Chesteron had a famous comment where he spoke of tradition as the democracy of the dead. He thought we ought not to exclude someone’s voice from a discussion on the technical grounds that they were not still alive. The point was well-taken, but there are some discussions and arguments where voices ought to be excluded. I am not referring to the voices of the disembodied dead, but rather to the voices of the disembodied complainers and accusers. I am referring to the “nameless others.”
When someone brings a “concern” to people in authority, whether in a school, church, village, or whatever, it is frequently found that the named representative is representing quite a number of “nameless others.” “Quite a few people feel exactly the way I do about this.” “Really? Who feels this way?” “Well . . . I promised not to say.”
This kind of thing is bad enough in group discussions and decision-making, as in a school. “I don’t think the school board should build the new annex. And everybody I know feels the same way.” It is an attempt to hold elections on the sly, have just your friends vote, and announce the results to those who have the temerity to disagree with you. This sort of thing appeals to a certain kind of mind, but is repulsive to those who want to administer and govern justly. Those for whom nameless others have any kind of authority at all are people who have not understood the most basic biblical principles of justice.
It gets worse though. Not only do nameless others want to do the opposite of “stand up and be counted” (they want to hide themselves away and be counted) in situations like “building an annex,” they also frequently use the device to make accusations. But the accusations are not against nameless others, but rather against specially named others. The wicked bend the bow, and put the arrow on the string. And why? So that they might shoot secretly at the upright in heart (Ps. 11: 2).
Suppose that an anonymous accuser has publicly accused me of lying (just suppose, all right?). There are an entire series of instructive opportunities that fall out from this.
First, someone might say that I just want to know the name of the person so that I can conduct an ad hominem attack on him. So let’s talk about that. An ad hominem attack is an informal fallacy, a fallacy of distraction. That is, it is an informal fallacy when it is a fallacy, which it often isn’t. Arguing “to the man” is only a problem when the man is not the point. If a man is saying that salt is white, and I disregard his statement because he is a jerk who mistreats his mother, I am guilty of the ad hom fallacy. But if his mother was murdered, and he is on trial for that murder, his relationship to his mother is not an extraneous issue being brought in to discredit him. It is the central issue. Under those circumstances, to exclude evaluation of character and insist that we simply “weigh the disembodied arguments” is to be guilty of another fallacy of distraction. When we all stand before the throne of God, He is going to evaluating persons, not arguments. And the only salvation for people like us will be to be found in the Person of Jesus Christ.
To act as though arguments have any kind of substance apart from the lives of those advancing them (when it comes to accusations) is to be guilty of the worst forms of Enlightenment rationalism.
And because Enlightenment rationalism still has a significant purchase in many hearts and minds, it can still sound objective and dispassionate to say, “Yes, I know that anonymous accusers have said on my web site that Wilson is wicked, and that he robs banks in his spare time. But they have advanced arguments in favor of this thesis. Rather than obsesseing about the anonymous character of the accusation (a technichality, surely?) ought not the accused just answer the arguments themselves?”
No, it is not a technichality, and no, the answers to accusations ought never be answered in that kind of a setting. If someone accused me (anonymously) of some nefarious crime, and it was the kind of thing I could disprove in ten seconds, I would still not do it in such a setting. And why? Because when principles of justice are ignored to such an extent, nothing is easier than to pretend that I only tried to disprove it, but was tragically unsuccessful. These anonymous zealots for truth — they want the truth about everything to be known, except for the truth of their motives and their given name — don’t care at all about the truth. If they did, they wouldn’t be accusing the way they are from their private place. So why should I submit any argument at all to those who have manifested their contempt for due process? I have better things to do than to seek out unjust judges.
Secondly, the process is absurd. Anonymous accusations can be received in any direction, and they can then cancel each other out. I do not have to answer my anonymous accusers because (fortunately!) I just received a series of anonymous emails this morning warning me that all my anonymous accusers are making the accusations because they are in the pay of a man who is my mortal enemy. And he is my mortal enemy because I told him to stop cheating on his wife. The entire operation is being run from a minimum security prison, where the ringleader is now residing. He is there, actually, because of his treatment of his previous pastor. When it is objected that I ought not to do this, I reply (trying not to look smug) that I really think that we ought to consider the arguments that are being advanced, and try our best to keep personalities out of it.
But of course, only Hellenists want to keep personalities out of it. Arguments by themselves are airy-fairy. People sin, or are righteous. People lie or tell the truth. People have motives, good or bad. People live successfully in community, or they don’t. People advance arguments, and they do it well or they do not. People know how to get along. Or they don’t.