Public vs. Private Conversations

I love to listen to comedians. I happen to think that in many cases they can have some very good insight into human behavior or society as a whole. One particular skit of a comedian that I cannot recall, fits perfectly with this book and the ideas behind it. The skit talks about the comedian being out in public and seeing people on their cell phones talking very loudly (a pet peeve of his). So in this instance he stood very close to the person on the cell phone, and acted as if he was part of the conversation. Of course the man on the phone was not happy with this, so he told the comedian that he was “trying to have a private conversation.” The comedian responded with, “your private conversation is interfering with my public”.

So where does public start? Where does it end? What is public? What is Private?

I would be very interested to read about some reactions to Dewey’s work and how it can be applied now in the time of social networking where “private” conversations can be seen by anyone who has a facebook account. Is it still a private conversation if it is only understood by the person it was intended for?

Dewey states that “in a broad sense any transaction deliberately carried on between two or more persons is social in quality.” Is it also public? Perhaps the only time something private occurs is if it is in your own head, once it is shared with simply one person then it is “social in quality” and possibly “public” in nature.