Sunday, August 28, 2005

Who is Madmunk?

Either I was cursed with very cruel parents; I was blessed with very prescient parents who prepared me for a career as a supervillain, D&D fanatic, or blogger; or, Madmunk is a pseudonym.

Anonymity has an important place in the philanthropic world. The great philosopher Moses Maimonides placed anonymous giving just below the highest form of giving, entering into a partnership, in his eight levels of charity. Anonymity can protect the benefactor from unsolicited requests and enable him or her to practice giving solely for giving's sake. For these reasons, among others, donors sometimes seek to remain anonymous.

Anonymity also has an important place in the blogosphere. It protects a blogger from ad hominem attacks and frees a blogger to say what he or she thinks and feels without fear of reprisal. For these reasons, among others, I have elected to publish under a pseudonym.

If you must know, I live and work in the DC metro area, my heroes are Thomas Paine and Friedrich Nietzsche, and my favorite Bath & Body Works fragrance is Sheer Freesia. For those of you who do know who I am or happen to find out, I trust you to keep my identity secret for the time being.

I can be reached here.

In the meantime, my name is Madmunk, and this is Philanthropica.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As Oscar Wilde said, "If you want a man to speak truthfully, give him a mask." It says a lot about philanthropy, doesn't it, that of the few blogging it from within so many choose an alias? What are we afraid of? Maybe giving offense, losing our effectiveness with an ultra-polite world? I hope you remain thoughtful and free-spoken and that Mad Monk becomes the charismatic Rasputin of Philanthropy with hordes of starry-eyded donors idolizing him - as so many do me, of course.