Sion

cheerios: "officially anyway. what about hazing? you're not gonna tell me THAT doesn't go on, right?"

no, I'm not going to try to sell you that. It does go on. but again, we are talking about individual houses and the people therein. on the national (official) level, no fraternity out there condones hazing or any other sort of cruel or violent behavior. that is NOT what the fraternity experience it about.

"the greek system encourages the group mentality that enables a group of guys who just got beat by a pre-teen to think it's okay to beat the snot out of him."

NO, it does not. the greek system does not encourage violence of any kind. now, you could accurately say that the greek system does encourage a group mentality ("all for one and one for all") BUT, and this is a big but, so does EVERY organized group of humans every assembled, whether it be the Boy Scouts, the National Organization of Women, the FBI, the CIA, the KKK, any political party, any church and/or religious denomination, any national patriotic group (such as the Daughters of the American Republic), TFP, sewing club, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. and of all these groups, only a very miniscule portion (about, oh...say 0.00001 percent) of them have ever advocated illegal and/of violent behavior. Again, the point is this: at the lowest (ie local/individual) level of any organized group, you can, and frequently will, have members who violate the rules of their group by violating the rules of society. BUT, this does not mean that the entire group is at fault for the behavior of individual members. Consider this analogy: there are bad/evil/crooked cops on police forces all across the world. Does that mean that the entire concept of policing is suspect? Does that mean that EVERY cop is corrupt? Or that the idea of organized police forces is wrong?

"You're most welcome to your humble opinion, and I hope you don't mind me expressing mine."

of course I dont. hell, thats what I like about the TFP. we can freely exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions without rancor (at least in theory. And my experience has been that the TFP ideal works very well. thanks, in a large part, to the work of the moderators.)

"i'd like to say that I've had good experiences with frat members, but by an large that hasn't been true."

again, it comes down to your personal experiences as NOT being representative of the whole. now, IF you could say that you met a majority of all fraternity members, in every fraternity across the entire country, who were active at the time you were in school, and as a result of that, you still felt the same, ONLY THEN could your personal experiences be considered statistically significant. but that didnt happen did it? your anecdotal experiences lead you to think that fraternities are bad. But anecdotal evidence is statistically irrelevant. it does NOT prove anything about the whole.



warrreagl:

"No. I grew up in a university town, and dealt with their two-faced thug-mentality crap all my life, so I got it about right.

Every stray pit bulldog out there isn't going to eat my face off, either. But I'll continue to freely make the broad generalization that they might."

as I pointed out above, eagl, your experiences with the greek system are statistically insignificant when discussing the greek system in toto. maybe that's the way all the fraternities in that town behaved, but that is NOT the way all fraternities across the world/country behave. as I see it, you are pigeon-holing every fraternity member to fit the image you have of them. just as a racist pigeon-holes every black person to fit the image that he/she has of blacks in general. and IMO, that is illogical and unsound thinking.



oblar:

"this isn't meant to bash the intelligence of the frats, but just in my expierence they seem to only goto school to party.. They major in something easy.. complain when things aren't handed to them and don't even try to learn anything in any class..."

this brings up an interesting question that I have for those who want to bash the greek system. just what, exactly, is your knowledge of them based on? for a lot of non-greeks, I'd bet that their experience of the greek system is limited to attending the parties that they frequently throw, and little else. But that is hardly a quantitatively significant portion of any greek's life, even in the hardest partying chapters that have ever existed. and while I freely admit that ANY party (greek or not) wherein large quantities of alcohol are dispensed, can result in behavior that does not fit the social norm, that does not mean that the party hosts are normally that way.


NOTE TO ALL: let me point out that I am NOT trying to convince anyone here to join a fraternity. NOR am I trying to defend anti-social behavior that sometimes is committed by members of fraternities. The biggest reason I got involved in this discussion is that I dont care for the type of gross/broad generalizations that I saw being exhibited here. This type of generalization is, IMHO, no different than racism, or sexism, or any other kind of prejudicial thinking. Instead of taking every person you might meet as an individual, you are pre-judging people based on your own conception (or misconception) of some group that a person might belong to. Is it any different to prejudge a fraternity member as being a "two-faced thug" than it is to prejudge a black person as a "dope smoking rapist"? I dont think so.

For any that might care, let me relate a bit about my fraternity experience. I went to Case Western Reserve University back in the mid-80s. The fraternity I joined was Sigma Nu. Now, on that campus, we were known as the "geek-greeks" or the "Sigma Nurds", among other epithets. Why is that? We'll, most of our members were non-athletic, highly intelligent, majoring in some science or another. My big brother (ie the one who sponsored my admission to the fraternity) was a computer science major, who later went on to become a very successful computer programmer. Another member was an artist studying art history. He later went on to paint many of the covers of our quarterly magazine. There were also a couple of English majors and other liberal arts students, but we were primarily a group of budding scientists. We were also probably the least drug and alcohol induced house on campus. BUT, we always threw great parties. We had theme parties mostly, which is what, IMO, made them stand out from the typical keggers that could be attended at other frats or at numerous off-campus apartment complexes on any given weekend.

I was never hazed. It is part of the Sigma Nu charter that hazing will NOT be tolerated. And in my days there, it was not. The closest thing to hazing I ever experienced was having to complete a pledge-class project over the course of a weekend. My pledge class made a new couch for the basement rec room. Took us half a day to decide on the design. Another half day to go buy the materials and slap it together. Some hazing.

So, I ask you, is my experience typical of the greek system? Perhaps moreso than that of the greek-bashers. But my personal experience of the greek life is no more statistically significant that any of theirs. My house had around 30 brothers while I was there. And I met a couple dozen others brothers, from other chapters or from earlier years at my chapter. Compared to the millions of fraternity members over the course of the last hundred-fifty years or so of American collegiate history, that is statistically insignificant. Just as any of your personal experiences are.

My advice to any of you who are in college: IF you happen to meet up with a group of people who you like and admire and they happen to be a fraternity or sorority, and you feel like joining them: go right ahead and do it. And if you DONT happen to every meet up with any greeks who you like and admire, then by all means DONT join a fraternity or sorority. But dont be led astray by those who think that their personal experiences with greeks are representative of the whole. Make your OWN decisions about people, based on the characteristics you see in each one as an individual.

sorry for ranting.

__________________
He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...