fraternities

[keenwesh]

Give this article a read, I have a cousin and a couple friends from highschool at dartmouth and this honestly worries me. Why anyone would submit to stuff like this is completely and totally beyond me, even if they were shit wasted.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true

[burchey]

Give this article a read, I have a cousin and a couple friends from highschool at dartmouth and this honestly worries me. Why anyone would submit to stuff like this is completely and totally beyond me, even if they were shit wasted.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true

 

Frats make me LOL, but what makes me LAWL is reading some of your posts about frat guys being douches or whatever.

 

Is there an emoticon for the Pot calling the Kettle black? Can't find it on the menu.

[ivan]

any dartmouth anthropologist can explain the importance of iniation rites amongst bands of hairless monkeys

 

i like the huns habit of squashing newborn's skulls flat on the sides w/ boards so as to produce wicked nasty protruding foreheads to announce their gangs badassedness

 

these aren't hun skulls though, but you get the idea - many gangs have arrived at similiar conclusions

 

shop around for your gang - plenty of cool fraternities out there - i quit mine after 2 years though when it started turning into a college version of the boy scouts and i realized i could hang out w/ my same friends and not have to pay for it

[AlpineK]

While the article is disturbing I prefer to view fraternities Animal House style.

 

[video:youtube]

[Buckshot]

Interesting article. Sounds like a nice place

[ivan]

Give this article a read, I have a cousin and a couple friends from highschool at dartmouth and this honestly worries me. Why anyone would submit to stuff like this is completely and totally beyond me, even if they were shit wasted.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true

shit, on actually reading hte article, sure sounds like spot-on training for future ceos and assorted corporate clown-punchers - they gotta learn to be cock-smokers somewhere, no?

[Mtguide]

Wow. Great article. I could not agree more with you on your doubts and opposition to the social college frats, AT LEAST as it regards this kind of sick and destructive behavior. I think it's harder to say if this kind of thing is endemic or common to all frats, or the entire Greek system.

 

As for the reason why anyone would subject themselves to this kind of mutual abuse, I think the article itself explains it pretty clearly; Lohse recounts how he himself was almost desperate to "belong" to this perverse frat culture because it was the stepping stone to corporate success, wealth, prestige, power, etc. And he DOES say that he did things while drunk, like wallowing in the pool of filth, eating "vomlets", etc., that he, or anyone else, would NEVER have done if they were sober.

 

The Buddhists list 5 Precepts for life behavior, such as not to kill, steal, misuse sex, or lie, AND, to refrain from using intoxicants. And WHY refrain from intoxicants? Because it makes all the others just that much easier to do. That little bit of advice is only about 2600 years old...but all you have to do is read the paper or watch the news any given day to see that it's pretty much the truth. Doesn't matter who you are or how educated, refined or smart you are, either.

 

 

 

It's not hard to make the connection between the frat hazing practice of vomiting and shitting on other people, date-raping coeds, and the way current corporate CEOs, Wall Street hacks, bankers, conservative politicians and flacks are pissing and shitting on, and raping the ordinary working people of this country every day. If that's the culture they learn and identify with in college, no wonder they think it's their perfect right to treat people that way in real life. Sure, why not make predatory loans and profit from millions of foreclosures, why not feed off the tragedy and cruel suffering of hard-working families turned out into the street, they're all just grubs and schlubs, just a bunch of fucking low-life losers any way, right? From reading this article, you could almost say that the Greek frat system, and SAE and Dartmouth in particular, is the origin and reason for a lot of the mess this country is in today. These are vile, immoral assholes who think they are entitled to fuck, and fuck with anyone or anything they want, and god help anyone who gets in their way. Pretty well describes to a "T" the attitude of most conservative Republicans in Congress, Tea Partiers, etc. These are the people who think that if you get sick and can't afford health care, then you should just fucking die. (Tea Party demonstators at a recent rally actually were chanting,in public,and on camera, " Whatcha gonna do with the uninsured and sick? LET 'EM DIE! LET 'EM DIE!!".) Great folks, aren't they...

 

I remember that SAE was among the worst frats when I was in college. I went to a party at the SAE house at the UW once, and then again 20 years later, my first year of grad school at Utah St. Both times, what started out as seeming like it might be a fun evening, turned pretty quickly into a revolting, frightening, violent and disorienting scene which I left at the first opportunity. I've never been to another(social-please note the distinction)frat party since, for any reason. Later that year at Utah St. a student at another frat party died of alchohol poisoning. I DO have to say that not all of the frats at UW or Utah State, were like that. I knew guys from other frats who were fine people, and went to a few other events at different houses where I had a great time, no abuse or hazing was allowed to take place. But there were definitely houses that had a bad rep.

