Opinions

Jolt-ing perspective

In print | April 17, 2008

After a recent and offensive anonymous threat posted on the Daily Jolt, we could only shake our heads and say: Get it right, n00b. This poster grievously transgressed the delicate rules of dialogue which govern the Daily Jolt. We admonish with zest that particular post, and the culture that produced it. And yet, at this low point in the Jolt’s history, we feel compelled to defend it, and champion the possibilities it offers for productive use.

At a campus that can often seem suffocatingly small, the Jolt presents an opportunity to enjoy a longed-for (though oft-abused) anonymity while reveling in the titillating delight of juicy, “vitriolic” gossip. Delight, not mindless threat, is the bread and butter of the Jolt.

The Jolt’s gossip engenders concrete effects in Swarthmore’s social scene. The Jolt creates characters who become invisible on-campus celebrities: NotMattTurner, It’s Me, Ginspooper, Real Talk, TMane, 7ate9 and the ineffable Jive Turkey ’09 (who, for these writers at least, attends this institution). All weigh in with their considered opinions.

More importantly, the Jolt has no alternative. Following the Sager party, or the Wendy Shalit lecture, where should people turn to voice their opinions? The Phoenix? Editorials in The Phoenix typically allow only one or two viewpoints, and they are almost always institutional viewpoints. As such, Phoenix editorials reflect the stereotypical values of the small liberal arts college: tolerance, politeness, supportiveness and inclusion. Students are encouraged to criticize the government and the administration (two targets admittedly ripe for the censure), but never to express distaste for one another.

The Phoenix does, however, reserve its distaste for (surprise!) posters on the Daily Jolt. Writing on Feb. 21st, 2008, the editors of The Phoenix state that “there is a clear disconnect between the language students use in their classes, among acquaintances and friends, and the language they use regularly on anonymous Internet forums like the Daily Jolt and the Daily Gazette’s comments sections. Most of the language used on these forums, particularly on the Daily Jolt, is reprehensible — hateful, vitriolic and ignorant.” Thanks for the input, The Phoenix!

While The Phoenix’s disrespectful comments towards the Daily Gazette deserve an editorial in themselves, we focus here on The Phoenix’s woeful failure to understand the important role such forums play. The Phoenix bases its critique on an idealized conception of a student discourse that in no way reflects reality. The Phoenix’s editors would seem to believe that the ways in which students feel bound to speak in class or in publications of record represent the only valid form and level of discourse in which Swarthmore students ought to participate.

On the contrary, values like tolerance, politeness, supportiveness and inclusion—values which these authors support—go hand in hand with the “reprehensible” language found on the Daily Jolt. These values are linked to subversive language because they emanate from a goal of political subversion. The goal of inclusion is to subvert the relationships of power that aim to exclude. If, however, we privilege an ideal of inclusion over and above our commitment to subversion, we run the risk of uncritically tolerating any and all attitudes and behaviors. We end up tolerating those very attitudes which we sought to subvert — attitudes like those recently espoused on this campus by Wendy Shalit.

A recent Phoenix editorial articulated a student’s disgust at our reception of Wendy Shalit. The writer was “shocked that we could behave in such a disrespectful and dehumanizing manner.” In the opinion of these writers, anything other than a bold-faced refusal to accept as legitimate Wendy Shalit’s hateful views would do our institution a disservice far greater than could be attributed to any rudeness on the part of the students. And the Daily Jolt—in its uniquely mocking, disdainful, though substantive tone—gave voice to this bold-faced refusal.