Give us a reason: Student Senate ‘10-’11 candidates share their platforms

Posted on 04. May, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

Name: Jonathan Barrett
District: Village
Ideas:
-Start the movement towards a more student-focused public safety
-Start the movement towards a more student-focused and efficient judicial committee
-Push for greater incorporation of God’s character into worship programs and colloquys.

Name: Byron Lu
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Have more promotional events to other academies and high schools to know PUC
-More dorm visitation for students
-Have more students and administration meetings to see the needs of students and help administration understand the students

Name: Jennifer Cho
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-An alternative plan/research done on how to most effectively use the parking spaces on campus; especially Winning’s parking like. The school
making $15,000 on parking citations is not good.
-A plan for the caf limits. Student should be allowed to choose their caf card limit based on his or her own personal eating habits.
-Intramurals should be free of charge. If anything, the school should fund it or make sure no one has a monopoly on it. Some sort of check and balance system so students’ don’t pay unreasonable fees.

Name: Cabel Bumanglag
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Better Campus Center
-Getting teachers more involved with campus life
-Food quality and food pricing

Name: Jeffrey Figueroa
District: Newton
Ideas:
-Replacing the problematic television grid in the caf would make a lot more appealing
-I think the school needs more options for musicians to practice for events. It becomes a problem for events that require multiple bands to try
practicing at the same time at Scales Chapel
-Faster internet should be pushed again. It is ridiculous how slow the current state is

Name: Kevin Deoso
District: Nichol
Ideas:
-More activities on the weekends.
-Facilities staying open past midnight.
-24 hour cafeteria

Name: Rachelle Kim
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Ambs Hall
-There needs to be better and more treadmills in the Andre gym.
-The printers in Irwin and Chan Shun Hall are always running out of ink or broken. Replacing printers in Winning and Andre.

Name: Steven Chung
District: Newton
Ideas:
-Make PUC more affordable
-Renovations in some buildings.
-More recruitment to increase student body

Name: Autumn Hunter
District: Andre
Ideas:
-More open dorm visitation
-Longer caf hours on Saturdays
-Fix broken Graf sauna

Name: April Marquez
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Make PUC more injury-friendly. (Well equipped first aid kits in every dorm)
-Improve teamwork among SA members and strengthen SA support
-Improve common areas in each dorm

Name: Michel Shenouda
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Cafeteria food should be worked on more, especially on weekends.
-Faster internet
-More gym hours, particularly weight room

Name: Erica Marquez
District: Winning
Ideas:
-Create a stronger spiritual oriented student body with more interactive vespers and meetings
-Have a student body that is full of school spirit by better advertisement of PUC team games, etc.
-Eliminate segregation, whether racially or based on high school by holding social events with combined cultural clubs, majors, etc.

Name: Mika’ele Cruz
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Outsource custodial work
-Renovation of gym facilities
-A better set of checks and balances in SA Senate. Also, more strict requirements for SA officers

Name: Eirene-Gin Nakamura
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Open dorms (with strict policies) for 3 hours per day. RA’s should be on duty and doors will be open at all times.
-Later curfew on weekends for juniors with a certain GPA, perhaps during the week as well.
-More pinks available for upper classmen under age of 21.

Name: Cristina Alba
District: Winning
Ideas:
-Better communication between admin and students.
-Renovations to Irwin Hall
-Redo the SA job positions

Name: Emily Johnson
District: At-Large
Ideas:
-Renovated and updated Campus Center
-Bring Jones Soda back to the caf
-More and better printer access across campus

Name: Dustin Baumbach
District: Grainger
Ideas:
-The Grid needs a new TV along with new wireless to be able to actually watch TV without the connection cutting out
-The library needs to stay open another hour to match the 1 o’clock curfew in the dorms so that if the dorm lobby is too loud they can go to the
library till 1
-The gym needs some hours open during the day for people to work out because a lot of people have large breaks during the day

Name: Kate Osena
District: Andre
Ideas:
-New workout equipment for the weight room
-Return of rec room for men and women’s dorms
-Better laundry machines for all dorms

Name: Lily Guan
District: McReynolds
Ideas:
-Construct security cameras in the main buildings on campus to help avoid thefts
-To encourage the dining commons to turn on the new channels on the ‘big screen

The Woman Question: GC President Speaks to Student Leaders on Women’s Ordination

Posted on 21. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Community

“Make sure you have sought and understood the consensus” – Jan Paulsen, 9 April 2010 to the Adventist Intercollegiate Association meeting at Canadian University College

The following is a compiled transcript of General Conference President Jan Paulsen’s answers to a Q&A with student government leaders from all the Adventist colleges and universities across North America (except Washington Adventist University).

