Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Available For Comment (Not Available For Fucking)

A while back I decided to disallow anonymous comments on my blog, for reasons detailed here. I have decided to reverse that decision for a number of reasons, including the fact that I know people who have tried to comment here and been put off by having to register, or have forgotten their passwords, or that kind of thing.

I also felt a bit petty disallowing such comments. I wondered why they annoyed me so much. I noticed, after my infestation of trolls, that Momus, for instance, allows anonymous posters and doesn't seem to delete them no matter what they say, and this seemed rather admirable to me.

However, I think I know now why it is that I consider all anonymous comments to be basically ill-mannered (the Internet, is, I honestly believe, eroding manners rapidly). I was aided in this realisation by an anonymous comment left on the entry Science - The Rohypnol of Philosophy, on my spare version of this blog.

At first I thought that the poster was not anonymous, because he, she or it left a name, to wit 'dejah'. However, although the name at first seemed to be a hypertext link, in fact, it led nowhere. This is what 'dejah' wrote:

Kindly get over yourself, please.

The rest of us have no use for ravening hypocrites who think that if scientists speak their minds then the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. Yet, when Christians come out with overweening bullshit, the rest of us are supposed to be respectful?

Like I said. Get over yourself.

I doubt you'll publish this comment. Unlike scientists, who do embrace criticism and grow by it, bloggers such as yourself rarely do.

Because I was tricked into thinking this was not an anonymous post, and because the poster seemed to allude to the idea of discussion by talking about criticism and people speaking their minds, and the expression of that risible doubt about whethre I would publish the comment, I thought that this person or thing actually wanted some kind of discussion. Therefore I published the comment (Blogger blogs have this screening function for comments) and gave a polite reply. Was any discussion forthcoming? No. Could I then go to dejah's internet home and leave a comment on his/her/its comments section? No. That's why I hate anonymous posting. Anonymous posters have you at a disadvantage. I find it utterly cowardly. I realise I'm one of the few people who doesn't use a pseudonym on the internet, and maybe in these times of stalkers and surveillance, that's deeply foolish. Nonetheless, I cannot deny an instinctive distaste at anonymous posting. As I said in my entry about why I was banning anonymous comments, it's not like having a conversation, it's as if someone shouts something through your letterbox and then runs away, just as 'dejah' also ran away after I answered it.

So, now that I no longer feel the need to be civilised, let me go through dejah's comments again:

Kindly get over yourself, please.

Nice opening gambit, a ready-made phrase of no particular meaning. How, exactly, am I supposed to 'get over' myself? What does this entail? I suppose 'dejah' also tells people to 'get a life', and to stop being 'sad', or whatever the current adolescent cliches are.

The rest of us have no use for ravening hypocrites who think that if scientists speak their minds then the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.

The rest of us? The rest of who? Speak for yourself, 'dejah'. If you want to talk about hypocrisy, how about yours for trying to brow-beat out of speaking my mind? Besides which, your comprehension of what I wrote is slender to say the least, as if I care about people speaking their minds.

Yet, when Christians come out with overweening bullshit, the rest of us are supposed to be respectful?

I don't remember saying that anywhere.

Like I said. Get over yourself.

Oh? So you've already exhausted your 'argument'.

I doubt you'll publish this comment.

Fucking hilarious. You must have a high opinion of yourself if you think I don't even dare to publish your piffling little comment, as if I'm going to crumble before it.

Unlike scientists, who do embrace criticism and grow by it, bloggers such as yourself rarely do.

Here's the hypocrisy in full swing. So, dejah, the self-appointed ambassador of science, tells me that scientists embrace criticism. Why doesn't he take a leaf from their book - if that's what they actually do - and embrace mine? And how about embracing this, dejah, if you're out there - you are a fuckwit.

Anyway, I think part of the reason that I disallowed anonymous comments is that I have very limited patience with this sort of thing, and there are still maybe one or two people out there who believe I'm a nice person and I don't want to have to disillusion them. Therefore, I wanted only people with names and internet addresses here, so that conversation could remain civilised and I could appear to be a vaguely pleasant, enlightened kind of guy. But, as I have had occasion to remark to someone just this morning, I'm tired of wanting people to like me. In the words of the great Jimi Hendrix, I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.

Therefore, I hereby revoke my ban on anonymous comments with the following proviso: If you post a comment using the anonymous poster function, and do not include a name and a valid link to an internet address where I can visit and leave comments, then I shall not consider you to be a real person. I will consider you a mere 'dejah', and feel free to delete your comment, mock it, deride it, edit it, splice it with pornography, metaphorically shred it, shoot it down in flames and invoke ancient curses against it.

If you do include a name and a valid link, you will find me quite civilised, I hope.