So I’ve been watching the dust clouds of the Halloween-style egg fight between Ed Whelan and Publius which culminated today in Whelan apologizing to Publius for outing him.
And I’ve been mulling this over more than a bit – particularly as a formerly pseudonymous blogger myself – and I think Whelan was mistaken in apologizing (at least to the extent he did). Here’s what I read that made me decide this after some thinking.
It’s the post from the ‘poor me’ post that Publius (nee John Blevins) put up ‘fessing up and explaining all the reasons why it was important to him to blog under a pseudonym.
Now when I first went into this, I have to admit that Publius wasn’t a blogger whose work I could immediately put into a frame, and so my initial (wrong) reaction was that he was a poo-flinging monkey like tbogg, and my thought on his being outed was ‘fair cop.’ Live by the poo, die by it, I said to myself…
But because I tend to try to check my facts before I take positions, I took some time and read a bunch of publius’ work, and he’s in a whole different ballpark, league, sport than folks like that. He’s a serious blogger, albeit an aggressive liberal, and someone whose posts I’ve read and admired in the past.
But having said that, I think that he’s got it completely backward when he talks about why it was important to him to blog under a nom de plume. Here’s what he said:
As I told Ed (to no avail), I have blogged under a pseudonym largely for private and professional reasons. Professionally, I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging (particularly on politics) can cause problems. And before that, I was a lawyer with real clients. I also believe that the classroom should be as nonpolitical as possible – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts. So I don’t tell them about this blog. Also, I write and research on telecom policy – and I consider blogging and academic research separate endeavors. This, frankly, is a hobby.
Privately, I don’t write under my own name for family reasons. I’m from a conservative Southern family – and there are certain family members who I’d prefer not to know about this blog (thanks Ed). Also, I have family members who are well known in my home state who have had political jobs with Republicans, and I don’t want my posts to jeopardize anything for them (thanks again).
He wrote under a pseudonym to shield himself from the consequences of his words. I think that’s exactly backwards.
When I started writing as Armed Liberal – in my very first post – I wrote that
I’m choosing not to identify myself … right now … for a variety of reasons. I’ll start by standing on the time-honored tradition of anonymous pamphleteering, which I believe blogging fits neatly into. My significant other has a fairly political job (although she doesn’t believe so). And finally, I’m trying to disassociate the value of what is set out here from any judgment you might make about me.
[emphasis added]
I didn’t believe it was as important to shield myself (and mine) from what I wrote as it was to have what I wrote stand on its own. I’m not insensitive – and I wasn’t in 2002 – to the concern that what I wrote might have an impact on my living or on my life.
But first and foremost for me it was a vehicle to put ideas forth deprived of any claim to authority (I was a student of Sheldon Wolin and John Schaar! I’m someone who works inside the process and can explain it!).
And when my real life and my blogging life intersected in a meaningful way, I dropped the pseud and stepped out.
So it bothers me more than a little that the primary defense that Publius wants to mount is that it might impact his work or hurt his family’s feelings.
It especially bothers me when he says that
And yes – I criticized Whelan rather harshly. But that’s what the blogosphere is about. Blogging is not for the thin-skinned. And you would think that someone who spends their days trying to destroy other people’s reputations in dishonest and inflammatory ways wouldn’t be so childish and thin-skinned.
I’m sorry, but pitchers who throw at the head shouldn’t be shocked when an occasional bat comes loose and soars out toward the mound. People who see the root of blogging as critcising people harshly and offending where they can do forfeit some of the claim to courtesy which is really what weak pseudonymity (it wouldn’t be too hard to track down any of the pseudonymous political bloggers, really) is really all about.
So on both of those counts – because I think he was making the claim to pseudonymity for the wrong reasons, and because I think that what he really regrets losing is the freedom to throw elbows and then go sit innocently at his family table, I – a formerly pseudonymous blogger – think that Whelan committed a minor infraction of manners at worst.
–
I think Ed Whelan was wrong to out publius and right to apologize. Breaking a pseudonym is a violation of widely though not universally recognized blogging etiquette. I think that bit if etiquette is well-founded too.
