Welcome to Earth!

Posted By Joshua Wagner on Feb 22, 2018 | 4 comments

Notice: It’s real. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

By Josh Wagner, Opinions Editor

A religious cult has emerged on campus. Its followers believe in a utopia and wait spellbound for the day they will embark to that land. Rare as a unicorn and more elusive than Donald Trump’s hairline, this utopia is spoken of forebodingly and with awe. If you listen on a cold, crisp winter’s night you can actually hear the great conjurers gasping with glee: “Just wait until you get to the real world!”

There’s only one problem with this cult: Earth is the “real world.” It’s time everyone realized that. The oceans, servo cookies, that weird smell after it rains, entropy, enthalpy, feline aids, the Library of Congress, backpacks, dinosaur fossils, CNN – they’re all real.

If this comes as a shock to you, just wait there’s more.

The people around you are real too. They each have interesting life stories and unique perspectives. Try talking to one, and you will find this to be true.

After you have acquainted yourself with the fact that you inhabit the same planet as everybody else, stop letting people tell you that you are about to enter the “real world.” This is propaganda, and it needs to stop.

For example, some people are getting flustered about the new philosophy on freedom of expression. Apparently, we should brace ourselves for the moment we plunge into the cold, cruel, and very real world. Instead we’re being coddled into believing that people deserve respect and that society has rules of decorum.

They are referring to a completely unfiltered post-graduation dystopia. In this wild west of personal discourse, anything goes. Disappointment awaits the members of the “real world” cult because many companies have similar anti-discriminatory policies as the college. Actually, 89% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 66% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. If trends continue, these numbers will only go up.

Students should thank the college for preparing them for to be employed in a socially aware workforce. It may one day save their job.

I’m confused why the “real world” cult chose freedom of speech as the focal point of preparation for their brave new world. There are so many arbitrary rules: don’t jump in the fountain, wear clothes, avoid injuring your roommate, don’t cheat, get vaccinated, have health insurance, don’t lay down in the middle of the street, etc. Of all of the rules to question, why anti discrimination? It would be much more entertaining if people thought they had the god-given right to jump in the fountain or walk around campus in the nude, or both simultaneously. In the real world, people jump in the fountain, so why can’t we here?

To conclude, Gettysburg College is on planet Earth, the one, the only, the realest world we have. If you encounter anyone who believes otherwise, get them to write an opinions piece.