Brotherhood, Stockholm and tradition
I’d like to congratulate the Ed Board for a well reasoned and much needed editorial on hazing.
It’s funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Translated: Over 20 years have passed since I had to deal with hazing. Technology has made leaps and bounds. Students are faced with issues I couldn’t imagine when I was an undergraduate. And hazing is still a problem that everyone complains about and one that everyone seems helpless—or no one seems willing—to change.
And from what I read, and from what I hear—you’d be surprised what students say oblivious to the fact that faculty are sitting right next to them—the techniques haven’t changed much. I guess hazing is like anything classic, you just don’t mess with it. I would say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but it is broken and it does need fixing.
“Ed Board cannot understand why people would subject themselves to cruel and unusual punishment just for the sake of brotherhood, tradition and all that other corn-fed bull.”
No, but fraternities, much like torturers, are able to make their pledges believe hazing serves a higher good. I think they call that the Stockholm syndrome. You know, where captives become sympathetic to their captors.
Of course, force feeding urine and holding onto another man’s genitalia all in the name of bonding is a bit odd. Freud would have a field day with it. Straight men would argue that I’m reading too much into it. To them, I’d say, “Been there, done that, still don’t get it, and I’m gay.”
It’s none surprising, though, that the kinds of sadistic things that went on at Abu Ghraib happened. After all, things rooted in the same perverse mentality are happening in college fraternities. I know, it’s all good, clean fun. Well, maybe not clean. And the pledges would argue it isn’t fun. The sad truth about hazing is that it exists not for the benefit of the pledges, but rather for the twisted entertainment of the hazers.
One of my students—whose name will be omitted to protect his identity…and safety—has expressed some displeasure at the hazing he and his pledge brothers are being put through. While he’s not made any specific complaints, the toll that pledgeship is exacting on him is visible. He looks like he’s not slept in days. He’s unable to concentrate. He’s more withdrawn that he was in a previous class.
When I asked him if it’s worth it, he says it is, but seems to be reading from a list of talking points the fraternity prepared. He says he’s sticking it out because he likes his pledge brothers. Fortunately, he has that support system to help him through it.
To his credit, he’s vowed to stop the cycle when he becomes a member. I told him that, although I found his sentiments honorable, I thought he was being a bit naïve. “Just wait until a year or more from now when what you went through seems distant and insignificant, your attitude will probably change,” I suggested.
After all, there is something in man’s anthropology, his genetic memory if you will, that makes him want to prey on those that are weaker than he. Or at least I think I read that some where. Perhaps it’s related to the Darwinian notion of Survival of the Fittest.
Does anyone have a copy of “Origin of the Species” he could loan me? Some social Darwinist has to have written about hazing, comparing it to prehistoric man’s earliest initiation rituals.
The truth is I hope I’m wrong. If there’s anyone capable of changing things, it’s this young man. I’m sure I’ll check in with him this time next year just to be sure.
