Originally Posted by Kevin
Very cromulent observations, sir!
The 1657 reference came from me. I was referring to records of hazing at Harvard college. It's well documented stuff.
At any rate, my observation is that he's trying to compare his religion, or view of a religion, that being Satanism or Luciferianism or some sort of 'ism to Greek culture. He is objecting to the removal of hazing because according to his belief system, hazing is a good thing because it helps us to grow as people, mature, become "enlightened."
I think some of his observations are probably accurate. Despite what we say these days, hazing in its many forms can be used as a great tool for team building, helping people mature, teaching respect, loyalty, etc. That said, he claims the "P.C." crowd has urged the death of hazing.
The trouble I have with this is that really, the reason our various organizations have begun to shun hazing has nothing to do with what is right or wrong. In most cases, the older ladies and gentlemen who are urging the removal of these old traditions were recipients of hazing themselves.
The truth of the matter is that it's a business decision. Our leaders understand that left to their own devices, our collegiate members would eventually cause enough bad things to happen that we'd be sued into non-existence. You can't maintain an organization with 200 chapters and maybe 40 or 50-thousand active members without taking some serious steps to make sure that everyone is safe.
We have a lot of assets, we are a big target, and in the court of public opinion, due to perceptions that we do haze and do commit dangerous acts, we're an easy target for a jury.
Our leadership has had to ask itself whether we'd prefer to have tradition or whether we'd prefer to cease to exist. Having chosen the later, here we are. That's not to say that choosing alternative programs to hazing is a choice which wasn't made because everyone thinks it's nice to be nice to the nice, I'm sure that played a role, but without the money issue, we never would have arrived at that crossroads.
We are where we are. Eventually, hazing will be a memory. The organizations which survive and thrive will have to come up with effective programming to replace those old traditions. Most large nationals have. It's only a matter of time until that's all that's left.
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