I have had occasion before to remark that I am singularly unimpressed by anonymous messages. I am not apparently the only one. Over on the HE-UK list, somebody is puzzled that her parliamentary candidate won't enter into correspondence until he is sure of whom he is talking to. What I find intriguing about this is the hurt tone of the woman, as though anonymity were somehow a human right!
Until the advent of the Internet, anonymous letters would by most people be consigned straight to the wastepaper basket. Even newspapers would not deal with somebody who was not prepared to put his name at the bottom of the letter. How times change. It is incredibly common now for people expressing their views on the Internet to conceal their identity. Often, this is because the person is a spiteful and malevolent individual who would not dare to say these things unless it were possible to keep his identity secret. As I say, until quite recently, such people were viewed with contempt and their communications simply ignored. These days those, it has become almost respectable to send poison pen messages in this way.
I am bound to say that if I were standing for parliament, I too would be reluctant to answer any questions put to me by somebody who lacked the courtesy even to give her name. The whole business is really a little puzzling. I have strong views about many subjects which I am quite happy to reveal to others. It goes without saying that I put my name to these views and allow people a chance to rebut them if they are able. Why on earth would I send these views to people anonymously? What sort of sneaky little reptile would this make me, if I were to adopt this as a regular practice?
Of course, home educators are not alone in this desire to keep their names secret. Many blogs are anonymous and so too are the majority of comments made. Perhaps it is because many people seem to think that the normal rules of human behaviour do not apply in cyberspace. It is as though they feel that they can be anybody they wish on the Internet and that giving their names would somehow break the spell. I am sure that many of those who post anonymous messages online would not dream of sending abusive, anonymous letters through the post!
Meanwhile, the poor woman who wishes to discuss home education with her candidate has reached an impasse. I do find this a little odd. Presumably she does not intend to abuse or insult the man. After all, she could do that quite easily by email without revealing anything. She has sent him a message addressed by name and all he wants is for her to sign the thing. Interesting to speculate upon her motives for refusing to do so.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
One of those occasions where I totally agree with you - so rare it's worth saying so.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I can't see why it wouldn't be better for the candidate in question to just answer the questions.
I think Google (and other search engines) are part of the answer, at least for me. I've just searched my name and found 27 links relating to me covering various interests and issues both personal and business in just the first 5 pages. This information includes my full address and phone number. At one point, when I was more naive, it would also have included the full names and ages of my children. Before the internet it would have been impossible to find this much information in one place about an individual, you would probably have had to hire a private investigator!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why this would spill over to someone communicating with an individual - I've contacted my MP and given my full address on request (I'd already given my name). But maybe being careful with personal information on the internet (as children in schools and elsewhere are told to be, so shouldn't we model safe behaviour) blurs into other areas where it's not really needed?
Although I am not really anonymous as anyone with time on their hands and a search engine can find out who I am, I do think the internet has opened up a different moral universe to the anon = poison pen when it comes to anonymity.
ReplyDeleteI am all over the internet under my real name as that is part of my job. But just as I probably wouldn't stand up in the office and tell all my colleagues and contacts that my baby did a huge poo this morning and I quite fancy Hugh Laurie, so i also like to have a more personal, er, persona on the web, that isn't linked to my professionmal one.
Anonymity can certainly cause spiteful comments but I've seen plenty that are not anon too - it's something about the immediacy and lack of face to face contact I think.
I'm careful about who I give my information to, simply because there are some nut jobs out there. When it comes to Parliament, by convention MPs handle their own constituencies, so it's not unreasonable for them to want to know that you have an address in that constituency. If the PPC concerned is currently associated with the local council, I can see why a family who is unknown to their LA might be reluctant to reveal their details - anonymity has a price, which in this case is that she won't get her answers. It's probably not that hard to tie together my on-line identities, I use different ones in different subject areas but they mostly have a common theme for anyone who really wanted to tie them together. I'm fortunate to share my name with some people who have a much bigger internet footprint than me, so you'd have to look a bit harder to sort out my information from all the noise.
ReplyDeleteI am more careful with information about my son - many years ago we put photographs of him on-line for relatives to see, but there was a persistent access to the pages from somewhere in Texas, who never revealed an identity beyond a consistent IP address, and stopped looking when I started filtering out any picture with my son in it. Draw your own conclusions from that.
I'm quite happy to be anonymous with businesses, given my aversion to junk mail and phone calls.
