Sig Ep Article

[GeekyPenguin]

I think there's a difference between learning fraternity history and learning "arcane" fraternity history, although arcane was probably a bad word choice. There's nothing wrong with learning the history of your founding, but I think we all know that there are chapters out there that make pledges learn some useless stuff, like the name of every chapter president ever, every sweetheart ever, etc.

[wptw]

Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin

I think there's a difference between learning fraternity history and learning "arcane" fraternity history, although arcane was probably a bad word choice.

Folks, I think you're missing the definition of the word "arcane". It simply means secret, hidden, somewhat mysterious. It's actually a perfect word choice, as that's exactly what I would call the historical learning we require of pledges (yes pledges dammit).

In fact a lot of "cousins" from the same latin root are used in our rituals. Any Archons out there?

What's funny is I think the author himself misused the word, which is misleading people into thinking the word "arcane" is an insult. By the context of the paragraph, he clearly intended it disparagingly. But he used a fairly complimentary word. What really conveys the insult isn't the word "arcane", but "forcing".

wptw

[MysticCat]

It's always a good day when wptw posts!

All these posts confirm what I was thinking and maybe even take it further than I did. Few if any fraternities seem to have "eliminated pledging"; what they have eliminated is some of the things traditionally associated with pledging, including, in some cases, some of the terminology.