Why do anarchists write anonymously?

Question

or use fake names in social settings?

Answer 1

I make a habit of it and my reason is this: it helps me to avoid the ad hominem or reductionist reactions to things I do and say, it brings me closer to the 'creative nothing' in a social setting. Best answer I can come up with.

Answer 2

how can a name be fake?? because it's not the name the government acknowledges as yours?

in some ways a name can control your identity (especially if you think about all of the bullshit trans folk go through if they go by a different name than the one on their government id's). there are many reasons people may have for using a different name, but i think respecting that is important, to protect that person's safety and or dignity.

Comments

it sounds like you're saying that a) names are most important between friends, so that fakeness is not an issue, and b) that people use different names as a way to both express themselves and to be safer in public.
is that a fair paraphrase?

Answer 3

why does anybody write anonymously? Fear of negative backlash from a person, group, the state probably. Sometimes its a means to an end, and sometimes the end cannot happen if identities are made available.

Answer 4

It's not just or always about security. Authorship presupposes that the person working on a particular project has the ability and right to claim the ideas and work in it as their own. In fact, no idea happens in a vacuum, and many projects often have multiple people working on them (editing, designing, etc.). Sometimes claiming that a work comes from nobody can be a way of acknowledge that it's actually coming from everybody.

Also, it can be a way of avoiding celebrity, whether positive or negative.