Anonymity and Depersonalization

Many students in the University have taken to anonymous platforms to spread concerns---many of which require attention---to whoever may be willing to lend an ear. Anonymity, at least for them, provides a certain barrier from the consequences of ‘saying the wrong thing’ or from having their ideas be prejudiced on account of more ‘personal’ considerations.

But I would argue that relying on anonymity in discourse runs the risk of undermining the 'human' element of communication. What I mean by this is that anonymity, while safeguarding privacy, also robs readers of the ability to understand the added personal contexts which may motivate a speaker’s ideas or insights.

In other words, it makes it harder for us to figure out where our anonymous conversation partners are “coming from,” thus undermining the possibility for a more empathetic, human-to-human dialogue to arise. At best, readers are forced to “supply” context by means of educated guesses.

Catholic theology teaches us that the name is the icon of the person, it is among the first points of contact: hence God in giving His name to us established thus the foundations of a personal relationship, and in reconstituting the names of Jacob and Abram he therefore established a special covenant with them and their progeny.

But when things are done anonymously---without that vulnerability that is necessary for the establishment of the relationship between I and Thou, there can be no true "dialogue"---no true sharing of "reasons" which originate not only in one's studies but, on a more basic level, on one's experiences.

It is the fundamentally depersonalizing aspect of anonymous discourse that gives rise to the “anon”: a faceless, nameless, and totally unknowable interlocutor reduced to his ability to manipulate words. But in truth, the anon does himself a disservice by removing his ability to be understood on a personal level, that is, beyond mere reading comprehension.

Should we not be surprised that anonymous forums (more often than not) tend to devolve into hubs for the expression of one’s less-than-honorable instincts? And God forbid that two “anons” should start engaging in polemical discourses with one another.

The fact of the matter is that the anonymization of discourse stems from the fact that we have forgotten how to make enemies properly. Us moderns are both non-confrontational to a fault yet at the same time unwilling to respect our adversaries when they do appear. We are a society of charmless cowards who neither know how to bear the sword nor how to parley with the opposition.

There is no better example to illustrate this than war. It may be the case that historic chivalry is a myth---but it nonetheless served as an ideal according to which officers of the great European nations conducted themselves even in the face of their enemies. These historical affectations were, in reality, an attempt to preserve some semblance of humanity in something as inhumane and barbaric as war.

Unlike today, where wars can be fought and decided at an immeasurable scale, all at the click of a button. The demise of populations hangs on the consciences of anonymous men who shall never see their adversaries face-to-face. Wars were always brutal---yet today more fragrantly so, with its inhumanity being further manifested in mechanization.

So it is with other forms of enmity. We are a world of neither orators nor mediators: our imprecision in attack is rivalled only by our unwillingness to face our enemies plainly, or to be faced by them. And so we shrink away from the possibility of encountering the human in our enemies, and therefore run the risk of forgetting that they are indeed human.

We cannot therefore be surprised that the Freedom Wall provides a great temptation for students (and perhaps even those who aren’t students) to act in very un-human ways. From publicly accusing people of cat murder to making sexually objectifying comments about one’s classmates or blockhandlers, none of these acts do justice to the human person or the truth about being human.

And to top it off, it is the poster, not the victim, who ends up losing the chance to encounter and to be encountered. Where is freedom?

Daniel Tyler Chua is the founder and president of the Collegium Perulae Orientis. He is also a contributor to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Sentinel PH.