| Viewing Single Post From: Musings of a Superfluous Man | |
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| Duke parent 2004 | Sep 10 2008, 05:54 AM |
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SAY WHO? THOUGHTS ON ANONYMITY John Gross created quite a stir in 1974 when as editor of the Times Literary Supplement he introduced bylines to what until then had been “one of the last bastions of anonymity in the English literary world.” So I was not surprised to see Gross as reviewer in the Wall Street Journal (September 4) of Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature, by John Mullan. (See Gross’s “In All But Name” at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122049160679797631.html) Noting Mullan’s decision to lump together anonymous and pseudonymous publication, Gross congratulates Mullan for “reminding” the reader that many English classics first appeared without authorial attribution. Examples include Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Jane Austen’s novels, as well as Walter Scott’s. Moreover, Charlotte Brontë enjoyed attending literary parties when she visited London but insisted on keeping up the pretense that she hadn’t written “Jane Eyre”—the only reason why she had been invited. Separate editions of “In Memoriam” were still appearing anonymously at the time of Tennyson’s death, even though the poem had already been included in collected editions of his work. Among the drivers of anonymity were modesty, mischief-making, mockery (Byron wanted to “keep his enemies guessing”), and--particularly in the case of political writings—self-preservation (Locke, who lived in very dangerous times, published most of his tracts anonymously.). Hardly consequential today but not so in earlier centuries were conventional obstacles put before aspiring female writers. Among the eventually famous ladies to adopt pseudonymity in order to circumvent them were Mary Anne Evans—as George Eliot—and Charlotte Brontë—as Currer Bell. Although Gross does not explicitly discuss the perils of anonymity as employed on the Internet (I cannot speak for Mr. Mullan), he does deliver a verdict against the cloak: In the age of celebrity culture, it is hard not to look back fondly on the sober charms of Anon. But we shouldn’t allow nostalgia to mislead us. In the end, anonymity does more harm than good. It allows the worst critics, Mr. Puff and Mr. Sneer, to sound like impersonal oracles. I’m not confident that Gross’s strictures would, or should, apply to blogs such as Liestoppers—although we stand to gain much by thinking about the mixed bag that is anonymous posting. (I, too, shall lump pseudonymous with its sibling.) With few exceptions, the posters here are not professional writers. Many still work at jobs completely unrelated to their blogging or to writing in general. (Anonymity might be especially important to garrulous posters still drawing paychecks!) I suspect from the frequency and timing of their contributions that many posters are either retired or homemakers. I’m guessing that more than a few are self-employed, for whom anonymity is preferred to alienating clients or customers who might soil themselves if confronted by over-the-top (or even penetrating) opinions expressed openly by the entrepreneur. Even when writing on their own time, some posters might need to bow to the protocols of their professions or their employers—either explicit or implicit—that frown on their taking “public” positions on the controversies of the day. Anonymity clearly facilitates the expression of opinions that a poster might otherwise be reluctant to broadcast, either because the opinions themselves are too bold for normal attribution or because the poster—fearing his inadequacy at the keyboard—prefers not to embarrass himself or (more nobly) to compromise the thought itself by risking dismissals of the sort, “Let’s move on; it’s only so and so fumbling again.” (Using just one pseudonym will not insure a poster against this “fumbling risk.”) Just as clearly, anonymity enables posters to go beyond bold, to venture into irresponsibility, and even to flirt with libel. Very few of the posters at Liestoppers blog with their real names. Some have been posting pseudonymously for so long that I suspect they forget how asymmetrical their relationship must be to their named targets. For example, Duke’s Coach K has been roundly criticized on this board for not more vigorously supporting Mike Pressler and the lacrosse team during the darkest days of the hoax. Yet how many of Coach K's critics would be willing to sign their real names to the same reprimands? Reluctance to “step up” seems far more salient, and blameworthy, in named others than in our cloaked selves. We can become so accustomed to the comfort and ease of posting pseudonymously that we sometimes forget that those not operating under such camouflage must take into account the effects of their utterances on their families, their friends, and their colleagues. A pseudonymous poster more closely resembles a nineteen-year-old soldier charging a machine-gun nest than that soldier’s commanding officer. The Internet has spawned more blogs than there are America-bashers in Europe. So “everyman” can now take flights of fancy into cyberspace. The good news: A connection to the Net opens the discussion to folks from all over the world. The bad news: Some of these folks are malevolent beings who should never be allowed near young children or happy dogs. Because creeps cannot be trusted not to use Google and other search engines to dredge up evidence of the dirty magazines we bought during our middle-school years, posting anonymously still makes good sense to those of us who wish to keep the stalkers and nut-jobs in their own little corners of the Matrix. I close with a note about my own predicament, which presents an especially embarrassing boost to the case for anonymity. It also calls to mind Matthew Arnold’s famous chiding of his countrymen for their absurd surnames (see Culture and Anarchy), for I have carried these many years a name so unprepossessing, so hard on the ear and unfriendly to the tongue, that common decency and a regard for the aesthetic sensibilities of mankind require my abandoning it whenever and wherever practicable. You, too, dear reader, would prefer “Duke parent 2004” to Philander Ellsworth Wartley.  Edited by Duke parent 2004, Sep 10 2008, 06:11 PM.
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| Musings of a Superfluous Man · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers | |
10:27 AM Nov 30
