Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek
It's not a black and white issue?  Uhmm, yes it is a black and white issue, and no it is not a joke. |
No, it's not that black and white. The problem is that we have about umpteen+ different definitions of hazing floating around out there. It's easy enough, for example, to say that hazing is illegal and think that has settled the argument, but each state has its own hazing laws. What may constitute hazing in one state does not constitute hazing in another state. Where I live, one must subject another student to physical injury for it to meet the legal definition of hazing. In other jurisdictions, subjecting someone to mental or emotional distress may meet the definition.
Then there are GLO definitions and institutional definitions, where sometimes the definition is loose enough to cover almost anything that differentiates between pledges/new members and actives. That's why you'll find pages of arguments on GC about whether it's hazing to require pledges to wear their pledge pins, with some people remaining adamant that it is, even though the policies of some GLOs expect pledges to wear their pledge pins almost all of the time.
I'm not defending hazing, not at all. But as long as people are using different, sometimes vastly different, definitions of hazing, its anything but black and white. It seems to me that all too often the arguments in these thread suffer from a lack of common understanding or agreement about what hazing actually encompasses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sasquatch
"Hazing" can be practiced without degrading anyone or putting them in any danger.
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And that's my point, as any such practices, by many definitions would not be considered hazing to begin with.