[Initial inquiry about women’s ordination.  The questioner was under the impression that it would be an issue discussed at the upcoming GC meeting.]

At the meetings that finished this Wednesday, I made a statement to our church leaders.  Coming out of our counsel this October, there were several requests that touched on this issue: where are we going as a church regarding women in leadership issues, and by what process do we affirm women in leadership.  Questions of that kind came up then.  I met with my closest advisory leadership teams […] for three or four days planning in January, and we talked about this in the planning meeting.  We agreed that I would try to obtain the thinking, the pulse of the church globally with respect precisely to this issue.  As you know, we’ve addressed it twice before in the General Conference, and frankly, the last thing we need is to bring it before a conference when we know the answer is going to be voted down.

We have to think through where we are going with this.  We had an agreement that I would contact all of the 13 regions of the global church not to undertake a new survey, but to take a rating of the pulse of these regions in the church—how does our church, how does leadership, view this issue.  I asked two questions: tell me about the range of roles that women have today in leadership in this church; how do you affirm them in that role?  Would you welcome an opportunity to ordain women to ministry in your region?  Even if you answer number two as no, would it negatively impact you if the church in some other part of the world decided to ordain women in the ministry?  The very clear answer that came back—and they did a pretty thorough checking and testing, contrary to what is reported in a particular journal that reported that “8 men vetoed women”; it was not one person’s decision, but rather one hundred people—by far 75% or so of the global territories came back and said, “No, we are not ready to ordain women to the ministry in our part of the world; yes, we would be negatively impacted if the church were to do it anywhere in the world.”

Okay.  That’s the answer I have to live with.  And it’s not easy, but let me also say that even in those parts of the world that said not only are we not ready to do it, but that it would negatively impact the church in our division as far as the unity of the church was concerned, they also said to me, “We are not where we were ten years ago; there is movement in thinking.”  Not just we are not ready to do it, but we are not ready yet— hinting that a certain education process needs to go on.  Any change in the church is a slow process, and sometimes, it takes a new generation to make change.

[Inquiry about his personal view on women’s ordination, and how it will change.]

All of my colleagues in leadership know that I have stated that I know of no biblical reason that women should not be selected […] I think the reasons that nothing has happened are cultural based.  A greater value to me than a question on what is going to happen […] is to hold this church together, globally.  The unity of the global church is a doctrine;  many issues are not doctrines that we deal with, but this one is. So, I will give it my best shot to keep the church together.  We are not going to do this globally […] it will be in regions.  But globally, the church has to accept that it will be in regions without tearing itself apart.

[My own inquiry about the paradox of denying the validity of cultures in favor of women’s ordination in favor of cultural pluralism.]

I said this a couple minutes ago: that the question of unity is not only impacted by what you do, but it can be negatively impacted by what you don’t do. By being insensitive to the needs of the church when there is not a clear biblical mandate … all I’m saying here is that I’m trying to move something on, and I don’t know where it’s going to go or how quickly. I sense that there are shifts that are there.  I really don’t know what else to say to that.

The New Orientalism: The Cost of Global Adventism

Posted on 20. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Culture, Editorial

I most definitely do not envy Dr. Jan Paulsen’s position as the leader of a “world church.”  The latter half of the twentieth century bore witness to the reality that the world is not nearly so homogenous as any organization—be it national, religious, or otherwise—might wish, nor are its people willing to be homogenized.  Cultural interaction is a perpetual dialectic, a constant struggle between tradition and the chaos of history, between ideology and complexity.  Cultural awareness is the blessing and the bane of the post-Cold War world; it is a river that carries us toward the fullness of human interaction, but one filled with rocks and falls that threaten to upset our formulaic notions of that interaction.

