snooping devices, and the rotten practices of “psychological” testing from school to business office. But Packard, in his uncritical worship of the open society, overlooks two basic distinctions: 1) as to the source of the question, whether the asker merely asks or whether he has the power to compel a response—i.e., whether it is an interview or an official interrogation; and 2) as to the object of the question, whether it is mere prurient snooping on law-abiding citizens or prudential investigation of presumptive malefactors—i.e., whether it is for gossip or for G-2. My right to be let alone in my house does differ, absolutely, from the “right” of a Communist to shelter in the house he works to topple, and Vance Packard degrades an unusually provocative essay by failing to identify some of his characters (e.g., Frank Donner) for what they really are. But the question is “up” now, thanks largely to Packard; let’s hope his work will bring the Liberals to see that the omnicompetent state must claim our personal privacy as one of its first victims. w. f. Rickenbacker

Suicide of a Nation, edited by Arthur Koestler (Macmillan, $4.95). This is a hard-cover reprint of the July, 1963 issue of Encounter, being the papers of eighteen English writers concerned with the fate of England. But only in the title is there a suggestion that national suicide (let alone national murder) is even a possibility. The writers are aware that the British Empire was once a great power, built and preserved by military strength, economic power, scientific excellence, and by similar unpopular developments (as all of them were at the time). However, the writers are now certain that their undemocratic past is ended and that England will hereafter be governed by the popular will—that is, by conscious popular approval of each act of government. This is correctly seen to mean welfare at home and pacifism abroad since these goals are both universally approved and are also the only ones that command the backing of the English élite. The last is a curious development, after two great wars whose only tangible British objective was the preservation of this empire that is now assumed to have been morally deplorable. If they were going to reach this conclusion, it is perhaps unfortunate that the English élite did not do so in 1914. l. r. brown