Do not hold up to me as an ideal the privacy of thirty years ago. That these things were only talked about over the back fence, and never in the papers, only made it worse. The problem may not have been any worse then, but it was certainly no better. Memory plays funny tricks. No one cares about divorce, any more.
Political ideology is out of favor everywhere except on college campuses.
Now its worse to be a racist than to be of mixed race. Today the issues are communicable diseases, high risk behavior, child abuse, sexism, seduction, abortion, and drug use, but the intent is still conformity. Robert Bork was denied a seat on the Supreme Court for opinions that would have recommended him thirty years ago. The fact is that there has always and everywhere been a battle between freedom and information. Every society in every age has used what information it had about its members in an attempt to control behavior.