One of the students at the Adventist Intercollegiate Association Q&A with Jan Paulsen on 9 April, in an endeavor to understand the possibility of retaining unity in the church, asked if separating cultural influence from religion might be the key to solving issues like women’s ordination.  Paulsen was flustered, not quite sure of how to answer.  The simple fact is, one cannot answer that question with anything other than a resounding, “No.”  Religion is culture; culture is religion.

When, therefore, we speak of church unity, we are but fooling ourselves.  Most American Adventists will admit that “Californian Adventism” looks much different from “Midwest Adventism”—as it should, for they are two vastly different cultures.  Even such constructions are further impositions of homogeneity; “Northern Californian Adventism” tends toward a far more ‘conservative’ perspective than “Southern Californian Adventism,” because again, the cultural foundations of those religions differ.  How much further from one another, then, are “Californian Adventism” and “Kenyan Adventism”—understanding, of course, that “Kenyan Adventism” is a compiled construction of tribal and communal differences that in many ways are probably less compatible than Occidental Adventism might wish—and how naive is it to wish them to remain homogenous?

I propose that it is not only naive, but dangerous.  Religious and cultural conversion are the new colonization; notions of a “world church” are the new Orientalsim.  This is not to say that Paulsen or the Adventist leadership are racist, but rather, that they are perpetuating a discourse of pop-colonialism (akin to the pop-modernism straw-man that people utilize when attempting to deconstruct postmodernism), an ill-thought-out ideology centering around the idea that being culturally tolerant means selecting certain points at which “Western” culture conflicts with the culture of the “Other,” and then aggressively defending the “Other” position.  Motivated by a desire to prevent the perpetuation of a colonial mode of thinking, pop-cultural pluralists in fact perpetuate the very ideologies they seek to resist.  There is in Paulsen’s words a pedantic sense of paternalism, as though we must wait for our “little brown brothers”—General McArthur’s words, not Paulsen’s, to clarify—to catch up with us.  Yes, we have the truth, but we have to wait for the primitives to catch up with the morally and ethically superior Occident.

These sentiments are, I hope, in no way intentional.  Rather, the Adventist church, specifically because of its desire to be a “global” organization in a world where we find increasingly true Isaiah Berlin’s statement that some cultures are simply incompatible, is stuck between a doctrine and a hard place.  If we ordain women, say the alleged seventy-five percent of divisions that would take umbrage, we ignore their cultures; if we wait until they are “ready,” we run the risk of a new discourse of superiority.

To complicate matters further, by waiting, we simultaneously invalidate all cultures.  Those who are against women’s ordination are “primitive,” while those who seek ordination are also in the wrong.  In an effort to maintain pop-cultural pluralism, we disenfranchise seventy percent of our members for their biology, and any aspect of the population that seeks ordination for being culturally insensitive.  The North American and European churches are shrinking—a statistical fact.  It should come as little surprise, however, for in issue like women’s ordination, the message we receive is: “Your culture is unacceptable.  Conform to the consensus.”  Which is more culturally insensitive?  To act according to one’s culture if it does not align with the majority, or deny an entire culture the right to construct gender roles as it sees fit?

As I see it, the argument that “those for women’s ordination would be infringing on the cultures of others” is a straw-man, a hollow charade of cultural pluralism.  Forcing women’s ordination on another culture would be wrong; forcing our culture not to have women’s ordination is equally wrong.  And the longer we tell North America and Europe that their cultures are unacceptable, the more of us will leave.

The “answer” to this quandary, if one exists, is the abandonment of any notion of a global church.  We can be unified without being homogenous.  Dr. Paulsen himself said that “We are not going to do this globally […] it will be in regions.”  For what, then, are we waiting?  For Other cultures to become more like the Occident?  I shudder to think that this is our underlying motive.  Cultural pluralism does not mandate any sort of wait.  It is only residual white guilt—the sort that perpetuates notion that we control the world—that makes us pause.  The fact is, the Occident is not in control, and any sense that we should be cautious about imposing our culture on Others is based on the assumption that such a binary still exists.

