Why does anonymity empower us ?

As we have read and discussed, one of the biggest topics that “ V for Vendetta “ covers is the subject on anonymity. In this graphic novel , V is an anonymous characters who violently fights against the social , moral and  economical paradigms of the society. He is an anonymous character not only for the other characters in the book , but also remains anonymous for the reader, thus we never who she/he really is.

While analyzing the book a question arouse: what is we knew who V is? What if we knew his/her name, where he comes from, where he lives, who are his relatives, what school he went? What if V were not an anonymous character?  If V identity were known, would he do the same violent acts? ; hence, is anonymity a tool of empowerment?

In order to answer this question it is very helpful to identify where is anonymity in our current society, if you think about it , there are many opportunities to be anonymous. The clearest example is social media, in which you can create a profile with a fake name, fake information, even a fake job. Some websites don not even require a profile , thus they are even more anonymous. You can comment, post, share and even stalk in full anonymity. 

 

Anonymity is also used with more “benefitial” purposes. Think about Anonymous Alcoholics, groups of people that struggle with alcoholism who support each other on their way to sobriety.

It is anonymous because people are not forced to give personal information and  the institution will not leak in any way the names if the people who attend this meetings.}

 

Anonymity is also heavily included in our college culture, where all teachers’ evaluation are done in an anonymous way, hence each teacher receives their evaluation is a whole rather than a set of individual  opinions.

Now think about the following: would you go to an alcoholism rehab center of everyone could know that you go? Would you write “ you don´t know how to teach, please go home” in a teachers evaluation if the teacher could know who wrote it? Would you comment on that weird YouTube video is you knew that everyone could see it? The answer is probably NO.

According to a 2010 article on the Telegraph, anonymity gives people freedom, thus power. They can discuss, comment, act and think freely, without any concern on what other may think about them. This freedom creates a feeling of power on people, since they can do and think many things that are not socially acceptable.

Other authors also tackle the problem of anonymity. John Kenneth Galbraith on his 1983 book “The Anatomy of Power” also states than anonymity makes people less self-aware and more honest. People feel empowered by anonymity because it given them the chance to separate from social conventions and be as brutal, honest, sincere or violent as they want to.

This might explain why AA meeting are more popular than any other type of rehab place, or why we hide ourselves in nick names on the web and why we are more honest in anonymous questioners, but most importantly it explains why V is always unknown, because anonymity gives him power and confidence.

Do you think that anonymity is empowering? Could you think of any situation where this happens? 

sources :

 

Galbraith, John Kenneth, and Richard D. Bartel. "The anatomy of power." Challenge (1983): 26-33.

 

Hensher, Philip. "The Telegraph." 19 August 2010. 22 November 2014 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/7954520/The-power-of-anonymity.html>.

Other sources :

 

Reiter, Michael K., and Aviel D. Rubin. "Crowds: Anonymity for web transactions." ACM Transactions on Information and System Security (TISSEC) 1.1 (1998): 66-92.

 

Pfitzmann, Andreas, and Marit Köhntopp. "Anonymity, unobservability, and pseudonymity—a proposal for terminology." Designing privacy enhancing technologies. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2001.