Billy Joel was wrong when he sang, “It doesn’t matter what they say in the papers / ‘Cause it’s always been the same old scene.” At least at Georgetown, it matters a great deal. In the wake of the much-ballyhooed April Fools’ edition of The Hoya, it seems everyone’s choosing their words a bit more carefully. I have a few of my own that I’d like to have back.

About a month ago, I encouraged readers to “think like 6-year-olds” more often. While I’m honored that you took my suggestion to heart, I should have been a bit more specific. The fallout on every side of the April Fools’ issue debate has amounted to about as immature an encounter as I could imagine – I’d be willing to bet the children enrolled at the Hoya Kids Learning Center would’ve handled it in a more grown-up manner. All parties – those offended, The Hoya and supporters of The Hoya – could have demonstrated a great deal more restraint, but instead we engaged in a game of name-calling and tattling that can only be described as childish. It costs more than $50,000 to attend Georgetown; I think our paying parents expect us to treat our university as more than an expensive playground or a resort spa for our wounded egos.

Don’t misunderstand me – I’m in full support of an open and respectful environment for everyone. But I believe that such an atmosphere can only truly exist in a community in which people don’t have to constantly second-guess what comes out of their mouths. Rather than tell everyone involved in this circus to act their age (I wouldn’t wish those words on anyone), I propose a different course of action: Take it easy.

That’s an order. I’m about as tightly wound as they come, but even I’ve managed to retain a sense of perspective. This wasn’t the first time a newspaper has crossed the line, and it won’t be the last. In the words of Jackson Browne, “Lighten up while you still can.” The bottom line? Don’t take yourself so seriously. It’s not something Georgetown students are very good at, but it is something to aspire to.

Let’s put this in perspective: Given all the problems in the world today, how do tasteless jokes compare? Can they be compared to world hunger, lack of clean water, access to health care and so forth? Did these offensive jokes at any time pose more than an ephemeral threat to anyone’s emotional well-being? Was anyone’s life ever put in danger by this? Let’s try to see the bigger picture here.

We all get riled up in the heat of the moment (just ask my mother), but eventually you have to decide what’s worth fighting for, and you’ll have a very difficult time convincing me that anything written in an intentionally playful edition of a student newspaper would ever qualify as something to get worked up over.

We go to Georgetown, not Brown University. Nothing will stifle the potential for growth more than blind capitulation to political correctness – that’s a big part of the reason why I left Rhode Island when the time came for college. The touchy-feely kitsch factor reached an all-time high last weekend when Brown faculty voted to rename Columbus Day weekend “Fall Weekend,” apparently an effort to show sensitivity toward Native Americans. One has to wonder just how much solidarity Brown actually showed with Native Americans by choosing to rename the holiday, rather than boycott it outright.

We must put a stop to this sort of insidious ego-coddling. The inflammatory response we had on campus to a poorly executed attempt at satire underscores the severity of the growing risk posed to criticism of any form in modern society.

We must reverse this trend at once – not in a childish way, by being deliberately insensitive or offensive (or, mind you, by constantly complaining), but rather by standing up for free speech, even when it is inconvenient – especially if it is inconvenient. If we can barely talk about trivial matters like tasteless humor, how are we going to tackle issues that really matter?

On Tuesday, President Obama validated Georgetown’s prominence on the national and international stage by coming to speak. Let’s not compromise our own commitment to intellectual discourse with childish tattling. The big, bad world doesn’t owe any of us a thing. Get over it. We’re not Brown. We are Georgetown. And it’s time we started acting like it again.

Colin Nagle is a sophomore in the College. He can be reached at naglethehoya.com. This is the semester’s final installment of Getting in Tune.

To send a letter to the editor on a recent campus issue or Hoya story or a viewpoint on any topic, contact opinionthehoya.com. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and viewpoints should be between 600 to 800 words.

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