As long as there exists a global church that seeks homogeneity, we will not have women’s ordination.  As long as there exists a global church that seeks homogeneity, we will face the inevitability that cultures are not rooted in the same history, the same traditions, the same ideology.  We will face women’s ordination, then homosexuality, then evolution, and on, and on.  An awkwardly and artificially maintained majority will control the stasis of our church.  We must abandon pop-pluralism, abandon our cumbersome efforts at hierarchical cultural navigation, abandon the search for homogeneity.  We must move forward in our understanding of one another, or fall into irrelevancy.

Madison Johnson Revealed

Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

As most of the campus knows, about a month ago, there was a mystery/scandal on Facebook with a profile named “Madison Johnson.”  C2 suggested that the goings-on behind this profile were something possibly sinister.  Recent developments have prompted us to rescind that statement, and we would like to, with our sincerest apologies, present this interview with the horribly misaligned Madison Johnson.

C2: I feel so terrible, I’m not really sure where to start.  Let’s begin with who you are.

MJ: My name is Madison Johnson, and I’m a freshman aviation major who lives in McReynolds.  I’m really shy, and when I’m not at class, I’m in my dorm playing WOW, so I rarely interact with other people.  Also, I have a lot of food allergies, so I rarely go to caf’.  That’s why I created a Facebook account to branch out and meet other people.

C2: So, you got on Facebook to interact with other PUC students.  Why didn’t you have a picture when you first started out?

MJ: Well, it’s a little embarrassing.  I have this really strange skin condition.  It’s like a mixture of eczema and really bad acne.  My friends back home tell me it’s not that bad, but posting pictures online makes me feel self conscious.

C2: I’m sorry.  I understand that, but it doesn’t prevent you from responding to people’s comments.  It looks a little shady when you get 500 friends, and don’t say anything to any of them.  Why did that happen?

MJ: Shortly after I sent out friend requests, I accidentally sent some pictures of a party I was at to Dean Riebe, when I meant to send them to someone whose last name is Rieber.  I had no idea what kind of trouble it would cause for [the desk worker].  I feel terrible for it.

C2: So, let’s see if I follow this.  You started a Facebook account, sent an accidental email—and then decided it would be less incriminating to just stay silent?  Sorry if I seem hostile, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

MJ:  Quickly after all that happened, I swore off the internet for a month.  Apparently people were trying to get a hold of me, and I had no idea.

C2: Surely you must know someone on campus, so you would have heard about the article we printed on line.

MJ:  Getting [the desk worker] in trouble bothered me to the point where I dropped out for the rest of the quarter.   I went home to recollect myself.

C2: Which, I suppose, explains why Records said you weren’t enrolled last quarter.  So, you reach the end of your month, log on, and what happened?  What did you think?

MJ: Wow.  There was such a huge reaction to my presence on Facebook, and more than half of the things that people were angry about were things I didn’t even realize I had done.  I was terrified when I realized how many people were angry, and I was overwhelmed when trying to begin damage control.  I was so misunderstood already that I didn’t know where to start.  I stopped logging onto Facebook because people were either really really p***d off, or accusing me of being the administration, and I was just [gestures] aaaah.

C2:  Well, I’m glad you called me.  I wish there was more I could do to rectify things.  Have you spoken with [the desk worker] or the Dean about all of this?

MJ:  [Sighs]. Honestly, at this point I want to put it all behind me.  I haven’t resolved it, but I’m done dealing with it.  It’s a huge mess, and my hope is this interview will work to clear stuff up.

C2: I hope so, too, and I again want to offer my apologies to you and the campus.  This whole thing was a giant mistake.

Senator Declares Alcohol Un-American, Communist

Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

Responding to recent rumors of issues with alcohol in the dorm, Andre senator Josephina MacCarthay issued a public statement in which she declared, “Alcohol is leftist, weak, communist—and therefore, un-American.”  Senator MacCarthay called on desk workers and RAs alike to “stand up against the fermented tide of immorality that threatens to sweep out to its lecherous sea the very essence of the American-Adventist woman.”

In her statement to the SA Senate, MacCarthay outlined the “sinful swath that Satan’s nectar carves” in an Adventist student: “First, as Sister White says, ‘reason is paralyzed,’ which leads to irrational acts, such as sex, which have irrevocable consequences—unwanted pregnancy, sexually-transmitted diseases, and ultimately, dancing.”

