REWIND: Tell me, who are you? (February 26, 2009)

In this encore of a 2009 News and Tribune column, the intrinsic tackiness of trognonymity is catalogued.

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BEER MONEY: Tell me, who are you?

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

Come now, let us reason together.
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson, by way of Isaiah 1:18

Tribune readers who’ve been coming here for a while will recall that during the 1980s, I was known to submit the stray letter to the editor. Someday I’ll delve into the bulging banker’s boxes stacked in my closet and unearth relevant fragments of those letter-to-the-editor archives, but for now just one example will suffice.

Around 1983, after writing a letter expressing principled opposition to President Ronald Reagan’s reactionary conservative excesses, I received a small, smudged envelope in the mail. There was no return address, only a New Albany postmark, and as those were the days before one studied suspicious packages for white powdered residue, I shrugged and opened it.

Crude, palsied handwriting on a small rectangle of unsigned spiral notebook paper came straight to the point:

Jesse the Revolutionary
Or Killer Kennedy
Who is your choice?

Imagine: Years before the advent of Internet forums and blogging, the first ever “trognonymous” (troglodyte + anonymous = trognonymous) note had arrived to brighten my day. Then, as now, it compelled me to reflect on the nature of cowardice, strengthening my belief that anonymity is an affliction borne of malice, one practiced by the chronically dysfunctional solely to exact vengeance on those they envy for having the integrity to stand openly behind their words, thoughts and opinions.

Duly inspired, a year later I became the only person in my rural precinct to vote for Jesse Jackson in the Democratic primary, and Teddy Kennedy remains a personal favorite. Now it is 2009, Barack Obama is in the White House, and this very column probably will inspire more submissions of unsigned proof that my anonymity position has and always will be correct.

Some things don’t change. That’s sad.

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There was another factor precipitating my severe allergy to the abuses of anonymity. The Tribune’s eagerness at the time to print nameless letters to the editor engendered a recurring feeling of disgust. Most of these letters were vicious personal attacks on people whose identities were irrevocably public. It was disgraceful, and I spent uncounted years denouncing it.

Consequently, whatever small role my advocacy may have played in convincing the newspaper’s publisher to reverse the longstanding policy and require the identities of writers to be revealed is a source of great personal satisfaction to me.

To the Tribune’s credit, it made the right call, although the change came against the strenuous objections of the editor, who defended anonymity in much the same manner as some continue to attempt today (paraphrasing):

There are numerous times when adults eagerly embrace the opportunity to injudiciously and anonymously vent their anger and intemperance, and conversely, there are comparatively few instances when legitimate concerns like protection for whistle-blowers precludes the full disclosure of identity, and so the multitudinous former cases must be tolerated so as to provide rationale for the stunning infrequency of the latter cases.

Isn’t it patronizing to inform an adult that he or she isn’t sufficiently sophisticated to understand the rights and responsibilities of free speech, and therefore shall be permitted to spray anonymous attacks like diarrhea in the general direction of ideas and people that are detested?

Pandering in this fashion also precludes the very real possibility that even hidebound adults can learn if provided with reputable information and instruction. While it is true that informants and whistle-blowers might fear reprisal, the vast majority of anonymous letter writers and today’s masked Internet commentators have no such concern, and rather are exercising malice in “speaking out loud” without acknowledging responsible channels for doing so.

As the wag once said, we already have a Bill of Rights – now we need an accompanying Bill of Responsibilities. Free speech is a right, and it implies a responsibility. Although accumulated bile often stands squarely in the way of understanding these obligations, it doesn’t render them moot.

Rather, it illustrates their underlying truth even more vividly.

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Sometimes nothing can be done, anonymously or otherwise. Two weeks ago a friend of many years announced, although regrettably not to my face, that he would be taking his “American money” elsewhere and severing personal ties with me because of my February 5 column accusing a negligent stork of dropping me on the wrong continent way back in 1960.

Granted, he’s rigidly conservative, and I’ll always be a pants-down social democrat. Yes, by the twisted practices of modern times, a strict ideological segregation must be maintained, but hasn’t anyone ever heard of the long friendship between Kennedy and Orrin Hatch?

Moreover, I retain numerous friends whose political views are somewhat to the right of Charlton Heston’s, and they’ve never shunned me or mine because of it. We vigorously discuss issues, debate them as fiercely, sometimes agree, and sometimes agree to disagree. Then we kick back and drink fine craft beer together, as it should be.

If I write something controversial -- and I fully intend to continue doing so -- isn’t the properly “American” response to emulate those three members of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), who responded to my column three weeks ago by writing their own letters, stating their own views, signing their own names, and being part of the solution rather than part of the problem?

Remember, the gadfly’s chief objectives are promoting the exchange of ideas and furthering dialogue, which can’t happen when masks are donned, brickbats tossed or disappearances staged.