Though Ed Whelan was wrong to violate etiquette, somebody else should have called him on it. Publius had no good basis for doing so.
publius:
No it isn’t. It’s about facilitating valuable conversations that often otherwise wouldn’t have happened, particularly among people of minority interests (e.g. neo-pagans) who otherwise would likely have never found each other, and it’s about a level playing field, where anyone whose logic is sound and whose facts and links hold up can gain a hearing for ideas that may be correct and / or valuable but normally would be denied a hearing.
Elbow-in-the-face blogging isn’t valuable or even really neutral from the point of view of providing a good format for valuable and often otherwise unavailable discussions to bear fruit. Courtesy is valuable in elevating discussions and connecting people who should talk, but otherwise would not have.
publius:
Blogging is for those who have something good to contribute.
However, once you say that the purpose of blogging is harsh criticism, and that the thin-skinned have no place in the blogsphere, how can you follow up like this?
publius:
It’s no good to elevate harshness over good manners and then blubber that “he’s mean!” It’s no good to demand in effect that those who don’t like feces-throwing shut up and get out of the discussion space, and then expect that those who pick up the challenge to be harsher than thou will do so only on terms you think are OK.
If your advantage over all the valuable bloggers you think should shut up and go away is that you’re prepared – or actually happy – to do things they think are beyond reasonable bounds and not worth putting up with, then if someone else has that same advantage over you: fair enough.
Publius was entitled to his opinions and his anonymity, but if you are anonymously writing things on the internet that would embarrass you in your personal or professional life then you are choosing to put yourself at risk.
Sure, Glen, and you’re also putting yourself at risk if you walk in a crime ridden alley. That doesn’t make the actions of criminals any more defensible.
No, I’m not trying to claim Whelan is a criminal. He is not. But he is a bit of a putz, and the apology seems justified in my opinion.
Anonymity and pseudonymity have both advantages and benefits to society, but within reason (excepting, for instance, anonymous spam choking networks and the like) I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. I’m not really impressed with the moralizing about the right and wrong reasons for anonymity, either.
(He says, from his own neo-Roman pseudonym. I’ve been writing from it for so long, I’ve forgotten I use it.)
I agree he shouldn’t have been outed. Using a pseudonym is fine, but using a pseudonym to say things to say things you would be embarrassed to say under your own name is weaving a tangled web.
Privacy is a legitimate concern that ought to be respected. But if you have a respectable public persona you ought to be careful about being a bad boy on the internet. There’s nothing terribly wrong with trying to have it both ways, people do it all the time, but you ought to know it might not work. Secret lives are nothing but trouble.
Secret lives are necessary. They can provide vitality and room to grow. Someone’s secret side is often more complete, more truthful and more creative than their official side.
(Which does not mean: Always trust Tyler. There are costs and risks too.)
But the case for pseudonyms and secret lives is not well exemplified by someone who thinks that the point is simply to be harsher than one would want one’s family, friends and colleagues to know about. There is more to the blogsphere than a fight club.
I wrote a very, very long post, but when I got to my final argument, I realized that maybe more interesting than anything else I wrote thus far.
Take Johnathan swift, who said some very cruel and unfair things about his political opponents. Now, he clearly used a half-dozen pseudonyms as a shield to prevent the consequence of his words, (although, those consequences would have been much more severe than tenure).
Yet, I think many of agree that Swift’s work, (although it often stooped to basic name-calling), fundamentally shifted the history of the England… and probably for the better. Does that mean that pseudonym name-calling CAN be a good thing?
My main argument is, when do we declare a pseudonym shield acceptable, and when should it be revealed?
Common Sense was published anonymously. Ben Franklin wrote a clever parody attacking slavery under a pseudonym. I wonder if we feel different about ‘outing’ bloggers than we would about more traditional writing? If a slave owning Southerner (insert Virginian here) had outed Historicus, would it be different?
On a side note, its highly probably General Daniel Sickles (noted for having murdered his wife’s lover) wrote a (to be kind) inaccurate and scandalous report on Gettysburg under the name Historicus, that started a tarnishing of George Meade he has never recovered fully from to this day. A small thing, but a blight on American History. I guess the knife cuts both ways.
Sickles was wrong about Gettysburg, but he was right to take precautions with Meade. Meade once had a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter drummed out of camp on a mule, wearing a sign that said LIBELER. Hey, there’s a pseudonym somebody could use.