Worse than the immorality of alcohol, MacCarthay proclaimed, is the immediate tie between alcohol and “the Devil’s politics”: communism.  At one point in her speech, MacCarthay leaned in on the podium and reminded the other senators that “Russia is known for two things: vodka, and communists.  It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”  When challenged on her logic, MacCarthay summarized, “Every time you take a drink, you may as well burn an American flag, or barbeque a bald eagle.”

After having established her platform, MacCarthay went on to single out those she deemed “the harbingers of the antichrist’s water of death.”  Beginning with those in the room, she identified Village Senator Jonathan Pichot, articulating her argument with perfect wit and logic: “He’s French.  There’s a reason it’s called ‘Red Wine.’  His blood is 50% alcohol, and 50% socialist pansy.”  According to MacCarthay, Pichot is “a threat to the Adventist family, the Adventist school system, and the Adventist church as a whole.”

Gesturing to the press chair, MacCarthay continued her crusade against moral collapse:  “I hardly think that I have to give any evidence when I say that C2 editor Peter Katz is a communist drunkard.  He’s Russian.  He’s openly socialist.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he drinks vodka strained through a copy of the Declaration of Independence.  Every time this school allows him to print another issue of his pseudo-intellectual propaganda, we spit on the graves of men like George Washington and John Kellogg.”

Later in her speech, MacCarthay praised the individual or group behind Madison Johnson, proclaiming that the operators of such a scheme “are true American heroes, and belong in the ranks of great men like Thomas Jefferson, Douglas MacArthur, and Ronald Reagan.”  She called on more students to take up the banner of “counter-communist espionage” on Facebook, Twitter, and other social-networking sites.  “We must take the battle against leftist alcohol to a new level,” MacCarthay insisted, “in order to let these pinko winos know that nowhere is safe, nowhere is private.”

The battle against “socialist softies” must move beyond cyberspace and into the real world, MacCarthay proclaimed: “The dorms are our new mission field—and I don’t mean missionary to Africa.  I mean Spanish Inquisition style.”  The senator called for dorm residents to search their bathmates’ rooms, check in the drawers at the front desk, listen in on conversations, and even keep an eye on roommates.  According to MacCarthay, the conflict over alcohol is “a controversy of … great … proportions,” that requires constant vigilance against “those who threaten the American-Adventist way of life.”

The best way to go about ensuring the safety of the “hearts and minds of Adventist youth,” MacCarthay said, is to “make profile lists of people who might be more prone to drink, for example, un-American majors like English and European history,” and then “watch those people like Uncle Sam’s big brother.”

Fists waving, MacCarthay concluded with a flourish, “The bottom line is this: we must hunt down each and every alcohol-drinking commie-loving un-American pinko on this campus and bring them to justice.  Our continued existence depends upon it.”

C2 Creates Complaint Department

Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Editorial

Ladies and gentlemen, your days of wanting to complain about the C2, but being too intimidated to talk to the six-and-a-half-feet tall, black belt, arrogant editor (goodness only knows why) are over.

Beginning this Spring Quarter, the C2 will hire Amanda Katz to serve as the C2 complaint department. “People are always coming up to me and telling me what they don’t like about the paper, anyway,” Katz said, “I may as well get paid for it.”

Katz brings nearly twenty years of relevant experience to her new position. “I’ve spent my whole life getting in trouble for things that he [Editor Peter Katz] has done,” Katz says. “He says something, I get in trouble for it. He writes something, people complain to me. It’s like my purpose in life is to deal with all the messes he makes.”

In high school, when Katz began her freshman year, the principal and several teachers automatically mistrusted her because of what her brother had done or said. “It was like they already had a file on me,” Katz recalls. “I started out in a hole that he had dug, and then he just kept throwing dirt on me.”

C2 Omni-assistant Editor Erika Kim is excited about the new addition to the staff. “Amanda is probably the best person I know when it comes to dealing with people being angry at Peter. Plus, she’s more than willing to get in a yelling match with someone, whereas Peter tends to just passive-aggressively print sarcastic insults in the paper when confronted.”

Next year’s C2 Editor, Melissa Totton, also supports the creation of the office. “I personally love yelling at Amanda,” Joseph admits. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’m actually thinking of keeping her on for next year.”

