Ann's skills include simul-blogging. Here's how she sets up the evening, and her concluding paragraph:
Althouse:
I'm at this debate, which I mentioned the other day, between Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education [FIRE] and UW polisci prof Howard Schweber, here at the University of Wisconsin Law School....
I realize what bothers me so much about what Schweber is saying. He doesn't value the form of expression, only the content. He thinks what people have to say can be reframed in more polite terms. But I think the form matters, that there is value in the very sound of disrespect, mockery, contempt, and offensiveness.
Amen to that! Satirists of the world, UNITE!
[Not only can I not simul-blog, I somehow just managed to lose several paragraphs of my own laboriously typed commentary...GAH! I'll try to recreate in the morning. [INSERT to come--unless the disappeared stuff mysteriously re-materializes in place on its own, or I move on to other things]
The following piece did get saved:]
I did have a very brief, interrupted opportunity to raise a question at the event. (Why are so many moderators so determined not to allow straightforward statements, prefacing and framing the associated questions, from the audience? Rather discouraging of an engaged, collective conversation.) Ann's summary of my cryptic comments (I prefer to speak, much as I write, deliberately and in paragraph-long units, complete with parentheticals) may understandably have gotten me slightly wrong:
Alan Weisbard has the next question. "We're living in a time of blogs... AutoAdmit... Googling." People are afraid of being identified in public speech. His question is about preserving the right to anonymous speech.
In fact, as readers of this blog have probably figured out by now, I'm rather dubious about the value and constructive impact of anonymous commentary, except in rather special circumstances (such as the identities of NAACP members in late 1950s/early 1960s Alabama, when publicity might have resulted in death threats or worse--like actual bombings, shootings, and lynchings.) And there were, of course, the Federalist Papers--they seemed to have a useful impact (in pre-blog times). I have no problem with anonymous speech having first amendment protection, to accommodate such circumstances, but I find that I (and others of my declining generation--are we passe and alone in this?) am generally much more impressed with expressions of opinion by identifiable individuals who are willing to stand up for, defend, and accept responsibility for what they have to say.
My impression is that both speakers, albeit both younger than I, largely agreed with that perspective. Greg expressed considerable doubt that anyone would pay attention to anonymous postings in a world of nearly-infinite self-expression on the web and in the blogosphere. I'm not so sure, and I fear that anonymous postings can cause considerable trouble--and are, in fact, doing so already. To rehearse a frequent theme,I think we collectively need to facilitate and encourage more courage in speaking publicly for what one believes. So my focus is not "about preserving the right to anonymous speech"--it's more like encouraging powerful public speech.
Time did not permit followup on the specific implications of these general ruminations to the academic context, such as the role of anonymous postings to course discussion boards and campus-oriented blogs. [There is, I believe, considerable reason to believe that anonymous postings to various sites exacerbated the prospect for harmonious resolution of L'Affaire Kaplan.] I'll have to leave that for another day--and for constructive comments, signed or otherwise.
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