Pseudonyms

As with most things, I have a fairly laissez-faire attitude towards blogs. Want to link only to people who agree with you and not your critics? Fine. Want to link to everyone? Excellent. Want to use trackback to avoid the problem altogether? Super! Want to put your name and credentials all over your site for people to see? Great. Blog anonymously? Good for you. Use a pseudonym? Okay.

With regard to that last, there's been lots of cross-blog debate recently over whether or not people should put their names on their blogs, with some implying that it's almost cowardly not to do so.

This debate really makes me yawn, but given my domain name, it's almost incumbent upon me to point out that the American regime has a long history of its statesmen adopting pseudonyms in the course of political debate. And I don't think anyone today intimates that Hamilton, Jefferson, or Jay were cowardly for doing so (or, for that matter, those anti-Federalists who engaged in the same enterprise).

Of course, I'm not suggesting that much of anything on the web comes close to the great writings of American political thought.

[Posted at 21:52 CST on 08/14/02] [Link]