Digital Analogue

I expect you know the Pope visited the USA? Comments? --elvin

I expect that you saw that the Pope visited the USA, comments? --elvin

It's really refreshing to get your perspective on my hometown. I guess there's a lot I'd been taking for granted. Anyway, don't forget to get out of town for a bit while you're there. If you have a whole day, the beach or the mountains are only an hour away. But more realistically, go check out Forest Park - there's a lot to see. --Mark Munoz

I'm totally not surprised that you liked Portland. I've been there a few times on business (my employer has an office there) and it really is a nice place. It is a bit weird to see moss growing on the parking lots, though. It rains a lot there. Portland is also the greenest city in the United States, without any question. I have several friends there and it's interesting how they take for granted political positions that would be considered radical in the Midwest. Oregon is a different place, that's for certain. --Kelly Martin

You might be interested in this recent story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17872719 I have never been a member of a Greek-letter organization, but the fraternity of which the greatest number of my friends were a part (to my outsider's eye) closely resembled this model, over 15 years ago. Note that this was at a university with a small Greek system and a reputation for an intense focus on academics. --Sendhil

I will mention that, having married into (where "married into" is looser than having actually joined) a coed Greek society, I am impressed by what Greek life can be. As an undergrad, however, I saw the other side of what Greek life can be.

Don, if you know of any students who *would* like to start a chapter of a coed society (Alpha Delta Phi, obviously), and there is no current ADPhi fraternity chapter at Knox, let me know. The society is looking to expand, and I am friends with those in charge of the expansion.

--Greg

As I said, all tight knit groups seem to face the problem of protecting wrong doers. I think this is worse when the groups, or sub-groups within the larger group have values which devalue certain groups. Those devalued groups become safe targets. You evidently know how difficult it is to force your own values onto a group.

Fraternities as single sex organizations set up women to be a devalued group, since they are already not members. Even if the Fraternity is founded with the value of equality of all men, even the female ones, the years when this was not the norm for Greek house, and the patriarchal bent to our society generally fight against it. And then there are the rapists.

College age rapists abound. They look the same as the average guy, mores the pity, as do those who would just look the other way and condone rape when done by someone they know. I know that there are many men who find either behavior inexplicable and abhorrent, but all too often I hear about and hear from the other kind. I have been shouted down and denounced for pushing the idea that positive verbal consent before an initial sexual encounter with someone would be a good idea.

Note: I was not saying it should be mandatory, just that it would be a good idea especially in light of Illinois law which states that lack of resistance does not constitute consent. But no, that is apparently an outrageous idea. Some have protested that they would never get laid if they did that. (Apparently they could not imagine that asking their partner if he or she was ready to have sex right now could ever be anything but a mood killer. Piss poor imaginations is what I think they have.)

I think that the motivation for hazing is similar to that of rape; there are those who enjoy it, whether just as a power game, or sexually it really doesn't matter. In the past, Fraternities have used hazing to tighten the group bond, and so now, even when there are Fraternities set against hazing, some will dredge up the practice once again. Because they can.

I don't have a solution for wrong doing done by close knit groups. One would hope the groups could promote positive values among its members, but this is not always easy. It is vital that we come up with an answer because although fraternities are not necessary, military, fire fighters, and police still are.

--lee

lee -- one thing that has always frustrated me, as someone who was a member of a fraternity founded in part as a statement against hazing at VMI, is that many universities do *not* have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to hazing. If a house has someone on the board of trustees or a big donor, they'll be allowed to re-colonize two or three times after cooling off periods, and every time the alumni come in and create a culture of hazing as soon as the house re-opens. Colleges have a responsibility to end that kind of thing no matter what the cost in alumni/donor support, and the national fraternities should not tolerate it either. (Even my fraternity, which has opposition to hazing as one of its highest values, has had chapters that haze. It blows my mind.) I also agree with what you say about houses protecting rapists and others -- but even the Roman Catholic Church has engaged in that kind of behavior, so I'm at a loss to suggest a systematic solution. :-( --Chris T.

I am coming to think that issues that worry me about the Greek system are very difficult to separate from the close-knit bond which you find as their strength. It is not unique to the Greek system either. We see it at the service academies, in police departments, and elsewhere. The issues which bother me are that in these groups, when someone within the group behaves less than honorably, others within the group may feel the need to ally themselves with the wrong doer, prevent outsiders from seeing the wrongdoing, or assist in the wrong doing. If someone within the group does not fall in line and protect the wrongdoer, that person, even if they themselves are a member of the group, will be persecuted. We have all heard about instances where some members of a group behaved in a way not acceptable to general society, and then the wrong doing is compounded because wrongdoing is covered up and witnesses and the victims are pressured to keep quiet and ostracized if they do not. We see this at every level from grade school to the military. The tighter the group bond, the more the pressure not to betray someone in the group no matter what they do. And make no mistake; the Greek system has long been a safe harbor for dangerous wrong doing. Setting aside the numerous allegations of routine rape and underage drinking which many of the anti-Greek individuals point to and many of the Greeks deny or dismiss, we can look to the hazing rituals college fraternities became notorious for. College fraternity hazing still goes on, and deaths because of it do make the news every so often, as do efforts to tone it down or remove it entirely. Most states now have anti-hazing laws and many fraternities have taken official positions firmly against hazing. But again, hazing is not unique to college fraternities. It is just an example of a wrong carried out at a fraternity. I don't think the solution is to not allow tight-knit groups. I do think that if a school have a Greek system, they must monitor it to make sure that it is promoting values consistent with the college's and not serving as a safe harbor for dangerous wrong doing. --lee

Fair enough. To be honest, I have a few consistently anti-Greek, over the top faculty in mind when I use the term "anti-Greek faculty". So rather than lumping everyone with objections into some stick-man group, I'm incorrectly applying to term to a small sub-group. :-) The formative effects of gender-segregated groups are still an issue that weighs on my mind when it comes to fraternities. For all the good that being in a single-gender environment to hash out some life issues was, it did also reinforce some "common wisdom" about some other issues that was not helpful. In my own life, I found I simply had to push myself to be exposed to a wider variety of viewpoints. But that's not a systemic answer to a systemic problem, true. --Chris T.