Saturday, April 09, 2022

PSEUDONYMITY.

 


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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