Anonymous’ Actions – Sunday, June 09, 1957
Sometimes people seem to want to do things that they don’t seem to want to be personally responsible for. They want the result without the responsibility. And often they resort to various devices by which they attempt to hide behind others, or to impersonalize their actions.
Sometimes, for example, when someone wants to say something that he hesitates to say in person, he resorts to the questionable practice of anonymous writing – which in itself is a kind of cowardice the kind of thing a person does when he hasn’t the courage to be identified with his own convictions, He may want to say something critical or unkind or damaging or derogatory, but doesn’t want to have his own ideas traced back to him.
Or he may even want to do something constructive, to sponsor some good cause, but doesn’t want to be identified with what he wants to do.
Opinions from people who don’t have the courage of their convictions are worth much less than they might otherwise be.
Another technique of attempting to avoid, or to impersonalize personal responsibility is to use the name of a group, to make a group appear to be responsible for one person’s viewpoint – and then disclaim any personal responsibility for the action instigated.
Thus, unfair treatment is frequently made to seem to come from a crowd, whereas it may actually come only from an individual or a small core or clique. We are all responsible for what we do whether it is known or not.
And in fairness and in actual fact, we can’t impersonalize or avoid responsibility for anything in which we ourselves willingly or knowingly participate or anything to which we give consent.
We can’t relieve ourselves of our own, actions by hiding behind others – or by acting anonymously.
We are all responsible for the influence that emanates from us, and for ideas and acts which we instigate or to which we give assent.
Actually, and ultimately, there is no way to impersonalize our personal responsibility.
In the final accounting of our lives, there is no way to remain anonymous. *
*Revised.
June 09, 1957
Broadcast Number 1,451