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James,
Exasperation with ignorance of any type is never out of place, especially among educated people who are supposed to know a thing or two about greek history!
I have quite a few pledge manuals, and most of them give at least a paragraph to Phi Beta Kappa and Kappa Alpha society. Anyway, perhaps pledges should be taught more than just to recite what’s in the first few pages of their pledge manual.
I am not mocking you or Kappa Sigma fraternity, you understand. But I am indeed mocking members that perpetuate this “founded in 1400” myth because if they’re passing misinformation intentionally, then it’s rather vain. And if they’re doing it unintentionally, then it’s rather ignorant. Vanity and ignorance both being most mockworthy in my book!
We all “sit in safety on the other side of a computer screen”. Not sure I get your point there. Also I’m a little surprised to be chastised for a sarcastic posting style that you yourself seem to share. In any case, if you find actual debate and the correction of misinformation tedious, then feel free to skip ahead to the next exciting 10-page chapter of “which women’s secret fraternity was the first one east of the Mississippi river but west of the Allegheny mountains to use the greek letter Omicron as the first letter in their name and to choose the yellow-bellied sapsucker as their offical bird”. Now THAT’S tedious.
If this trivia interests you, then fine and dandy. But remember that trivia is, well… trivial. The value of your organization does not lie in famous alums and firsts. So why mislead yourself and others to think that way.
Don’t you find it odd that people expend so many BTUs arguing this minutia and yet don’t have their facts straight on the most basic aspects of greek history? Don’t you think it’s strange that people think these firsts add some value to their organization, when in fact Baird’s is littered with plenty of groups who were likely first to do this-or-that… before going belly up!? Don’t you find it disturbing that often the first messages rushees receive about our groups are shallow details like famous alumni and century-old “firsts”?
If I put myself back in the shoes of a prospective pledge and read through the more squabbly threads debating “firsts”, it doesn’t paint the best picture of greeks. I recall being a college freshman and getting anti-greek rhetoric from every angle – family, friends, classmates. I imagine that’s fairly typical. So I would think my fellow greeks would share my concern about endlessly arguing amongst ourselves about such shallow details, all the while getting the more “meaty” details of greek history wrong.
Agreed, Baird’s has always had its inaccuracies, particularly in the very early and the very late editions. However, I think Wm Baird did exceptionally well considering the archival technology available to a greek researcher in the 1880s. So I can excuse the relatively few mistakes he made in his early manuals. It’s harder to excuse a modern greek who still thinks Phi Beta Kappa was just an honor society, or who doesn't know who came after Phi Beta Kappa. The importance of these groups is not some transient factoid. Their significance to the greek world has been hard fact for nearly 2 centuries.
Also agreed, this thread was not meant to look too deeply into history. DRau’s question was perfectly answered by the first 2 replies - by Madmax and PiKappRaider within 1 hour. Then the “firsts feeding frenzy” began (as it always seems to do). Personally, I feel that DRau as an Alpha Phi should have already known the answer, but whatever. I only jumped in to correct all the mistakes (and of course to share my disappointment that we seem to know so little of substance about ourselves as a community).
As far as the badge on the moon goes… The difference is that Erwin Schrodinger realized and admitted he did not know whether his cat was alive, dying or dead in there. He did not go to some pimps/hos party, hear some stupid unsubstantiated rumor that his cat was in fact dead, and then start posting all willy-nilly about his dead cat on DeadCatChat.com.
While we’re on the subject, the Thomas theorem is about as useful as a dead cat. Perhaps less so since, for example, the Thomas Theorem is not very useful for incapacitating an intruder in your home or weighing down the barbecue cover out on the deck.
(Cue PETA.)
wptw
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