Thanks to reorganization of budgeting costs, the C2 is some $5000 under on its budget—all of which will be going to pay Katz for what she is about to undergo, except, according to Editor Peter Katz, “the $3000 I’m using to buy myself a car—a purchase about which I’m certain Amanda will be hearing, shortly.”

If you would like to lodge a complaint with Katz, please feel free to call her cell phone (530-555-9432) at any time, her room (x.9900) at any time between the hours of 2:00 a.m and 6:00 a.m., leave a note under her dorm room door, or just wait in her closet until she goes to sleep.

PUC to Implement New Dress Code

Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

As spring approaches PUC (slowly, and hiding behind rain clouds), administrative powers once again face the quandary of being a Californian college.

A PUC Literature major alumnus once wrote “in Angwin/ when the rain goes away/ so do the pretty girls’ clothes.” Frequently accused of being overly liberal, the worldly nature of Californian sun and fashion accost the moral fortitude of both women and men—the former tempted to dress how the sinful world would like them, and the latter pulled in by the temptresses, and forced to do everything they can to objectify women at every given moment.

“It’s really not my fault,” says Andrew Williamson, a Grainger resident lurking on the balcony between the girls’ dorms and Stauffer Hall. “All I can do is try not to use my binoculars too much; it feels like cheating.”

Not everything is so easy, however. Newton resident James Jacobs notes, “At least with bikini caroling, they’re practically asking us to turn them into faceless bodies that we can use as objects to fulfill our own immature need to construct false ideals and destructive relationship patterns. In the summer, though, it’s not an event—it’s constant. We have to be more subtle.”

Inspired by the ideas of great thinkers like John Milton and Plato, this spring, PUC will seek to control the danger of sexuality by introducing a strict dress code. Women are to do everything possible to cover all traces of skin, armed guards will be posted in Graf circle, and classes will be separated by gender. “It’s not that we don’t trust the students,” said administrator George Livingston, “it’s that we understand how hard it is to be young. We know how easily the world can infiltrate even Theology majors. Well, not Theology majors. But everyone else. Definitely English majors.”

“I’m all for it,” said Larry Erikson, a prominent member of community organization Save Moral Angwin (SMA). “PUC has been a cesspit of sin ever since they stopped throwing people out of the dorm for wearing jewelry, seating people at the cafeteria through men’s and women’s entrances, and having guards at the exits from the campus.” His sign-waving peers agreed vehemently.

While PUC had for a time considered going to uniforms, ultimately, the powers that be decided against it. “It’s not that we want to control the students,” noted administrator Lily Rosenberg, “and besides—uniforms can be attractive, too.” She also wanted to assure students that color was not going to be an issue, commenting, “We want people to feel free to have style, without having too much style. Any color is acceptable. Except red, which has been shown to increase sexual drive. And green. And certain shades of blue when combined with a sort of goldenrod.”

In order to assist with comprehension, history professor Dr. Morton Wilder offered to teach a class entitled “Proper Dress through the Ages.” The professor said that the class would “place heavy emphasis on the seventeenth century Puritans and nineteenth century Victorians, only with less emphasis on the area between the stomach and neck.” The class would be mandatory, and lower division. While it would not have a major research paper involved, Dr. Wilder does want to “encourage students to explore the disintegration of proper dress, and hopefully, find that they prefer the modesty and security of a baggier, fuller style.”

Ms. Rosenberg continued on Dr. Morton’s trajectory. “Lace would definitely be in. Blacks, greys, and whites, as well. The boxier the cut, the better. I think students would find the change refreshing—hip, even. Though, not having to do with hips. That would not be acceptable. Not at all.”

Acceptable clothing options will be available at the PUC Bookstore for approximately 400% market value, in order to make the transition easier.

Our Digital Selves

Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Peter Katz in Debate

Who is Madison Johnson?

Now you’re with me, Dear Reader (it was a cruel narrative device, yes, but I regret it not one bit).  But who, indeed, is Madison Johnson?  Is she, in fact, less real than the rest of us on Facebook?

I am being a bit philosophical, here, but the Madison question is the essence of an article that was in the making even before the whole incident.  It is, in part, a question of the theoretical, a question of self-construction and culture, but unlike most of the philosophy that I do, it has direct, pragmatic effects on all of us.

