"The Circle", Dave Eggers

ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN.

"As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind. No longer do I have to wonder."

"She knew she was being improved just by being in the Circlers’ proximity. It was like a well-curated organic grocery store: you knew, by shopping there, that you were healthier."

"It was a place where everyone endeavored, constantly and passionately, to improve themselves, each other, share their knowledge, disseminate it to the world."

"Even when I’m talking to you face-to-face you’re telling me what some stranger thinks of me. It becomes like we’re never alone. Every time I see you, there’s a hundred other people in the room."

"No one needs the level of contact you’re purveying. It improves nothing. It’s not nourishing. It’s like snack food."

"That’s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished.”

"The dominance of the Circle stifles competition and is dangerous to our way of free-market capitalism.”

"You know this isn’t what you might call a clock-in, clock-out type of company."

“No, I mean, this is a tangent, but my problem with paper is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity. You look at your paper brochure, and that’s where it ends. It ends with you."

"It’s just maddening, thinking of how much knowledge is lost every day through this kind of shortsightedness. And I don’t want to call it selfish but—”

"That what had always caused her anxiety, or stress, or worry, was not any one force, nothing independent and external—it wasn’t danger to herself or the constant calamity of other people and their problems. It was internal: it was subjective: it was not knowing."

"It hurts him personally when anyone even considers the deleting of any information. It’s like killing babies, he says. You know that.”

"My every meeting, movement, my every word, will be available to all my constituents and to the world.”

"I mean, like everything else you guys are pushing, it sounds perfect, sounds progressive, but it carries with it more control, more central tracking of everything we do.”

“So in general, would you say you behave differently when you know you’re being watched?”

"But the persecution of gays or any minority group is made uniquely possible through secrecy."

"Millions of documents, and the main takeaway was that U.S. diplomats thought Gadhafi was a kook, with all his female bodyguards and strange eating habits. If anything, the release of the documents just put these diplomats on better behavior. They were more careful about what they said.”

“But what if they did know our plans and we knew theirs? You’d suddenly be free of what they used to call the risk of mutually assured destruction, and instead you’d arrive at mutually assured trust."

"It’s like a broken mirror. If we look into a broken mirror, a mirror that’s cracked or missing parts, what do we get?” Now it made sense to Mae. Any assessment, judgment, or picture utilizing incomplete information would always be wrong. “We get a distorted and broken reflection,” she said."

"If we demystify it, if we admit that it’s something we all do, then it loses its power to shock. We move toward honesty, and we move away from shame. Or second, and even better, if we all, as a society, decide that this is behavior we’d rather not engage in, the fact that everyone knows, or has the power to know who’s doing it, this would prevent the behavior from being engaged in. This is just as you said—you wouldn’t have stolen if you knew you were being watched.”

"Secrets are the enablers of antisocial, immoral and destructive behavior. Do you see how this is?”

"But my point is, what if we all behaved as if we were being watched? It would lead to a more moral way of life."

"We can cure any disease, end hunger, everything, because we won’t be dragged down by all our weaknesses, our petty secrets, our hoarding of information and knowledge. We will finally realize our potential.”

"And second, secrets inspire speculation. When we don’t know what’s being hidden, we guess, we make up answers.”

"But if all the doors are open, physically and metaphorically, there’s only the one truth.”

“Why shouldn’t everyone see whatever it is they want to see? Why shouldn’t everyone have equal access to the sights of the world?"

“I think it’s simple. If you care about your fellow human beings, you share what you know with them."

SECRETS ARE LIES
SHARING IS CARING
PRIVACY IS THEFT

"She was apprised by Stewart that when thousands, or even millions, are watching, you perform your best self. You are cheerier, more positive, more polite, more generous, more inquisitive."

"Yes, sometimes some of the applications of the internet could be a bit crass and commercial, but for every one commercial application, there were three like this, proactive applications that used the power of the technology to improve humanity."

"I’m moving north, to the densest and most uninteresting forest I can find. I know that your cameras are mapping out these areas as they have mapped the Amazon, Antarctica, the Sahara, etc. But at least I’ll have a head start. And when the cameras come, I’ll keep going north."

"So I’m gone. By the time you read this, I’ll be off the grid, and I expect that others will join me. In fact, I know others will join me. We’ll be living underground, and in the desert, in the woods."

"So many people who don’t want to be found but who will be. So many people who wanted no part of all this. That’s what’s new. There used to be the option of opting out. But now that’s over. Completion is the end. We’re closing the circle around everyone—it’s a totalitarian nightmare.”

"In the interest of education and safety, everything they’ve done will be recorded, tracked, logged, analyzed—it’s permanent. Then, when they’re old enough to vote, to participate, their membership is mandatory."

"Under the guise of having every voice heard, you create mob rule."

"Infocomunism. But paired with ruthless capitalistic ambition—”

"If everyone has equal access to services, to information, we finally have a chance at equality. No information should cost anything. There should be no barriers to knowing everything, to accessing all—”

"I mean, during any major human turning point, there’s upheaval. Some get left behind, some choose to be left behind.”

“WE MUST ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO DISAPPEAR.”