By Stephen Cooney

Last week our cartoonist Ryan Broderick made a few people mad, possibly made a couple of people cry and cut deep into the soul of the Progressive Students Union. The Chronicle would like to formally apologize to the Progressive Students Union for the unthinkable atrocity of their inability to take a joke. We are really sorry that you could not laugh at a small jest about your on-campus actions and did not appreciate Broderick’s attempt at comedy.

We made a vast judgment error that the club that uses light-hearted polar bear costumes to look for changes in government policy would be able to take a joke. The whole thing has been blown way out of proportion, and no one in the vast tidal wave of the rest of the entire universe really cares. Facebook messages in your own defense are ridiculous, and the inability to laugh at yourself is even more ridiculous. Maybe some people didn’t think Broderick’s comic was funny, but no one seemed to mind the Hitler jokes. So why did a comment about the Progressive Students Union cause such a stir?

We at The Chronicle believe that Broderick hit the nail exactly on the head. No one cared about the jokes in Broderick’s comic series “Student Loans for Beer Money” until someone got too personal with the material. I guess those who were offended have every right to think there was no basis for the joke, and Broderick has every right in the world to believe that the Progressive Students Union is not actually making substantive changes in the universe.

Not everyone in the world has to agree about everything. Didn’t you read “The Giver”? Utopias don’t work, and the only way for change and progressive action to happen is through discourse. The problem today is that everyone wants to change something, but no one is daring enough to do so. We are by no means saying that the Progressive Students Union is not trying, but maybe we young people in particular are complacent in the world and not daring or creative enough to change anything.

In the 1960s, when grassroots movements and student-lead organizations swept across the nation for civil rights and other forms of social liberation, they were pushing the limit. They were changing the way people thought, and more importantly, they were courageously battling the law. I have yet to see a student movement in our generation step outside of the Iron Gates of their university to challenge the social norms and governmental policies of our nation.

Social movements nowadays are more like fashion statements endorsed by celebrities and easily seamed into the capitalist market for consumption. The difference between today’s movements and those is the ’60s movements were forcing their way into the public realm, not being injected into it. Maybe we should try to take some of our movements or wishes for change out to the public and away from the quad or the approval of popular culture. We must rethink the way we approach things before we cry for change.

There are things that have to come before change. Most people do not think about them and many times they are overlooked. We as students forget about these things and forget that change is not an instant magic trick. Change is a process, a development more like bread molding than a nuclear warhead exploding. We forget about the small things that are needed to make change possible. Innovation, creativity and, more than anything else, the bravery and courage to take these actions are what bring about social change.

The problem nowadays is that people are worrying about their own social relevance and the instant outcomes of their actions, rather than their innovation. Social movements are more like pop music than a rallying point in our culture-especially with young adults around the college age. Everyone wants to change something, but no one seems to be daring enough to do it, and sometimes those of us who are trying may not be looking at ourselves long enough to realize that nothing we are doing is really having any relevant effect. Maybe we are just indulging in ourselves and in the popularity of modern movements, and not trying to change anything.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe more so than anything else, I am the little bit of reason in your mind that you didn’t want to hear. Even Pinocchio had to fight with Jiminy Cricket before he could realize his faults. Sometimes it takes a joke to make you think, or maybe you just look at the joke as an insult. But a joke is only an insult if you can deduce a little hint of truth underneath the punch line.

Stephen Cooney is a senior print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected].