Fraternities: should they exist? Do they really serve a useful purpose beyond acting as examples for the administration to use to eradicate drinking at the University or giving the press a front page headline that denounces the inanity of their deadly hazing practices?
Although I've only been at Oxford for a little over a week, I'm becoming convinced more and more that fraternities are purely ancillary to the college experience, except in their capacity to serve alcohol which they are now "strictly prohibited" from doing according to that bastion of rule enforcement and decision making, the Interfraternity Council.
Come over here to England, where the drinking age is a tolerable 18 years old and you'll understand. The parties are independent of any sort of organization and they are attended by and intended for the entire student body. More importantly you don't have to be a female to extract alcohol from one of the brothers. In fact, there aren't any brothers anyway because fraternities do not exist at Oxford-or anywhere else in England for that matter.
But how can this be? Parties with alcohol but without fraternities? Believe it or not there is such a reality, which actually gives some shred of credibility to IFC's mission to eliminate almost entirely the role of booze at their parties and to promote the non-alcoholic benefits of their organization: brotherhood and philanthropy.
Ah yes, brotherhood. That word evokes thoughts of honor, integrity and respect. Surely there must be benefits associated with such a noble (sounding) concept. After all, a fair portion of male students at the University seem to think so. Let us take a quick, albeit cursory, look at the supposed benefits of brotherhood, shall we?
Stage one: pledgeship. Congratulations, you've just become a member of our fraternity. We'll start off with some "male bonding" exercises that will create everlasting friendships. Everyone gather into one room. We'll place a trash can in the middle of this room along with two kegs of beer. Then we'll lock you in until you finish both kegs. Oh, you need to puke? Thats what the trash can is for. You need to relieve yourself? Trash can again. You need to wipe? Brotherhood man, brotherhood!
Wow. So thats how you make lifelong friends. Well color me stupid. And that's not even the half of it: fraternities also possess the secret recipe of how to create martyrs, and fortunately some stellar investigative reporting recently brought this once enigmatic secret to the public eye. Apparently, if a pledge is lucky enough he gets to drink so much that he pukes blood and then later dies of alcohol poisoning. Can you imagine getting all of that national news coverage just for extolling the noble virtues of brotherhood? And people say fraternities get a bum rap.
All of this training is certainly worth the end result: such mindless subjugation makes one humble and paves the way for the wonderful philanthropic work in which the brotherhood engages itself. I think every socially conscious student group on campus should have to participate in such a rigorous program of drinking and puking. How else can they fully appreciate the charity work that they do?
But wait a minute. Isn't IFC beginning to push an agenda promoting the benefits of fraternities without placing such a strong emphasis on alcohol? According to the above depiction of brotherhood, the two appear to be virtually inseparable. What about all of the mandatory training that the pledges have to do in order to become part of a magnanimously-minded brotherhood? And what about the lifelong friendships that will be lost?
Could my portrayal of pledgeship be in error? Is my perspective on fraternities a bit myopic? But how could this be? I've read the newspapers. I've heard enough firsthand stories to write a multi-volume work. Then how can the task of separating alcohol from charity be accomplished? Must we eliminate alcohol entirely from the equation?
Yes and no. Although I spoke earlier of parties with alcohol but without fraternities, this was in a country where the drinking age is 18. While that is a reality over here, it is a fantasy in America. Thus, we still need the proverbial frats to supply us with free alcohol and fun. Why be ashamed of serving as one of the remaining pillars of the University's once vibrant social scene?
What we don't need, however, is hazing-especially at a superior academic institutution such as the University. Mindless subjugation-as well as physical and mental duress-is no way to create strong bonds among friends. And neither is death.
Rod Feuer is a Trinity junior.
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