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}