Quote:
Originally Posted by Alphagamuga
I realize that this may reflect a deep flaw in my thinking, but some of what you are saying is why I think that it might not have gone down exactly as described. The fact that nobody else died also works against the idea that all new members were forced to drink.
I can see the setting out in the wood as some kind of bonding thing, weird as it might be; I can even think of the blindfolds as a test of trust or some junk like that, but I can't really wrap my head around the idea that you could force a bunch of guys to drink that much and only one guy would get hurt.
It also blows my mind that anyone could come of age today and not know that drinking too much can kill you.
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That is a fair point. The actual truth of these kinds of things can never really be known just by the nature of the event- a bunch of people, most of them presumably somewhat intoxicated, in a highly isolated environment.
As for the one guy getting hurt- have you ever read "Wrongs of Passage"? An interesting book- biased in my view against Greeks- but the stories of actual hazing deaths are an important reference.
A lot of people have minor health irregularities that are never detected. And sometimes in a stressful situation that most people can handle, those problems become apparent and manifest themselves in very bad ways. Pledges have died doing basic calisthenics.
My stance on this case is based in part on the appearance that there seems to be quite a lot of information about the actual event that could only have come from people who were there. So unless this is another Duke rape case situation- there were people present who gave out a lot of information that they knew would be very damaging to their fraternity's position.
As for heavy drinking, you would be amazed what some people try. Once in college I did, voluntarily, consume an amount of alcohol that was theoretically lethal. I was sick for 3 days, but I was ok. If I had consumed it a lot faster, then I might not be here writing this. Who knows?
This is the nature of kids experimenting.
But I think when a fraternity takes pledges into an unfamiliar environment, they take on an added responsibility to keep things from getting out of hand and to keep young men from pushing those kinds of limits.
Even if noone actually force-fed him alcohol, he was put into an environment in which he was, essentially, trapped. Blindfolded and taken out into the middle of nowhere- so how could he leave if he wanted to. And then the group pressure to drink.
The latter in and of itself is no excuse for anyone to overindulge, but when you add in the former it becomes a bit different.
How different is impossible to say in real terms.
But in practical legal terms, how different is pretty clear- the fraternity will be presumed to have exercised undue influence that contributed to or directly led to the death of a pledge.
And hence the absolute boundary I speak of. I do not wish these guys ill- in fact I feel pretty bad for the 7 being charged because they surely did not want this to happen and now have to face the guilt of it plus potentially criminal penalties. All this with few people thinking much about their own torment over this (and it is cool to see many in this thread do care about their fate.)
The bottom line is that to a reasonable person (and most people are not Greek and don't even understand how campouts can be an awesome part of the experience) this appears to be a situation where young men in a position subordinate to others were intentionally taken into deep isolation so that no one else would be aware of what happened. It just flat out sounds like bad things were planned- even if they were not.
So when someone dies, there is going to be legal trouble- whether it is fair and reasonable, or not.
And this is why there have to be some set clear boundaries that are never crossed. And one of those boundaries is to neither force people to drink large amounts of booze, nor create an environment in which a sense of "force" can be discerned or implied.
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