 

That being said said, I still defend the place, purpose, and value of the purely academic fraternities and sororities such as Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Theta Kappa, Sigma alpha Iota, and others, none of which maintain residential houses on any university campus, each having only a single office for the national organization, and a periodic newsletter or bulletin. In none of these organizations is there anything to even begin to approach the kinds of activity Lohse has documented. They have yearly conferences, and sometimes local meetings. My Mother, a nationally recognized concert pianist, pipe organist and music professor, used to attend SAI conferences and seminars on things like church music, piano and organ recitals, many at which she performed herself, and our parents often took me and my sisters to these events. There were receptions, dinners and banquets, and the adults could of course drink alchohol, but these were really very proper, adult events, perfectly suitable and safe for children as well.

 

The people attending these events were among the top level of professional American classical musicians, composers, and publishers, and the seminars, talks, and conference presentations were all about music, performing, arranging, etc. I was introduced to many nationally and internationally famous musicians such as Isaac Stern the violinist, Conductor Leonard Bernstein of the New York Philharmonic, and Metropolitan Opera star Eileen Farrell, to name just a few. And that's just one profession. there are similar organizations for all kinds of others.

 

So, again, don't confuse the difference between the social, and the academic, professional Greek organizations. There's a huge, huge difference between the spoiled rotten, entitled, drunken brats and witless thugs in college social frats, who drag each other through the filth to keep everybody in line, much as they hope to get rich doing later on, and the consummate professionals in the arts, humanities and sciences who gather to discuss,inform, enlighten and challenge each other to reach ever higher and further in the effort to raise the level of achievement in their field, and hopefully make the world a better place. And once again, I have to say, I think there are frats and sororities that are on the up-and-up. I just never had the time,or money, especially in grad school, to spend much time hanging out in that social arena. You tend to take your schoolwork a little more seriously the second time around.

 

BTW, have you sent this article to your friends at Dartmouth? I'd be worried for them, too, at least if they were pledging to SAE. Maybe this is really the only way to put an end to this kind of thing; to get the full story out so that, maybe, eventually, the numbers of people entering these frats starts to decline, drying up the pool of prospective new members. Forewarned is forarmed; of course you have to have some kind of moral compass to begin with; sounds like Lohse's was poorly developed at best. But that's not uncommon for lots of college freshmen, things like that take some time and living, especially if you've been raised in wealth and privilege without the right kind of discipline. Something else that needs to happen, not just in frats, is to end this whole culture and attitude that says it's OK to do whatever you want, even the worst kinds of criminal behavior, just so long as you don't get caught. A good place to start, anyway.

 

Many, many thanks for sharing this link. A very valuable piece.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2012 by Mtguide

[keenwesh]

 

Frats make me LOL, but what makes me LAWL is reading some of your posts about frat guys being douches or whatever.

 

Is there an emoticon for the Pot calling the Kettle black? Can't find it on the menu.

 

I may come off as a douche (hell, I may be a douche!) but I'm nothing compared to some of the frat guys I know. I have one buddy here who I think is hilarious and love hanging out with but he is the definition of "bro".

Last week he told me about the previous nights party. he and one of his friends wanted to see which one could get a girl to scream loudest so they both grabbed a chick (his was the hotter one) and took them into rooms opposite each other in the hallway. His brothers stood outside as judges and listened to them have sex. He assured me that he won this "competition". I had no response other than "nice bro!".

 

I would never put my testicles on one of my friends, although I do on occasion play the penis showing game (watch the movie "waiting" for the rules on that one).

[jon]

What's fucking ironical is that this site wouldn't exist if it weren't for a frat.

[keenwesh]

I haven't sent it to my friends at dartmouth, I think they already know, also I still remember when I was a little kid and for some reason or other my cousin told me and my friends that we were "just stupid public school kids". They're from a super rich suburb of minneapolis. My friend next door in the dorms here worked at their country club last summer and had to lie because they don't allow jews or black people. I'm not saying that my cousins are horrible stuck up rich fucks, because they are not. However they come from a very different background and have some of those airs about them.

[keenwesh]

What's fucking ironical is that this site wouldn't exist if it weren't for a frat.

 

how did this site come into existence? I've always wondered...