Take “me,” for example.  I friend you on Facebook.  You may have seen me doing something for C2, or you at least know my name, so you accept.  What, now, do you know about “me”?  You know I am in Angwin, I’m from Redding, I’m 21 (after some math), engaged to Ariane Gregory, a socialist, and think that I’m amusing as far as religious views go.  I obviously have an obsession with poetry, and some sort of issue that compels me to declare an excessive amount of majors.  My stati tend to be snarky witticisms.  That’s me.

But is it?  There’s no law that says what I put on Facebook has to be empirically “true.”  My sister and one of my friends arbitrarily changed their stati to say that they were engaged to one another; both of them set off chain reactions of excited—and then rather irritated—friends and relatives.  People declare siblings at random.  I got incredibly excited that one of my friends was into Hitchhiker’s Guide, only to find out that it was in fact a different friend who had stolen her laptop and commented on one of my comments.

Moreover, we are defined by the medium.  The way we construct our digital selves depends entirely on the programming decisions of sun-starved computer techies who are far wealthier than any of us.  You know I’m a socialist because Facebook decided to include political views, and make them customizable.  We hold a “conversation” on Facebook via stati-and-comments, and every exchange is mediated by the medium of stati-and-comments.

The “Like” button is the epitome of this phenomenon.  Do any of us really know what it means to “Like” something?  Several of my friends immediately “Like” any of their own comments; others use it sarcastically; others seem to “Like” just about anything they read.  And yet, because of programming decisions, to “Like” something is an integral part of our interactions with one another.

Medium as controller goes beyond Facebook (yes, there are things beyond Facebook, I hear).  Twitter, for example: because of arbitrary decisions, one has one-hundred forty characters to construct a self.  A program called “DigitalLife” allows one to create an entire digital persona, down to physical appearance; many corporations use this program for meetings, to the point that there are corporate task-forces composed of people who have worked together for years, but never seen one another in person.  All the interactions that those people have, have been and will continue to be defined by programming decisions at DigitalLife.  Don’t even get me started on WoW.

We use digital selves to interact in other-constructed mediums, and thereby, our digital selves are not really “our” selves at all.  Our internet selves, though they do embody in part an extension of ourselves, are not our own constructions—but they are, to the fullest extent, constructions.

Forums, or gaming personae, demonstrate the façade of digital self.  For a year or so, I was a member of a martial arts forum, until internal forum politics got me banned; I created a new login, new persona, new self, and rejoined.  Very few people are terribly friendly when gaming online, particularly since, from what I can gather, the point seems to be killing one another, repeatedly.  The person who just put a hole through your character’s head, then messaged you, “u sux n00b,” may in fact be one of your closest “friends” in a forum, or on Facebook.  Identity is inconsistent, to say the least.  These interactions are essentially anonymous, even with names attached.

This relative anonymity is, in my opinion, the ugliest worm in the apple of internet interaction.  Youtube is a cesspit of inhumanity; a cursory look on the comments of any Youtube video will not only teach one new expletives and racial slurs, but also demonstrate the horrendous cruelty of anonymity.  Without a person attached to a name, people feel free to fling whatever they would like at whomever.  We would direct your attention to the debate on the “Student Suspended over Crude Video” article, with the additional information that we had to delete at least ten comments for content consisting almost entirely of baseless mud-slinging.  Juxtapose the ninety-something anonymous-but-hostile comments with the fifteen or so named, but very constructive comments on the “Madison Johnson” article.  A name, it seems, adds a least a bit more identity.

Herein lays the tension of the digital self.  In the nineties, the internet was an opportunity to reinvent the self, to “be anyone you want to be.”  Somewhere in the ’00s, with the rise of Myspace, Facebook, and other social networking sites, it became “be the real you”—which, as we’ve already discussed above, is highly problematic in itself.  Now, however, as we enter the teens, are we to be “our real selves, as we would want them to be”?  Do we still hold the illusion of our ability to construct, or do we hold the illusion of individuality, or both, or neither?

As far as I can tell from student reaction, most of us feel that Madison Johnson is an outrage.  But, why?  Is it an invasion of privacy?  Anyone who thinks that our digital selves are at all private has simply missed the entire notion of the internet.  Is it a violation of internet etiquette?  Internet custom is an etiquette in formation, a culture in transition, shaped by the medium that allows “friends” to browse one another’s photographs.  Is it a violation of ethics?

