Posted on 10/09/2017 6:32:01 AM PDT by yldstrk
Edited on 10/09/2017 7:14:17 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
At about 3 p.m. on Friday, February 3, Tim Piazza, a sophomore at Penn State University, arrived at Hershey Medical Center by helicopter. Eighteen hours earlier, he had been in the kind of raging good health that only teenagers enjoy. He was a handsome, redheaded kid with a shy smile, a hometown girlfriend, and a family who loved him very much. Now he had a lacerated spleen, an abdomen full of blood, and multiple traumatic brain injuries. He had fallen down a flight of stairs during a hazing event at his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, but the members had waited nearly 12 hours before calling 911, relenting only when their pledge “looked f****** dead.” Tim underwent surgery shortly after arriving at Hershey, but it was too late. He died early the next morning.
Without some form of initiation rite, how do you instill the ideal of brotherhood that is the essence of 5e fraternity experience?
The greater group is not gonna survive if they assist in the death of their own...if you’re gonna think biologically.....maybe the example of lemming migration and survival is a better model
Without some form of initiation rite, how do you instill the ideal of brotherhood that is the essence of 5e fraternity experience?
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I was in a fraternity and we hazed pledges. I certainly wouldn’t do it now because of what I know now. Too much risk involved. We’re in a different era from when I was in college.
>> it’s as if they didn’t read the articl <<
What? Somebody didn’t the article?
Must be a first around here!
THAT was some reading. I assume that was this year - 2017. No mention of future trial dates? How people become so cold and immoral is beyond me. I don’t care if it is tradition.
I'm not saying that as if it's a bad thing ... just potentially explanatory.
“”In modern society, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for men to be men””
Military?
Sororities don’t paddle each other, dude.
The young men described in the article seem very much like Milo’s version of “masculinity in all its glory,” including coprophagia.
The utility of this for a healthy society is unclear to me.
Neither do fraternities. Mine didn’t.
To give in to modernity and scrap fraternities will only hasten the metrosexualization of mankind. Count me out of this feminist witch hunt.
Well this one sure as hell did.
What utter crap
Hell Week? I asked the guys rushing me for assurance that they didn’t haze.
“Oh no, nothing like that.”
As it was going on I remember thinking that I would never treat my brother that way, and if I tried he would tell me where to go..
As a result I have had nothing to do with the ‘brothers’ after surviving and graduation.
Even ‘Animal House’s “initiation” was just a party.
I know Milo presents a conundrum for many. I too recoil at his many failures, just like I recoil at several Founders' views of slavery. I endeavor to look at the works of an individual as a whole and recognize we are all sinners.
In this context Milo, notwithstanding his personal choices, is not championing a lifestyle but rather the continuance (or dare I say revival) of Western norms that gave us the better elements of culture. There is no championing of coprophagia - implicit or explicit. Indeed in his lecture Milo explicitly notes that the baser Ancient Greek rituals may be more to his liking, but he wouldn't advocate them for men today.
Are you unclear on the utility of fraternities or men's only organizations or your interpretation of Milo's thesis?
I'm unclear as to the social utility of organizations in which binge drinking, drug use, mass fornication, and (read the article ...) perverted abuse of other members are key features.
In order to consider whether this reflects or builds authentic or "glorious" masculinity, one must have an view of the purpose of a man qua man. Something is built, no doubt, through this socialization medium, but whether it's what we want in a "man" is an ontological question.
It seems to me, having read the article, that I've learned the answer to a question I sometimes ask after reading news of inexplicably vicious behavior: "Who are these people? How does someone end up like this?"
I would quarrel with the assertion that binge drinking, drug use, mass forication and peverted abuse of other members are "key features" of fraternities. To be sure, drinking on most campuses isn't old and "hooking up" isn't new either. Further, we can't be ignorant: there are plenty of stories of rude behavior in Greek organizations, and even in my youth the guys (and gals) at my college knew darn well which houses to avoid if you had self-respect.
However, most fraternities with which I've had contact both as a student and alumni are, at worst, a microcosm of the student body. At best, they are social organizations of like-minded young men (and women) that will police out abhorrent behavior that goes unchecked in dorms and apartments. I've seen brothers cut off visibly intoxicated individuals and even provide an escort service (no, not THAT kind!) to girls who don't want to walk home alone; my fraternity had at least one designated sober brother (though we usually had more than one) to ensure things didn't get out of hand. Finally, brothers harassing girls or others usually were put in their place because it not only reflected badly on the rest of the brotherhood, but because we felt there WAS a way to "act like a man."
Bishop Fulton Sheen did a great program on selfishness, where he spoke of the West wanting a Christ without the Cross and Communists who want the Cross without Christ. Essentially, "we do not want a Christ in the Western world who's hands are scarred....we want a lilly-white hand. And the result is that we have a Christ who does not preach sacrifice and discipline...a feminine Christ...a weak Christ full of cheap moralizations...forgetting that He came primarily to die as a Savior, and to teach us how to be self-possessed, how to be men, how to avoid the thing that drag us down."
I don't see masculinity in hazing a pledge, letting a fellow human being die an alcoholic death, or bragging of carnal conquest. Alternatively, I see no value in snowflakes bemoaning "masculinity" and the holding of a door for a woman, of calling it "barbaric" to protect your family with a firearm, or to claim that there are no differences between men and women.
Again, vile elements of fraternities are nothing to champion. But if I had to pick between colleges with and without fraternities, I will take my chances with fraternities. I don't think many brothers are wearing pink ski caps or were promoting Hillary and her vulgar form of statism...not out of hatred of women, but out of a sense of masculinity that isn't promoted much anymore and which might be snuffed out on campuses absent these organizations.
Thanks for listening.
If I understand correctly, you view fraternities as sort of a counterbalance to the absurdities of establishment feminism. I agree there’s something to be said for that.
I do not see the relevance of the Fulton Sheen quote. Nobody of either sex learns to be Christ-like or self-possessed or to avoid the things that drag us down by getting drunk and fornicating, which are significant features of college life both in and out of Greek organizations.
Thank YOU for your response! Civil discussions are edifying regardless of agreement or disagreement.
I also think any time I can quote the late Archbishop, the better the discourse and maybe we all get a little smarter. It may have been a stretch, but I hope it was worth it. Thank you for the kind words.
Maybe ...
The institutional power of national fraternities, like the power of sports franchises, makes it difficult to react against abuses like those at Penn State. Institutional self-preservation destroys decent impulses. Reading the article, I felt that the most dreadful thing was that none of the participants sought medical aid when it became clear that the young man was terribly injured. The one who tried to persuade the leaders was quashed ... although, of course, he still could have called 911. Even after the death, the leaders' emphasis was covering the organization's assets.
So, while I agree that organizations for men are important, both the decline in the general quality of college life and the institutional stronghold mentality make it more difficult for fraternities to be a positive environment.
Sports teams have also been corrupted, at least down to the high school level in many areas. Anthony Esolen, the cultural critic and professor of English (You'll have to search - I don't know how to put in a nice link in the text like you did!) has observed that a much lower percentage of adults and teens participates in sports teams than 50 years ago. Even though people tended to work longer hours and be much poorer than today, they played on community, employer-based, and school teams in much greater numbers. Now only a few participate, while most are inert (but emotionally involved) spectators. (Hispanics seem to be something of an exception - adults often play soccer as well as watching.)
Participating on a sports team can have a great deal of benefit, both in physical fitness and socialization, but not as much if the team is mainly a financial concern. Then you get the NFL and NBA, with their high-paid felons.
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