Any one or with no name

John Reeve and Charles R have raised great points on anonymity in their comments on lost. John inquires into the anonymity of the author of the infamous anti-blog article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Charles R suggests a kind of groupness or collectivity informing remarks by 'anonymous.'  I think these ideas might be thought together. And I think that Zizek's account of public law and its superego supplement explains why.

Here is the tension: the academic double blind review is supposed to insure the rule of reason. It's supposed to insure that decisions on publication are made on the basis of the quality of the work alone and are not a matter of personal support or vindictiveness. Anonymity, then, is supposed to liberate reason from particularity, purifying the review process. Similarly, in the blogosphere, some prefer not to disclose their names on their blogs or on their comments. By remaining anonymous, they again seem to achieve a kind of freedom, a freedom to think beyond the confines of particularity and free from potential retaliation. Anonymity again works to purify, to eliminate a kind of stain that hinders free thought.

The collective element allegedly underlying the academic review process is reason. What makes it collective is the sense that anyone not biased by particularity would agree with the decision, would access the same bank or flow of reason. The supposition of free exchange in the blogosphere is somewhat less idealized insofar as specific comments don't have the same status as embodiments of objective reason. Yet, the overflow, the magnitude of exchange, is supposed to guarantee, ultimately, that the true, good, beautiful, right win out.

Why is this so clearly absurd? Because we also are fully aware of another side of anonymity, of its obscene side, the side of unrestrained, gleeful excess. The referee takes the opportunity to pontificate, to glory in her own brilliance, trashing the stupidity of the pathetic article writer. She is able to get away with it because the process is double blind and she has been the one chosen by the editors to determine the worth of the submitted (great word) piece. Her brutality (not the same as brutal honesty) thrives as protected enjoyment. And, the same split holds for the anonymous blogger or troll. Since no one knows that he works in a university setting, say, or is a visible activist in libertarian politics, to use another example, he is free to send his homophobic and racist obsceneties bouncing around the blogosphere. He can enjoy his anonymity.

Comments

[Alain]

Jodi

I think you are absolutely right. Anonymity can be a source of sadistic pleasure, such as the case with various blogosphere trolls. Instead of promoting the universality of reason, anonymity can actually undermine it. The "veil of ignorance" in the original position comes to mind.

[Jodi]

That's what I should have titled this post!! Maybe on long sunday....

[Charles R]

I like what you're writing here, Jodi, in combining together what John and I have raised about your own thoughts on this. It occurs to me to ask, though, if we can also go on and say that the gleeful excess is something already present in that collective of reason. Or, is something present in *that* reason.

[Jodi]

Yes! I was trying to get that across, but I think my two level approach bifurcated the matter excessively. So, yes, I think the gleeful excess is part of, within, attached to 'that' reason. You can't get pure reason, or reason purified of the excess--and, the very drive to purify is itself a mark of that excess (this is also the way I read Plato's Republic.)

[Charles R]

Ah, well, I am a slow reader. ^_^

But so I better get what you're writing, is it your suggestion there are two stains, or two ways of being excessive (for instance, the stain of bias needing purification by the use of an objective, "veiled" reason is a different stain from the stain of the unrestrained use of "objective" reason; the excess of/within particularity is different from the excess of/within reason) or that these stains and excesses are one and the same? Or something ambiguous among the options?

[Jodi]

the excess/stain is the same: its the place on the loop (like a mobius strip) where the drive to purify becomes itself the stain that needs to be eliminated (this is Zizek's argument).