This last question is the crux of the entire issue.  The ethics of the internet are in their infancy.  Before, arguably, we had “public” and “private” selves.  Now, we have a “digital” self, a sort of grey area between.  We want our privacy, but our medium is public.  We want our public voice, but we want that voice to be respected as though it is spoken by an individual with private conceptions of self.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I do not intend to preach gloom-and-doom, nor fire-and-brimstone.  Our “selves” are not falling apart, nor is internet culture evil.  It simply is.  But its existence is perhaps one of the most important lessons we can learn, one of the most important aspects of our society of which we need to be aware.  To simply assume that the digital self is, and operate within the constraints and constructions of the internet, is truly to give up any ability to define ourselves.  We must explore, we must be aware of the constructions, and we must constantly ask ourselves how, and why, we construct ourselves the way that we do.

I am more than an info box.  You are more than an info box.  But the existence of that box, in many ways, has come to define us.  It is an extension of me, an extension of you.  We live in a brave new world, and it is up to us, the academics of our generation, to explore to the fullest digital culture, and our digital selves.

Who is Madison Johnson?

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus, Feature

Madison Johnson is the coolest new girl in Angwin.

As far as anyone can tell, Madison is a faceless, twenty-three year old junior here at PUC.  She also seems to be hugely popular, though apparently, everyone who adds her wonders who she is (really, people?  Really?).  In a matter of three days, Madison managed to get 574 friends, which is rather impressive, given that in four years, I’ve managed only to acquire 226.  Obviously, Madison is the girl with which to hang.

Last night, a desk worker in Andre was called in to the dean’s office, where she was shown incriminating or questionable pictures of herself and others “from her facebook” involving alcohol.  According to the worker, she is “not friends with any RA” on facebook, and she said she had no idea from where these pictures had come.   A few days ago, however, this desk worker became friends with Madison.  The desk worker says that others have been called in, with similar stories.

One post on Madison’s wall alleged that she was “the deans.”  This post no longer exists.  Several facebook stati began announcing these rumors on Friday morning.  Madison has not posted anything on anyone’s facebook, yet.

Eager to figure out who this Madison person was, we gave her a call via Winning front desk, who redirected us to Plant Services, where we were told that Madison “had gone to class.”  When I called back an hour later, a different desk worker told me that, “There is no Madison Johnson.”  We checked our contact list on outlook.com, and the search engine did not find her.  She does not appear on phonebook.puc.edu when searched.  Records and Registration told us that, in fact, there is no Madison Johnson registered this quarter.  Either this means that Madison is taking classes for free, or something is up.

Dean Annette Reibe denied any knowledge of a secret facebook, saying that such an endeavor would “probably be illegal” along with noting that she certainly “does not have the time to sit up at night searching people’s facebooks.”  She did, however, confirm that several desk workers had been called in based on picture evidence emailed to her by a concerned student, whom she understandably refused to name.  This is consistent with information the C2 has been given over the last few weeks involving desk workers and RAs in Andre being called in based on alcohol offenses, and rumors of a “McCarthy-esque witch hunt”—as one former Andre employee put it—in Andre, in which workers have been asked, according to that former employee, “If anyone you knew were to drink, who would it be?”

As of now, there is no directly confirmed evidence that “Madison Johnson” is, in fact, a cover for judicial powers or otherwise investigative people searching for conviction.  If she is a real student, we apologize for the mixup.  If she is not, then this is another element indicative of a culture of fear and incrimination boiling over in Andre, and definite grounds for internal change, and a definite violation of ethics.  Either way, until Madison comes forward, it might be a good idea to “unfriend” her.

The People have Spoken: Election Results 2010-2011

Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus, Culture

SA President: Warrie Layon

RVP: Mark Monterroso

EVP: Erin Truex

SVP: Chris David

CC Editor: Divya Joseph

VYB: Aaron Doyle (Although the No Box was actually written in quite a few times)

FB Editor: Amador Jaojoco

DL Editor: Loni Johnston

Peter Katz and Erika Kim would like to thank their myriad supporters who voted for them.  When the time comes, it just might make the difference for you.