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Thank you all for your answers. I really appreciate the time you're taking to answer me.
After everything you've been telling me, I have some impressions that I want to share with you, so you tell me if it's true or not.
My point of view is that a fraternity is a way to create cohesion in a little group of people. This is the most important thing, more important than the things you really do in it. Because they are so many people in a college, this system is a good structure for social life on campus : it’s a mean to create circles of friends. Moreover what you actually do in a fraternity is made to develop some values and skills like solidarity, mutual support, managering… This means social actions, organisation of events (like parties, but also more serious projects I guess…), mutual assistantship for every day life… And the fact is that through all this, you get to know other people from your fraternity very well and they become your best friends!
So basically one wants to get in a fraternity for 2 reasons :
- having friends.
- learn how to work in group and develop ideas : what you call the entrepreneural spirit.
Still some interrogations remain :
- you talk a lot about tradition, you say these societies are kind of secret : are there some rituals ? why is it secret? Do you do some “illegal stuff” there? You say it’s too religious for instance, but how is this religious spirit expressed?
- what is exactly anti-intellectualism (even in the European sense I can’t get a straight idea…)? the dominant American upper middle class does not like intellectuals? Plus I kind of understood that some fraternities recruited partly on marks…
- say I just graduated from high school and I’m starting my scholarship in a college. How do I get in a fraternity? Do I have to know people in it? How do I choose the one fraternity I want to get in? Does it depend on my religious/political opinions for example?
Thank you all
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