PSEUDONYMITY.
Dear
Reader,
The
purpose of this post is to make plain to our readers some of the related reasons as
to why the main “public-facing” members of Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.] – e.g., Karl Seldon, Hermes de
Nemores, Aoristos Dyosphainthos, and Sophya St. Germain -- have chosen, and as
to why the F.E.D. General Council has chosen, to publish
their writings pseudonymously.
Some
of our key reasons for this choice are addressed in the C.E./B.U.E. 2007 book ANONYMITY: A
Secret History of English Literature, by John Mullan.
In
particular, Chapter 2 of that book, entitled “Modesty”, especially in its
account of the reasons for choosing pseudonymity of the author whose pseudonym
was “Lewis Carroll”, and whose birth name was C. L. Dodgson, is germane to our
reasons for so choosing.
About
his pseudonymity, “Lewis Carroll” wrote in a letter [Mullan, p. 41]: “I use a
name, not my own, for writing under, for the one sole object, of avoiding personal
publicity: that I may be able to come and go, unnoticed, to all public places.”
Such mobility
maintenance is also a key concern of ours.
And we do not want people who we do not know
knowing enough about us to identify us in public, or to recognize our names on mail boxes, in forms and
documents, etc.
In another
letter, “Lewis Carroll” wrote: “…people seem to assume that everybody
likes notoriety, and scarcely [believe] me when I say I dislike it
particularly. My constant aim is to
remain, personally, unknown to the world.”, and “I don’t want to be
known [personally], except by [personal] friends.” [Mullan, pp. 42; 44].
Somewhat
differently from the motivation for pseudonymity of “Lewis Carroll”, we wish to avert what Guy Debord might
have called the ‘personal spectacle’.
When
the media seize hold of one’s image, the media’s hold on that image may be wielded
against one’s reality, in an attempt to control and manipulate the real person,
and/or to thwart the real efforts of that real person.
Regards,
Miguel
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