BEWARE OF ANONYMITY!
The ‘Shield’ of Anonymity — A Voice Behind a Veil
Anonymity is a state of being unknown, nameless or invisible. Anonymity is often adopted as a measure of prudence, protection or caution. Anonymity is the mechanism of namelessness, which enables one to preserve the freedom and boldness necessary exercise action in favour of a higher good. In this sense, is a strategy of activism, and particularly of resistance. Anonymity is verily a valuable mechanism, if it is put into responsible use. Anonymity allows one remain unknown, even why you still, for instance, express your views, bare your mind or champion a course of action. As a ‘shield’ anonymity provides protection for positive activism. But sometimes it is made into a ‘veil’ provides cover for perverse actions. It cannot be denied that anonymity has its positive values and purposes. But as the imperfection of the human condition often does, the ‘shield’ of anonymity is wantonly abused — more so in the internet age — so that it has become needful to raise alarm about the perversion of the ‘shield’ of anonymity.
The ’Veil’ of Anonymity — Sinister Connotation of Anonymity
Often, anonymity is derailed from being a ‘shield’ of protection for literary activism or social resistance to become a ‘veil’ of cover-up or concealment for disavowed behaviour and even of fraudulent activities. This is the perversion of anonymity, which has been a major contagion of the city life of modern society, and which has now peaked in our social media age. In this sinister context, anonymity is practised as a dissimulation of identity or camouflage of personality. Anonymity can become a form of closeting, which allows people to give birth to what looks what is done in a toilet. The abuse of anonymity results when it is used as a veil of secrecy for unrestrained perpetration of undesirable action. Leaders and people in society should beware of those situations that precipitate social anonymity, because it has the capacity of creating evasion of moral responsibility for actions. Social anonymity engenders circumvention of responsibility for one’s actions or utterances because social anonymity grants obscurity from the prying, probing eyes of the community and even invisibility to the law.
More Sinister Contextualization
Let’s also use the word ‘Anonymity’ to refer to that time or that situation when you want to remain hidden, concealed or covered. Let’s use anonymity to refer to the time when one wants to be unidentified, to be undiscovered or to be unseen. Anonymity is that time when you want everything to be done in private, out of the public eye. Anonymity here, is the realm of secrecy. It is that freedom one enjoys only when he wears a mask over his face. It is the life behind closed doors. Anonymity can be likened to that situation when one performs a drama in the dark or when one speaks to an audience from behind a veiled stage. Anonymity is what actors seek when they dim the light of the stage, so that their real countenance remains unknown, at least to the outsiders. Anonymity is like living behind a cloak! Anonymity is the status of taking action but not taking responsibility. Beware of this kind of anonymity!
The Dangers of the Falsehood of Anonymity
The danger of anonymity is in that it gives on an aura of invisibility — even though in truth, nothing can forever be hidden. But it is also true that social anonymity grants one some ‘power’ of inconspicuousness or invisibility that can prone to abuse. Generally, anonymity is that situation when you can do something without having your name signed on it or, at least, without it being easily traced to you. This situation, can be present in the open urban society, where people have no strict family or social ties and where people have no business with how other people conduct their lives. This situation can also be present in the world of the social media, where people can be signed in with pseudo names and pictures, where there are not necessarily any physical nearness, community proximity or vicinity, and where there are no boundaries as to who one can connect with and what one can surf or say. There is no doubt here that social anonymity has a big share in the cause of the moral breakdown and value bankruptcy of modern society.
Therefore, it is right to say that anonymity is a precarious ‘gift’. Anonymity offers a false sense of security or secrecy. Anonymity can be a trap that lures into misconduct. Anonymity — in all its forms — is risky. This is because it is prone to misuse. Anonymity is a precarious gift. Beware of the invisibility which anonymity offers. It could be an opportunity to ruin one’s own values and the ethos of society. There are many situations that offer us the cover of anonymity, and so there are many situations to beware of. Beware of the things you do hiding in a crowd — the crowd of the street square or the crowd of the social media. Beware of the things you do where no one knows you. Beware of the things you do where no one sees you. Beware of the things you do in the closet of invisibility and namelessness. Beware of the things you do wearing a mask. Beware of the things you do lurking in the darkness of anonymity and obscurity. Beware of those things done behind closed doors. Beware of the things you would wish no one would find out.
As the men and women of our time are wont to do, the sacred realms of anonymity and secrecy, have been abused and desecrated. People do things but would not want them to be traced to them. On social media, in public offices, in private homes, in religious circles, in barely every area of life, people do things but hide from the same things they have done. This is the danger of anonymity. But the greater danger is even that there is really no hiding place under the sun. God help us all!
