I think it wonderful that some people have parents whom they love. If there is a ‘next life’ I want another kind of mother.

http://www.channel3000.com/news/11373967/detail.html

Bottom line: I hope people do not characterize the Greek system according to articles like the one Jason mentions above. Any organization composed of college students will display behavior across a broad spectrum, with both good and bad. The bad stuff always makes news, but the good stuff often doesn’t, even though there is a lot more good stuff than bad. Are fraternities and sororities selective about whom they admit? Yes, of course they are, just as good colleges are selective about whom they admit, good employers are selective about whom they hire, and each of us is selective about whom we have as friends. Thus, the moral question isn’t, “should we be selective or not;” it is, “what criteria should we use to select?” As regards that latter question, most Greek organizations use virtually the same criteria that most employers use.

If you look at what I said a bit closer, you’ll see that I actually defend fraternities and sororities right to exist. And I do make the point that in many ways they are like citizenship. Most Americans don’t see it because, as I said, we’re “born into the club.” Immigrants get it, though.

I just think people should be aware that the right to include implicitly means the right to exclude and one shouldn’t join anything without understanding that. So my screed was aimed mainly at the bleating of the broken-hearted rejected, who seemed not to understand the way things are very well.

As for logic–I also mentioned, and perhaps should have enlarged upon, that my dislike is personal and based on a misapprehension of the myth of the American individual. Perhaps I’ll address that myth in another post later.

Bottom line–I don’t disagree with a thing you say. I just see it as something other than a totally wonderful thing. The young ladies at De Pauw have experienced the not wonderful part of it, which is very real and wired into the system. I simply don’t understand why anyone was shocked and surprised.

Today of course, as Jason points out, such traditions are largely irrelevant in the Masonry and other charitable organizations, but long-held traditions take a long time to die.

College fraternaties and sororities, of course, have a very different history and serve a very different purpose. Jason says he dislikes them because he believes they are an “artificial system of separation and privilege.” Well American citizenship is also an artificial system of separation and privilege. So is having the right to vote. So is having a driver’s license, or a library card, or a Harvard diploma. So is having a ticket to a play or to a World Series baseball game. So is having a job at IBM or inside the White House. So is having a key to Jason’s car or his home. Artificial systems of separation and privilege are ubiquitous, so why should we single out fraternities and sororities for our dislike? I’m sure Jason would not want 30,000 college students to have a key to his car or his home; likewise, fraternities and sororities do not open their doors to every student on campus. They use “initiations and standards of exclusiveness” to help them select whom to include and whom to exclude, just as Jason undoubtedly does when he selects to whom he gives his keys.

Bottom line: there simply is no logical reason to dislike fraternities and sororities merely for the reason Jason mentions. It is akin to illegal immigrants criticizing U.S. immigration policy merely because it is exclusive, or Jason’s neighbors complaining that he has arbitrary initiation procedures with respect to lending his car keys. Accordingly, the real reason for criticisms of the college Greek system must lie elsewhere, most likely in the fact that disliking the Greek system is a popular and socially acceptable thing to do among a large percentage of college-educated people.

one, my essay is about the general misundxerstanding of what the Greek system is all about. In that sense, it was a defense against the criticisms of those who are disturbed by what happened at De Pauw. The system is what it is.

two, I indicated that there are many reasons to join a fraternity and sorority and that there are many benefits from the joining. Many benefits. My criticism of the system is personal–albeit not from personal experience, but just a general dislike of artificial systems of separation and privilege–but if you will read the piece more closely you will see that I suggest that people who join them ought not be surprised when they trip over the negative aspects of them, since they are based on initiation and standards of exclusiveness.

for the record, I was a member of the DeMolay, which is a teen version of Masonry, and very much a fraternal order. We did many, many good things in the community, things of which I was rightly proud. Nevertheless, the question I came to ask was, how come we needed this excessively ritualistic order to do those things? What else was there about membership that made it attractive? In the end, it was an appeal to a desire on the part of many to be somehow institutional apart from those who weren’t DeMolay. That to me is childish. Nothing wrong with being childish, no matter what age, but it ought to be recognized as such, and if the consequences of membership turn out to have a negative aspect, well, gee, pay attention before joining.

The truth is, fraternities and sororities are far more heterogeneous, and far more community-oriented, than people like Jason realize. For example, my chapter house had a wide range of men from many different socio-economic backgrounds. Yes, a few had wealthy parents, but about a third of the guys in my house were putting themselves through college with virtually no financial help at all from their parents. Like me, they grew up with relatively few opportunities, so they wanted to learn leadership and other skills while they were still in college, because they were not getting them in their courses.

As regards community service, my fraternity created, from scratch, a campus-wide winter carnival that raised nearly ten thousand dollars for charity (in 1980 dollars). Can Jason make a similar claim about his college days? This past year, men in my chapter organized a bike marathon to raise money for charity. Many other fraternities also do fund-raising events for charities. Unfortunately, these events don’t often make headlines the way Jason’s little example of bigotry did. With that in mind, I would urge Jason, and others like him, to dig a little deeper before passing judgment on a culture they clearly do not understand. For those interested in hacking away at some of their ignorance, here’s a document that might help: http://www.sigep.org/documents/bmp-cliff-notes.pdf.

Your blog, to me, is similar to proposing that anti-biotics are bad because doctors overprescribed. Founded properly with constructive ideals is the basis for a useful, fun experience in collegate fraternal life.