Hazing -- Good or bad?

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

If I were active in an org that hazed, and I thought that our org was better BECAUSE of the hazing, I'd wonder what's wrong with my org. Seriously.

I think I can understand where you're coming from, but it sounds like you're selling your fraternity short. If the fact that you haze improves your fraternity, then your fraternity needs some help. By that, I don't mean you need help in learning how to phase out hazing; I mean, you need help in selecting the right men, in cultivating the ideals shared by your founders, in building bonds based on mutual respect (and not on things like how well you clean the bathroom), etc...

Maybe I'm misreading your posts, but if I were a pledge in your org, and saw that you believed that because you can haze me our org is better than others, I'd think you wanted to be in a group only to exert your power over others instead of wanting to be there because of the friendships, networking, etc., involved.

Trying to explain things to you people is about like arguing with a brick wall.

Please explain to me how making pledges wear nice clothes, making them get to know every member on a personal level, making them learn fraternity knowledge, making them study, making them respect their house, and putting them in situations where they must learn to depend on their pledge and build some close bonds/trust is a BAD THING?? I really don't know of any other ways that I can put any of this. I'm beginning to think you have the reasoning skills of a 3 year old.

I, at no point, said anything remotely close to "our group is better than others because we haze." I said that the type of things that we do make our chapter stronger as a whole. Our pledges learn to respect and trust each other, respect the house/fraternity, and act present themselves like gentleman. I'm glad though that you felt the need to take the fact that we make our pledges clean the house as one of the points for your response, totally disregarding every other thing that I said we do. Even non-hazing houses that I know of have their pledges clean....not a big deal at all. They are pledges...pledges clean the house. I know of no other house that doesn't do this. SAE at Texas is a very powerful well known chapter in our organization......I can promise you we don't sign guys whose sole purpose in joining is to haze pledges after a year.

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by Buttonz

There is no such thing as the right type of hazing.

Yes.......there is. Thanks for the input.

[greekalum]

Yeah, but, Macallan, the kind of guys who pledge SAE at Texas already have a pretty good sense of how to dress like you and act properly. You all are not going to pledge someone without the social background to know those things- and they probably also are already able to form the social bonds y'all have based on the fact that they've been doing that most of their lives, too. My guess is you'd have a pretty similar organization whether your pledges cleaned the house or not.

[DSTCHAOS]

macallan:

You're obviously talking about a different type of hazing than most of the people on GC think about when they read or hear "hazing." All of it is considered hazing but having a debate when both sides of the argument are talking about different extremes is pointless.

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by macallan25

Yes.......there is. Thanks for the input.

Perhaps there is a difference between hazing and pledge training?
We can all put the word "hazing" into any search engine and come up with many sites with definitions and examples of what hazing is and is not. Many sites show the laws and requlations. Also show the "reasons" or "causes" for these laws and regulations.
Most, if not all, of those are out side of what Mac' listed.

I have not tried that with pledge training...could be interesting....

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by jon1856

Perhaps there is a difference between hazing and pledge training?
We can all put the word "hazing" into any search engine and come up with many sites with definitions and examples of what hazing it.

I have not tried that with pledge training...could be interesting....

It all boils down to semantics and who gets pissed off enough to runtelldat.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by jon1856

Perhaps there is a difference between hazing and pledge training?

YES THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by 33girl

YES THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Thank you for your kind support and seconding of my motion.
That was my point....part two of it was to talk, in detail, about the difference.....

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

macallan:

You're obviously talking about a different type of hazing than most of the people on GC think about when they read or hear "hazing." All of it is considered hazing but having a debate when both sides of the argument are talking about different extremes is pointless.

DSTCHAOS;
OK, how about if we cull the argument down? Get off of the extremes? See if we can get to some sort of middle ground.
And also talk out all of this in the contex of rush and pledging....

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

macallan:

You're obviously talking about a different type of hazing than most of the people on GC think about when they read or hear "hazing." All of it is considered hazing but having a debate when both sides of the argument are talking about different extremes is pointless.

