What's the deal with these Frats?

[Tony64]

After recent fraternity hazing deaths at Lousiana State, Florida State, Penn State, and now Texas State, isn't it time to stop?

Drinking and hazing have always been an inseparable part of fraternity life. I'm not suggesting that there can't be favorable attributes from membership, but c'mon, "frat boy" has it's own definition and it's generally not a positive one.

For those of you sending your kids off to college, how do you feel about them pledging a fraternity. In 2017 is the brotherhood still worth the risk?

Unless the system is radically overhauled, I'm giving it

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/16/u...ies/index.html

[superdog]

Originally Posted by Tony64

After recent fraternity hazing deaths at Lousiana State, Florida State, Penn State, and now Texas State, isn't it time to stop?

Drinking and hazing have always been an inseparable part of fraternity life. I'm not suggesting that there can't be favorable attributes from membership, but c'mon, "frat boy" has it's own definition and it's generally not a positive one.

For those of you sending your kids off to college, how do you feel about them pledging a fraternity. In 2017 is the brotherhood still worth the risk?

Unless the system is radically overhauled, I'm giving it

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/16/u...ies/index.html

I happen to largely agree with you.

And my fraternity likely got lucky. We only got evicted from 3 houses and then eventually got kicked off campus. No deaths.

I don't keep in touch with too many of my "brothers" on a regular basis, but I do keep in touch with a few. In fact, I am going out to dinner with one tonight.

So like I said, I tend to agree with you.

However, it is not just the fraternity culture. Hazing happens in the military, on sports teams and in many other situations.

I personally think it is a part of our species and just manifests in groups.

[Blansky]

Could it be just another case of toxic testosterone. Any group of males banded together to out-stupid each other leads to many cultural issues.

In aboriginal cultures there was the whole rite of passage thing to manhood, but it was supervised by the men of the village. But here with frats we have boys/men basically running amok without much guidance in a time when they perhaps need it most.

An interesting phenomena that I read about the financial crises has to do with testosterone issues with males in charge of money and when the betting starts, it's testosterone that takes over for "dominance" outdoing the other guy.

A saw an story about a world class negotiator, from Norway I believe, who works for a company that negotiates world contracts and disputes who after one session that had his daughter or wife assisting him noticed that when there was a female in the room generally full of men, that the tone of the negotiations stayed polite, civil and less bombastic. From that point on he always has a female in the room when doing any negotiations.

I guess moral to the story, is we need the male/female balance in our lives.

[Tony64]

Originally Posted by superdog

I happen to largely agree with you.

And my fraternity likely got lucky. We only got evicted from 3 houses and then eventually got kicked off campus. No deaths.

I don't keep in touch with too many of my "brothers" on a regular basis, but I do keep in touch with a few. In fact, I am going out to dinner with one tonight.

So like I said, I tend to agree with you.

However, it is not just the fraternity culture. Hazing happens in the military, on sports teams and in many other situations.

I personally think it is a part of our species and just manifests in groups.

Seth, I appreciate what you're saying, but these are our young immature kids that we're sending off to get an education. They're desperate to fit in, many for the first time out of their parents control, and inherently ill equipped for making certain social judgments. I get that there may be some similarities to the other societal examples you site, but it's not exactly the same thing. But maybe that's just me.

I'm also not suggesting that parents aren't responsible to raise their kids, or that the role of the university is to provide babysitting services. But the fraternity system seems often to be nothing more that a college sanctioned institution that brings out the worst in our children.

I'm sure there's also some good that comes, but maybe there's better ways to accomplish the same thing? Do we still need fraternities, at least as they currently exist? There are college clubs where kids join with similar interests and they don't generally seem to engage in the same degree of pledge shenanigans. I'm sure someone can come along and site an example to disprove this, but I think we're both intellectually honest enough to know it's true.

Not judging, just questioning.

[GB-man]

I wasn’t in a frat. I sort of thought it was for people who didn’t have friends. I’ll admit a lot of that was because I went to school locally so I wasn’t desperate for new friends.

I also would never live in some crappy house with 10 dudes.

[Abdullah71601]

Originally Posted by Tony64

Seth, I appreciate what you're saying, but these are our young immature kids that we're sending off to get an education. They're desperate to fit in, many for the first time out of their parents control, and inherently ill equipped for making certain social judgments. I get that there may be some similarities to the other societal examples you site, but it's not exactly the same thing. But maybe that's just me.

I'm also not suggesting that parents aren't responsible to raise their kids, or that the role of the university is to provide babysitting services. But the fraternity system seems often to be nothing more that a college sanctioned institution that brings out the worst in our children.

I'm sure there's also some good that comes, but maybe there's better ways to accomplish the same thing? Do we still need fraternities, at least as they currently exist? There are college clubs where kids join with similar interests and they don't generally seem to engage in the same degree of pledge shenanigans. I'm sure someone can come along and site an example to disprove this, but I think we're both intellectually honest enough to know it's true.

Not judging, just questioning.

Fraternities seem to have more value as a support structure 40 years ago than they do now. Young men weren’t generally as independent then and having a group of like minded peers surrounding you helped with the separation from home and family.

Today, kids are pretty independent. I’m not sure they need that kind of peer support. They are still immature, and still need some disciplinary guidance, but I don’t see frats providing that.

FWIW, I know of no hazing in the modern military. Not since the 80s. It’s counterproductive to team building and happens to be a punishable offense. Smart guys figured out that you get better soldiers by nurturing and mentoring than by abusing and hazing. I don’t know how you’d translate this to a university environment, but I think you’d get better graduates if you did.

[Tony64]

Originally Posted by Abdullah71601

Fraternities seem to have more value as a support structure 40 years ago than they do now. Young men weren’t generally as independent then and having a group of like minded peers surrounding you helped with the separation from home and family.

Today, kids are pretty independent. I’m not sure they need that kind of peer support. They are still immature, and still need some disciplinary guidance, but I don’t see frats providing that.

FWIW, I know of no hazing in the modern military. Not since the 80s. It’s counterproductive to team building and happens to be a punishable offense. Smart guys figured out that you get better soldiers by nurturing and mentoring than by abusing and hazing. I don’t know how you’d translate this to a university environment, but I think you’d get better graduates if you did.

^^^Extremely well stated.

College frat boys seem like less than ideal role models for recent highschool grads away from home for the first time.

I'm not sure what cultural shift needs to occur before we see real change in the college fraternity system. Social media connects kids with similar interests and ideas in ways never before possible - admittedly not always with positive outcome - but without the ritualistic, hedonistic, and institutionalized initiations that fraternities require.

Deep breath....Rant over.

[TheVTCGuy]

I was in a Frat my freshman year, ATO. I don’t have contact with any of them and quite frankly don’t even acknowledge I ever was a “Brother,” although they still send me mail asking for money. It wasn’t horrible and there WAS hazing, I just decided it wasn’t for me.

[HL65]

Originally Posted by Abdullah71601

Fraternities seem to have more value as a support structure 40 years ago than they do now. Young men weren’t generally as independent then and having a group of like minded peers surrounding you helped with the separation from home and family.

Today, kids are pretty independent. I’m not sure they need that kind of peer support. They are still immature, and still need some disciplinary guidance, but I don’t see frats providing that.

FWIW, I know of no hazing in the modern military. Not since the 80s. It’s counterproductive to team building and happens to be a punishable offense. Smart guys figured out that you get better soldiers by nurturing and mentoring than by abusing and hazing. I don’t know how you’d translate this to a university environment, but I think you’d get better graduates if you did.

Agree and certainly wasn’t any when I was in the USMC.