I think he's off base. There are lots of places on the internet I could go to where the users are anonymous and the conversations are frequently about sacred subjects. In this sense they would be considered 'lively' but to me they are also boring because they are all alive in exactly the same way. It's the same sacred cows being slain the same way, day after day after day. I think real liveliness doesn't come from avoiding social sanction per se, I think it comes from the interaction of different viewpoints in some sort of measured fashion (ie no one viewpoint overwhelms) and important that will include some degree of social sanctioning. But even that liveliness doesn't survive long because it's very uncomfortable. One side always overwhelms the other and when I see posts like this (there's lots of them) it always feels like the true reasoning underneath is: "if my ideas were considered fairly in a marketplace of ideas they would win and overwhelm." So no one is really seeking liveliness, just a boringness that they happen to agree with.