| | On Anonymity
There is a trend on campus (at least since I got here) to claim anonymity as a means to promote more meaningful dialogue. The one and only argument used is that anonymity in debate causes people to think about the ideas, not the person behind those ideas. I have never liked this argument - not when the "liberals" were making it, and not now while the "conservatives" are making it. (That turn, by the way, is one of the most fascinating switches in the political history of this college.) I believe anonymity not only hurts debate, but also hurts our ability to debate as Christians. Here are a few of my reasons for believing so:
(1) Anonymity is anti-sacramental. It separates flesh from spirit, universal from particular. It encourages us to think of ideas as abstract entities battling each other in ethereality, ignoring the bare fact that arguments on this earth do not occur except between people - real, living, debating people. It is speech without a mouth, thought without gray matter.
(2) The use of anonymity to facilitate debate is akin to the abundance of locks on doors to prevent stealing: both fail to address the real problem. Anonymity purports to say, "Here is this idea - take it for what it is worth, regardless of the messenger." What anonymity actually says is, "Here is this idea - I think so little of you that I do not believe you can honestly evaluate it if my name is attached to it." If that is the case, why would the messenger think the other person is intellectually honest enough to debate the opinions without a person attached? Anonymity does not encourage honest debate; it encourages the very problem it seeks to address by assuming that people cannot look past other personalities to judge the merits of the case. By assuming the fault of much of its audience, it shows itself to be essentially antagonistic, not appropriately humble.
(3) God is not anonymous. Nor were any of his prophets, apostles, preachers, messengers, priests, etc. The biblical example is always this: that men who believe the truth ought to put their names to it. Anonymity claims to say, "Here is this idea - look at it on its own merits." What it actually says is, "Here is this idea - I am unwilling to put my name to it publicly." An inability to personally support a position in the name of honest debate saps the structure of what honest debate is about - real people accepting valid arguments. In the name of a truthfulness which is not presupposed in its audience, anonymity encourages men to separate their own attraction to the argument from the attractiveness of the argument. How can one present a good position which has failed to win over the presenter himself?
(4) If one is not comfortable putting his own name to a position through fear, is there not a mediatorial paradigm in the Scriptures? Cannot another speak for you? Are we not to be as Jesus for each other, speaking for another's position if necessary?
I have a somewhat perverse image of Jesus bringing His disciples to Himself and saying, "You do realize that the world hates Me, does not believe in Me, and may kill you because of Me. So you had best give them this gospel in pamphlet form without your names attached lest you all be tortured, crucified, hung, burnt, and all the rest. In fact, you had best not even put My name on it, so people will be more inclined to read it." [Remember, too, that when the Pharisees first encountered Jesus, they said amongst themselves, "Is this not the son of Joseph?"] If there is a fault of people to judge character before message, such a fault comes with the territory. There is no basis for anonymity in the Scriptures, nor a really good case for it until the Founding Fathers. Perhaps we should review their motivations before attaching their name to this debate as if their authority proved everything. [Isn't that itself ironic, that we point to the people behind the Federalist Papers and not the content therein?]
--D
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| | Posted 5/1/2007 4:57 PM - 15 comments
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Very impressive -- I like a lot of what you have to say. I'm intrigued whether (and if so, why) you think the Founders had the first good case for anonymity (and just for the record, the last irony you found was amazing -- that had never struck me before).
