The People's Republic of Me

The General Secretary of the People's Republic of Me formerly blogged under the name "Conscientious Objector" at objector.typepad.com.

Why the anonymity act? An old post from March 2005 sums up my feelings:

Via Quid nomen illius? I see that Keith Burgess-Jackson has some harsh words for anonymous blogs. This is an anonymous blog, and so it occurs to me that I could throw some harsh words back at Prof. Burgess-Jackson without offending him. After all, he says won't visit anonymous blogs, so how would he ever find out what I've done?

But Prof. Burgess-Jackson says that it's cowardly when people do that kind of thing, and I don't disagree, and I don't want to be a confirming instance of his thesis. It wouldn't be very nice, and even if he never found out, I would know, and it would make me feel very small. Maybe it's only because I just got finished watching Harvey for the dozenth time, but tonight I feel inclined toward the Elwood P. Dowd philosophy. In life you need to be either oh so smart or oh so pleasant. I recommend pleasant. Prof. Burgess-Jackson, I'm sure, is the former, so tonight I'll dance with the latter.

I understand why Prof. Burgess-Jackson says what he says. He makes a lot of sense. From an earlier post of his on the subject:

If your ideas are sound, why would you hesitate to take responsibility for them? A real man would say, "Here are my ideas; grapple with them." Imagine a world in which there were no anonymous utterances. It would force people to be civil, fair, and charitable; to be responsive to the facts; and to be logically consistentófor the absence of any of these things would constitute a black mark on oneís record. Anonymity all but ensures incivility, unfairness, uncharitableness, factual recklessness, and logical inconsistency.

There are blogs out there that are the equivalent of poison-pen letters. Some blogs out there are like that even when there are names attached. But even then there's something especially odious about it when there isn't a name. And I like idea of taking responsibility for your words.

But anonymity isn't an incentive to crudity. It's only makes it easier to give in to temptation or to a prior disposition. If a blogger is mostly pleasant, I doubt his anonymity will make him grossly less pleasant. So I think there are probably counterexamples out there to Prof. Burgess-Jackson's generalization: civil people who blog anonymously and yet remain civil. Of course, when a philosopher generalizes he generally takes his audience to understand that there might be counterexamples to his claim. So this isn't really an objection on my part. I'm only helping the good professor by making explicit what he probably means to leave implicit.

Being anonymous doesn't necessarily imply cowardice, either. Maybe you just don't think it's anyone's business who you are. And if you're not looking to pick a fight it's hard to see how "cowardice" might apply. Anonymous bloggers who devote themselves to praising buttercups and baby kittens probably aren't being cowardly. A little embarrassed, perhaps, to be seen online by their friends, but probably not cowardly.

One of my intentions in launching this site was to make a place that would try to be both intelligent and civil. It's not up to me to judge how far I've been the one, and there are times I've failed to be the latter. But I didn't erect the hedgerow of anonymity so that I could take convenient potshots from behind it. I erected it because it seemed a retiring and non-self-regarding thing to do. I suppose that, as with soldiers, to a professional disputant every shady tree looks like a sniper's nest. But some of us just like shady trees. Afternoon, I say to Prof. Burgess-Jackson as he passes, and tip my hat.

I also maintain this place mostly for myself. It's a little back booth in the great online tavern, a place where I can step in for a little refreshment. I suppose I could accomplish the same thing with an offline journal, but talking to myself when I'm the only intended audience always left me feeling a little absurd. I really don't care if I have any readers here, and if you're reading this there's really no point in your coming back. But I find it helps the writing process if there's at least the illusion that someone else is out there reading. (It's easiest to do when you think it's a pooka.) But if I'm going to be writing this stuff mostly for myself, why put my name on it? I know who I am.

I also have no cowardice. I don't think I've posted here on topics that are of deep controversy, and even when I've wandered into semi-controversial topics, it's been with a somewhat detached interest, and so I don't mind in the least if anyone pushes back, here or at their sites. I actually post quite oftenómaniacally, evenóat another site that gets quite a bit of traffic, and I have made at least one post on a fraught subject that got picked up by parts of the blogosphere. (Okay, *cough*, I nudged someone into giving me an Instalanche.) I post under a pseudonym there, but one click will bring up my name, my picture, and my contact info. So I don't think that counts.

I also think the professor judges too harshly of people who might be posting in delicate circumstances. Leave aside the case of bloggers in repressive countries. Should bloggers defiantly post whatever they like without regard for any possible consequence? That'd be highly praiseworthy. But I don't think it condemnable that some prefer discretion and so post anonymously. If you think that your (non-vicious) posts might still piss off an asshole with the power to put your fingers in a toaster, I think it's presumptuous to question your decision to post anonymously.

Prof. Burgess-Jackson writes:

Incidentally, someone defended anonymous blogging on the ground that arguments should be evaluated on their merits rather than on the basis of who produced them. Why, then, are names affixed to scholarly essays? If all that matters are the arguments, why ever disclose their authors?

Well, I assumed it was because they took pride in their work and wanted the world to associate them with it. Everyone should take pride in their work, and I think affixing your name to your work is a fine thing. But the name shouldn't be allowed to reflect on the merit of the work, so I'm not sure how Prof. Burgess-Jackson's example is relevant to the proferred observation. "Someone defended academic blogging on the grounds that arguments should be evaluated on their merits rather than on the basis of where they were published. Why, then, are scholarly essays published in deadwood journals? If all that matters are the arguments, why ever put them in a deadwood journal?" It sounds like a non-sequitur to me. Besides, if the name "Yeardley Hungadunga" means as little to me as "Ms. Z," it would scarcely make a difference to me whether it were published anonymously or not. As I say, putting her name on it only tells me that Yeardley is proud of her work. Good for her.

Well, I don't mean these as super strong objections. Most of what I say is peculiar to this particular blog and doesn't address Prof. Burgess-Jackson's general points. I'll just wish him a pleasant evening (though I'm totally invisible) and be on my way.