Interesting question. as Dave said, any unknown HEor has very good reason to remain anonymous, given that some LA's are still behaving as if schedule 1 is law. If I were unknown I would not want to reveal my identity to anyone who might pass the information on to my LA.
ReplyDeleteI don't want you to know who I am either. I've seen the way you have treated some people here who have posted under their real names, and I'm not going to let you do that to me. I usually use a nom de plume to distinguish myself from the other anonymouses who post here.
I have to post anon on here as otherwise I would be treated as a traitor on the HE lists, even though I have done nothing worse than ask questions and reply to posts of 'the enemy'.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with others when they say it is far too easy to google for information.
There are some things that I have said on forums that I would never say if I had to put my name to it (I'm talking of embarrassing rather than nasty)
"I don't want you to know who I am either. I've seen the way you have treated some people here who have posted under their real names, and I'm not going to let you do that to me."
ReplyDeleteA little misleading. Two people, namely Maire Stafford and Alie Edgley, had a bit of a campaign going against me before I even started this blog. This included writing to the editors of newspapers about me and various similar things. After I began this blog, they tried the same tricks here, telling people that I was a liar and so on. At that point I took action to get rid of them. For instance, I posted an imaginary account of life in Ali Edgley's home. It is surprising really that somebody who was such an ethusiastic reader of the spoof blog about Graham Badman's life should have taken this so amiss! Apart from those two, I don't believe that I have been unpleasant to anybody. A little irrtable perhaps, but no more than that.
"even though I have done nothing worse than ask questions and reply to posts of 'the enemy'"
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this! A man whose daughter did not attend a single day's school in her life and has spent twenty years fighting various local authorities for the rights of parents to teach their children at home; he is 'the enemy'. I wonder what one would have to do to be a 'friend' of home education?
I can't see the connection between you being a home educator and you automatically not being 'the enemy' to other home educators. I'm sure some school using parents would be seen as enemies of other school using parents, those pro and anti grammar schools, for instance. Why would HE be any different?
ReplyDeleteYou know why you're the enemy - you supported Ed Balls&Co and you have a thing against autonomous education. That gets you awarded the "bad guy" prize in many circles.
ReplyDeleteI much prefer to engage in debate. You're not always wrong ( :-) ), you make some good points occasionally and I don't disagree with you every time.
I do not regard autonomous home educators as my enemies. Nor have I ever been a supporter of Ed Balls; I have not voted labour since 1974. I think it a good idea for local authorities to know how many children in their area are being educated at home and I also think it no bad thing if a local authority officer visits the homes of such families once or twice a year. As I say, I hardly think that makes me an enemy of home education. If I were that, then I would scarcely have taught my own child from five until she was sixteen, nor would I have spent much of my working life helping parents of children with special educational needs to deregister their children and teach them at home.
ReplyDeleteyou are the enemy of home educators has you support forced home visit yet know a large number of home educated parents and they child do not want this! why do you ignore us? and refuse to listen to home educated child?
ReplyDeleteYou are also a supporter of Ed Balls.and you never answered the question about LA officers,Do some LA officers tell lies?yes or no will do Simon?
Of course some LA officers tell lies. So do some police officers, vicars, accountants, doctors and solicitors. Can you think of an occupation which contains no liars?
ReplyDelete"I think it a good idea for local authorities to know how many children in their area are being educated at home and I also think it no bad thing if a local authority officer visits the homes of such families once or twice a year."
ReplyDeleteIf you believe this, why didn't you register with your LA when you began to HE? Do you consider yourself above other home educators to the extent that you do not require checking once or twice a year? Why not have the courage of your convictions and register?
Because I simply didn't get round to it! When we were stopped by a truancy patrol, I could have refused to co-operate, not given my address and so on. After all, neither the police officers nor the education welfare officers have any right to demand this. I thought however that it was quite reasonable for Essex County Council to wish to know about any children not at school. Later on, I could have refused to allow any visits. I did not, again because it seemed sensible to allow them to reassure themselves that my child was safe and being properly educated.
ReplyDeleteOf course some LA officers tell lies. So do some police officers, vicars, accountants, doctors and solicitors. Can you think of an occupation which contains no liars?
ReplyDeleteThat may be part of the problem then! why home educators do not want vists from LA officers who tell Lies! each Officer should undergo a lie test test Just in case LOL