Yeah, you are correct.

[Buttonz]

Originally Posted by macallan25

Yes.......there is. Thanks for the input.

So causing someone emotional or physically distress is a good thing? Please, explain to me houw

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by Buttonz

So causing someone emotional or physically distress is a good thing? Please, explain to me houw

Buttonz:
You may wish to review some of the early postings on this thread, if not all of them.
Mac' did provide a list which you may wish to read and review.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by jon1856

DSTCHAOS;
OK, how about if we cull the argument down? Get off of the extremes? See if we can get to some sort of middle ground.
And also talk out all of this in the contex of rush and pledging....

The discussion is going fine as far as I'm concerned, as long as the extremes are duly noted.

The only conclusions that will come from these types of discussions are:

"Good" hazing = good...
"Bad" hazing = bad...
Because...
The legal definition = too broad...
But, doing things that fit into this definition = illegal...
Pledging does not = hazing...
But based on the legal definition of hazing, pledging usually = hazing...
For many organizations, pledging is illegal just as hazing is...
...and all the King's horses and all the Queen's men, or something like that.....

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by macallan25

I, at no point, said anything remotely close to "our group is better than others because we haze."

I never said you did -- my response was to Coramoor. Coramoor was pretty clear that he believes the chapters which haze are stronger than the chapters that don't, hence the larger pledge classes in hazing chapters. I only said what I said to you when you said "The right type of hazing absolutely makes your chapter better..." Maybe you meant that the right type of hazing makes your chapter better than it would be if you didn't haze at all, and I interpreted it to mean that the right type of hazing makes your chapter better than chapters that don't haze.

Originally Posted by macallan25

Please explain to me how ... making them [pledges] get to know every member on a personal level, making them learn fraternity knowledge, making them study... is a BAD THING??

I don't think those are bad things. Like 33girl said, this sounds like pledge training, and I think these things are vital to the success of a chapter.

But, depending on how your chapter goes about achieving these things is what COULD be bad.

And, like DSTCHAOS and jon1856 have said, it sounds like the main difference of opinion here is rooted in semantics. But, some of the things you have talked about (i.e. putting pledges in positions where they are forced to trust each other, cleaning bathrooms, etc.) don't sound much like pledge training - they sound like the "bad" kind of hazing.

[elusive47]

Originally Posted by macallan25

Trying to explain things to you people is about like arguing with a brick wall.

Please explain to me how making pledges wear nice clothes, making them get to know every member on a personal level, making them learn fraternity knowledge, making them study, making them respect their house, and putting them in situations where they must learn to depend on their pledge and build some close bonds/trust is a BAD THING?? I really don't know of any other ways that I can put any of this. I'm beginning to think you have the reasoning skills of a 3 year old.

Umm, macallan, that's not hazing. That's pledging. As a pledge for most GLOs one has to follow the rules set by their chapter's actives in order to cross into full membership. Everything stated above is done for a reason.

i.e: Wearing nice clothes instructs pledges to be about business when in public.

Getting to know actives: Well they're going to be your Brother or Sister someday so shouldn't the pledges get to know you?

Learning Fraternal history: Do you really want people in your GLO that don't know the ins and outs of your group?

Making them study: Time management and making sure that the GLO's GPA doesn't drop drastically due to pledges' low grades.

The respect thing: If the pledges respect the house, then they respect the people living there, and, if applicable the Fraternity or Sorority the house belongs to.

Learning to depend on their pledge siblings and and building a sense of community and trust: I don't know how socials do things, but in Cultural GLOs, pledges have to form a strong line in order to finish the pledge process. The line has to be such that it cannnot be broken by any means, no matter what happens during the pledge process. If anything happens to one pledge, everybody else on the line has to come to that pledges aid. That builds the sense of community I was referring to earlier in this paragraph.

We in the Cultural Greek community have a word for pledge processes that don't involve at least most of the above: "skating". And no one respects skaters, period.