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David Sasser's avatar

Very touching and true! Thanks for sharing!

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hoppah's avatar

Only the anonymous speak the truth. Everyone else is worrying about "whose soul has been laid bare". Everyone else is *performing*. With the anonymous, you have only the words. You are forced to deal with only the words. You can't go look up everything else, and attack the person - rather than the words.

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Amy Peikoff's avatar

I think the first three sentences are exaggerations, but the last three are on point, especially today.

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hoppah's avatar

:That's fair, however I believe that if you think about it carefully, a lack of anonymity in a relationship necessarily colors - meaning, makes less true - the things you say. It happens so naturally and continuously that you hypnotize yourself into ignoring the "tiny dishonesties" we all indulge in in personal, non-anonymous interaction, all day, every day, for a whole pile of reasons we've completely internalized as part of our internal "social contract". The only people unshackled from this reality are the anonymous.

I'm sure you can tell that I'm not defending a license to be an asshole to everyone you meet, which is the apparent aim of some anonymity.

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