Pseudonymity

I was looking at one of those ridiculous blogosphere-ridiculing articles in the New Republic, this one by a fellow named Lee Siegel, and this quote jumped out at me:

But, then, Zuniga--let's cut the puerile nicknames of "DailyKos, "Atrios," "Instapundit" et al., which are one part fantasy of nom de guerres, one part babytalk, and a third thuggish anonymity--believes so deafeningly and inflexibly that it's hard to tell what he believes at all, expecially if you try to make out his conviction over the noisy bleating of his followers.

Are you kidding me? On top of these misguided and foolish attacks on left blogosphere, and Siegel's idiotic claims that Kos is a fascist, this attack on pseudonymity is ahistorical and just dumb.

Put aside completely that the culture of the internet is one that uniquely embraces pseudonymity, for numerous historical and practical reasons. Remember perhaps that the Federalist Papers, some of the most important documents of the early US, were written pseudonymously. Or that Thomas Paine signed many of his writings "Common Sense." Or that Benjamin Franklin published something called Poor Richard's Almanac. Or we could think about George Orwell, or Mark Twain.

Siegel claims to know what exactly is meant when Instapundit, Kos, or Atrios post as such. First, Insty and Kos have had actually hidden identities for exactly none of the time I've been aware of them. Atrios has been out as Duncan Black since 2004. They are closer to stage names. And I hardly see Siegel attacking Woody Allen as fascistic or thuggish because he doesn't go by Allen Konigsberg.

My point is that imputing motives based on the fact that a writer or performer does his or her business pseudonomously is careless thinking, and beneath even a diarist at TNR.

{and someone like Siegel probably shouldn't be attacking others as peurile, either}

She who must not be named

There are certain public figures whose ugliness is such that sunshine will not disinfect, who are so awful that we are better off never thinking of them. Not that these people should be silenced in some sort of awful totalitarian way, but that people like this, who seem to crave attention and conflict only, are best left where they belong, on the margins, rather than in the mainstream of cultural debate.

There is a certain of these who will remain unnamed, but who recently had published a book calling liberalism a religion and simultaneously tarring liberals as irreligious. Which is of course as vapid and pointless as it is wrong, but that's her beat. It's quite a bit weaker and less inflammatory than calling us traitors, which is a good sign of sorts.

Her indictment is weaker even as she's become more shrill, and her looks (which are central to her draw) become less credibly enticing as she reaches her middle forties. There's something particularly convincing about the argument that she should be ignored, would that it were quite as easy as that.

She is at the outside of her her marketing tour. Like a musician releasing a new album or an actor talking up a new film, she has to sell herself on the teevee. But now it seems that this is her sole purpose, to sell the idea of herself. As a bold "non-PC" truth teller unafraid of slaughtering any sacred cows she might encounter. As a sexy, smart conservative. What she is is a hollowed out mask, the endpoint of any media personality has embraced becoming totally commoditized, whose exchanges only exist to support her brand and to move units.

She's a wretched loose-limbed collection of tics and talking points, and I find myself in sympathy for how hollow her existence must be and how unfulfilling it must be to play such an ugly role. It must be lonely as the Andy Kaufman of "conservatism," ridiculing the 9/11 widows just as Kaufman wrestled women. But i think of what she and those like her have done to this country and I sympathize no more.

For some sad, unknowable reason, people buy her schtick. Not the way Kaufman fans dug his absurdity and daring, but like teenage girls buy bubblegum music hearthrobs. They are conned by her contrived and tailored sexuality, they find her contempt for straw man liberalism not merely trenchant but entertaining, they congratulate her for daring to say ugly things in front of friendly audiences. It's mystifying. It's like watching otherwise sane people champion the infallibility of astrology.

Anyone willing to step back sees a sad little hustler, a skinny aging broad. Anyone can see that her pretences to intellect begin with her contempt for the allegedly inferior and end with her Ivy League degree. Her verbal jousting ability, which is fairly impressive on screen, becomes the self-aware vituperation of a bright and angry teenager on the page. The constant invocation of religiosity from this empathy-devoid ice queen is shown as the flimsy and cynical rhetorical gambit it is.

If we cannot make her disappear, if Leno insists on lobbing this wannabe fascist softballs, then we might as well remind her admirers exactly what they're looking at.

What to Admire

Oh, I admire passion. It's part of the whole charisma thing. People who are passionate get our hearts pumping as well. it's probably something fairly primitive, as if passion indicated vigor, vigor indicated health, health indicated good leadership and suggested one was a good mate or some such crap.

But "saying what you believe in" and showing passion is not an indicator of good character, or trustworthiness, or leadership ability. That is one of the fictions of our age: that apparently sincere, passionate people are the people we should listen to. And the appeal is a lot harder to countenance in times like these. People tend to be more easily taken in by "true believers' in times of chaos and upheaval and crisis. Our historical moment is one of upheaval, perhaps, but our society is in many ways fat and happy. Why then does a run up the AM dial reveal so many demogogues and mad prophets, each in his own way full to the brim with nonsense?

I couldn't tell you, but it has to stop. Because those sorts of people are exactly the last ones to listen to. Because people who come across so militantly sincere are so often cynical and calculating. Because passion is a long time friend of extremism, racism, scapegoating, xenophobia, and cruelty.

This isn't a plea against rhetoric, but a plea against gullibility. Why is it that people who function so well in working life and elsewhere are so easily fooled by obvious emotional appeals? By religion that absolves them from having to make real moral choices and in turn provides them an illusory sense of superiority? By a politics that holds in dark contempt everything that operates north of the medulla oblongata and has the gall to claim higher values?

People simply aren't thinking. We don't teach thinking enough in this culture. Not how to think, but that sometimes you don't just go with your gut, which is pretty lousy at making decisions, and instead weigh options and ideas. It'd also be nice if we taught our kids to value beauty and character and knowledge and good sense instead of cunning and brute strength and shimmering aesthetic trivia. It's not so hard to raise a kid unconvinced and uncompelled by the scummiest and cheapest of pop culture. It's not so hard to raise a kid hungry for the splendor of human existence rather than merely attention and coerced validation. We should try it sometimes.

The big revolution in American culture will happen when we stop endorsing brutality and selfishness. It will happen when people see good judgment and prudence as the hallmarks of common sense, rather than the ability to manipulate others. It will happen when we stop confusing seduction and beauty. It will happen, most of all, when we stop listening to our inner asshole.