Extrovertly Private

August 30, 2008 · Filed Under Italians · 2 Comments 

Italy boasts, if that is the right word, long and complex privacy laws, which are supposed to protect its extrovert citizens from excessive prying.

Once, back in 2006, and out of perverse curiosity, I tried to read Italy’s long and complex privacy laws.

The other day, the subject came up once more when I found myself reading How Do You Say Privacy in Italian? over at James Martin’s Wandering Italy blog.  The post demonstrated, in part, that Italians are not really the most private people in the world.  Indeed, as mentioned in the article, Italians do their level best to stick as close as possible to one another.

In restaurants, and this is something I have noticed too, when a group of Italians enters, you can just about put money on the fact that they will sit at a table very close by, if not right next to you.

This gregarious behaviour is not really what you would expect from a country with privacy laws that fill texts as thick as Schwarzenegger’s arm.   James’ theory as to why Italy has privacy laws is similar to my own, but what I wanted to examine was the odd conflict which arises from the natural extroversion of Italians and the lust for privacy which exists here. Read more

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