[jon]

What's fucking ironical is that this site wouldn't exist if it weren't for a frat.

 

how did this site come into existence? I've always wondered...

 

Well, we were in a frat together, and one night got really drunk, grabbed two chicks to see who we could get to yell the loudest, and when we were done, smoked a few bowls, drove to Taco Bell, and after a few taco supremes decided to start a climbing site.

[keenwesh]

you didn't go to MSU did you? all fraternities must be exactly the same then!

 

but seriously, what got this site going?

[burchey]

 

Well, we were in a frat together, and one night got really drunk, grabbed two chicks to see who we could get to yell the loudest, and when we were done, smoked a few bowls, drove to Taco Bell, and after a few taco supremes decided to start a climbing site.

 

Love it

[selkirk]

GDI

[keenwesh]

had to look that up on urban dictionary.

 

here's the definition if you need it

 

GDI

1. "God Damn Independent" - A derogatory term used by members of Greek organizations to describe someone who has sufficient intelligence and social skills to simply make friends, not pay for them.

"Look at that GDI, he'll go somewhere in life, unlike the legions of coked out worthless douchebags who were misled into thinking that joining a fucking frat was a smart decision."

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

I knew people in our college rugby club, and their antics make the stuff in that article look harmless and innocent.

 

Any group of angry hairless monkeys - especially those of the male gender between 16 and 25 years of age will engage in these types of behaviors. The real solution is solitary confinement for 9 years, followed by release into the wild, then, and only then.

[keenwesh]

I knew people in our college rugby club, and their antics make the stuff in that article look harmless and innocent.

 

With a claim like that you're gonna need to back it up.

 

 

I heard about something at UW called "the elephant walk" where pledges are naked in a circle and have to grab the dude in front of them by the nutsack and at the same time stick their thumb up their asshole. What purpose does that serve? does it build comradery? Or scar you for life? Who would want to watch that?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I knew people in our college rugby club, and their antics make the stuff in that article look harmless and innocent.

 

With a claim like that you're gonna need to back it up.

 

 

I heard about something at UW called "the elephant walk" where pledges are naked in a circle and have to grab the dude in front of them by the nutsack and at the same time stick their thumb up their asshole. What purpose does that serve? does it build comradery? Or scar you for life? Who would want to watch that?

 

You heard about it! Wow, it must be true!

[keenwesh]

I'm not saying it has to be true, but there is some amount of truth in it I'm sure, maybe not quite to that level but still. Naked guys + booze and shit will get really weird.

 

now how about those terrible rugby things? I'm curious.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

now how about those terrible rugby things? I'm curious.

 

You really like reading about this kind of stuff, don't you? Maybe, secretly, you want to do the elephant walk...

 

Just sayin'.

[keenwesh]

nah I just was doubting your claim. If I wanted to do fucked up stuff with other dudes I'd join a frat. So far exposing my genitalia to my unsuspecting roommate has satisfied my desires.

[keenwesh]

[video:youtube]

 

a fantastic game that can be played anywhere with anyone as long as they have a penis.

Edited March 29, 2012 by keenwesh

[KaskadskyjKozak]

So far exposing my genitalia to my unsuspecting roommate has satisfied my desires.

 

Yeah, "those" frat guys! You, OTOH...

[Water]

hmm.. i was in a fraternity at umich, met a few people who I liked who lived there, made friends, got recruited/rushed. Most people are surprised to know I was in one. We were a bit of the 'f-troop' of frats, a lot of engineers, a few ROTC guys, and a sprinkling of Lit/Science/Art majors. Not really any meatheads, a lot of guys who were not alpha males. any 'hazing' was pretty tame and nothing like that article, but also stupid, i am not angry about any of it, some of it was funny, it did build a sense of bond among some of us. Obviously you don't need hazing of any sort to develop a bond which is why I say it was stupid. I think today they dont even do any, the frat got small and national more involved in helping run it.

 

We had a lot of good times. Some f'd up shiz happened, but nothing involving law or that should have involved law other than drugs. Friends with a handful of folks still, some good camaraderie. I dunno, i think a lot of the experience is what you make of it--i was coming out straight edge from an all guys jesuit high school and needed the space to let loose of that past-the somewhat wild unchecked-party environment was helpful for that, and for my development at that phase. I do think a small school, quieter, more checked environment would have made it harder for me to come out of my social shell at that time in my life. I had plenty of friends outside the house and moved out after living there for a year and a half.