Concerning names

Originally Published 5/13/2010...  the beginning of this blog

Cyranos DeMet is not the name the government knows me by. It is my pen name, my public name, it is the only name I'm known by on the internet. My reasons for maintaining a pen name go beyond personal privacy. Think me a raging madman if you wish, imagine me an icon of the academic if that is more to your taste, either might be true, or neither, both is not beyond the realms of the possible. It is my intention the truth of that issue remain undefined. So long as the name Cyranos DeMet cannot be linked to a street address, a social security number, a face, a life, so long as it remains the only call sign for an otherwise anonymous writer then only my thought is on display, the life that produced the thought is not available to mark which social bias or political bigotry from a reader's private stock of assumptions should be assigned to my work.

I want my work judged only on the accuracy of the observation expressed, as some thought might accrue support or rebuttal within the contemplations of my reader. I may at times present personal anecdotes to illustrate the manner in which a thought arrived, but I will not be citing sources for these are my thoughts shared, not a collection of the world's thoughts on some subject presented as a proof of study. It is entirely possible I will cross terrain already mapped by another, if so it is of little concern to me. I walked that terrain without the map they drew, my reader is most welcome to compare our two maps for accuracy against his own observations.

Why such drama you ask? Why such arrogance? My answer is this: in posts to come I will be developing a theory concerning the human condition, a theory that bridges between what in conventional studies would be the disciplines of psychology and sociology, a theory offering a unique explanation for the complexity of the interface between the individuals and the society in which those individuals make a home. The theory to be put forth in some ways simplifies the task of understanding the human condition, and yet in other ways opens an entire new dimension of complexity. I use the word dimension here in it's most literal meaning, an expansion to the stage of reality equivalent to a two dimensional "flatland" creature (whose universe existed on a single geometric plane) being enlarged into the three dimensional space you and I take for granted.

This theory is either a work of genius or a work of insanity, and I myself do not know which. What I do know is that it is in my head, and I'll have no peace from it until it has been let out of my head into words. Since it is being offered to the world essentially anonymously I'll never make a dime from it, but equally I'll never have to carry the burden of it on my real life either and so can assign the effort of sharing it as nothing more than the effort of providing one's own entertainment when what the world offers has gone stale, which is I suppose my ultimate motive in the matter.