annals of anonymous comment

I deleted an anonymous commenter who earlier posted some stupid, abusive spray of assertions about the intellectual worthlessness of sociology, its failure to achieve social justice, the hypocritical privilege of academics, etc., etc.. I'm not sure if this is the same anonymous commenter who wrote the rambly self-righteous thing toward which I was supposedly "smug and condescending" yesterday. Anyway, now I have an anonymous commenter (same one? different? who knows?) telling me:

if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen...sociologists typically do not solve social problems, they just write about them, so it is to be expected that they will engage in all kinds of "we're not upper-middle class", "you should be so happy we let "coloreds" and "little women" into our field

I just thought, rather than delete this or keep it only in the comments field, I would put it out here in the open so y'all would get to see the joys one gets to deal with when one allows anonymous comments. Perhaps one can also see why, by the time sociologists are five years out of graduate school, they commonly exhibit a certain dismissive weariness toward some of the "angrier" persons floating around the periphery of the enterprise. If this be smug and condescending, then Jeremy Freese: smug, condescending.

Regardless, I'm reluctant to turn anonymous comments off, because the majority of people who comment anonymously do not abuse the privilege, and I think I get many interesting and thoughtful anonymous comments I wouldn't otherwise get.

As I responded to the commenter, though: this is my house, and so I would rather this person leave my kitchen. If not, and they want to keep say provocative, albeit maniacal, things calling out myself and/or my profession, they should stop posting anonymously and use their real name, the way everything I say--which includes things other people don't like--goes out under my real name. Given the nitwitness of the person in question--for all I know it could be some 14-year-old dittohead who stumbled onto my blog and has decided to pull our collective chain, which would explain certain things about quality of the writing involved--I suspect to hear from her/him/it again.

Meanwhile: I am way too busy with urgent forthrushing deadlines to be wasting cognitive space on this. Anybody want to guest post for a few days?

Update: Reality check from a conversation with a friend just now on the phone. I'm turning anonymous comments off at least through my return from Dallas/Tulsa on 11/21. I invite reasonable people who presently comment anonymously to create Blogger accounts to comment. The sign-up screen can make it look like you need to set up a blog yourself to comment, but you don't.