More on the Malaise of Social Anonymity
In the past, when people lived in hamlets or kindreds or when natives and relatives flocked together and lived together or when life was organised around closely knit communities of ancestral lineages and bloodlines, it was almost impossible to have social anonymity. In those good old days, everyone knows his neighbour and as a matter of fact your neighbour would ordinarily be your sibling or kinsman; so that everyone knows everyone. There were no resident ‘strangers’. There were no anonymous actors. Everyone’s action is known, traced to him or to his family, questioned and if need be punished or praised. Social anonymity is the urban situation where a person can live in a community where no one knows him and he knows no; or, at least the situation where a person can live and act in place where he is not related to anyone or has nor close affinity with anyone outside himself, or outside his immediate family — if he has one.
Urban life in big towns, cities and — worse of all heterogenous cosmopolises — confer on their inhabitants an anonymity that is prone to perversion and misuse. Social anonymity is made worse today by the pandemic of individualism — the abuse of private life. Individualism, as opposed to communalism, makes it possible today, for a person to live in a given city or vicinity without any form or social connection, communication, cooperation or relationship with other people around. Urban society is like a market place. People can come from anywhere, perch, do their business and go away when they want with any form of social or community connections. This situation creates social anonymity and engenders its abuse or perversion.
Between Secrecy and Privacy
There is a difference between secrecy and privacy! There is a chasm of difference between the realm of secrets and the realm of privates. Secrecy is deeper and darker than privacy. Secrecy connotes sinisterness. Privacy connotes personalness. They are not the same! Private things are not secrets. Private affairs are not secret dealings. Privacy is necessary, secrecy is not. Often, secrecy is the abuse of privacy! We need to discern between ‘secrecy’ and ‘privacy’. Anonymity is synonymous with secrecy. Beware of the place of secrecy and anonymity. Yes, there can be a ‘secret place’, but it should always be a ‘sacred place’; lest it would become a ‘sinful place’ — ‘Satan’s place’. Beware of the things you do when no one sees you or when your identity will not be known. They are the things that reflect your true identity.
The Champion of the Falsehood of Anonymity
There is someone who is known for acting in guises and pretences. He hides himself in darkness. He never show his face. He is responsible for so much malevolence, but he only acts through other people. He remains in the dark. He appears disguised with many different forms. He can come as a serpent or as a dragon or as a beast or even as an angel of light. Sometimes, he roars like a lion. Other times he is a soft-spoken lamb. Once he used the voice of Simon Peter to try to dissuade Christ from the cross. Even though he has the nature of a wolf, he likes to wear the clothing of a lamb. He is sly, he is subtly, he is cunning. He is crafty. He has mastery in deception. He is the father of lies. He operates in darkness. His kingdom is in the underworld. He abhors coming to the light. His work hours are in the dead of the night. He keeps hiding. His mark is a secret number. His cults are ‘secret’. His agents meet in secret. Their agendas are kept secret. They operate with secret codes, signs and symbols. He is the author of secret thoughts. He insinuates in secret. He encourages his victims, to act in secret. Beware of the things done in secrecy. He is the champion of anonymity.
A Warning from the One Who Sees in Secret
There is someone before whom there is no secret. There is someone who sees both what is done in the light an what is done in secret. There is someone who rewards in secret what is done in secret and rewards in the light what is done in the light. But this one, this someone, also brings to the light whatever is done in the darkness of secrecy and under the veil of anonymity. He is the one who is warning us to beware of the anonymous things that we do; those things we do in the ‘privacy’ of ‘secrecy’. Jesus warns us to beware of secret works of anonymity, because, as he says: “there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be made known and brought to light” (Luke 8:17).
Everything will be brought to light. There is nothing hidden under the sun. The sun is like a big eye that watches every human action. Someday, sometime, in some circumstance, before man or before God, everything will be brought to light. Under the sun there is no obscurity. Wherever the light of the sun penetrates, there can be no form of invisibility. There cannot be no form of namelessness because every action knows it author and will reveal him or her in due time, just as philosophers say: the work reveals the workman. Nothing and no one can really be truly anonymous. Anonymity is but a temporary delusion of hiddenness or inconspicuousness, because, the accountability and consistency of nature cannot admit of the ontological falsehood which anonymity attempts to create. Let’s live in the Light!
Michael Richmond Duru
24th February 2020
https://michaelrichmondduru.medium.com/subscribe
