Hazing and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or sorta)

First off do not and I mean absolutely do not think I'm attempting to garner some sort of pity or attention from the title of this blog post. It has nothing to do with stopping the hazing that goes on within almost every organization we know of. Actually I believe it has its place but should be kept in check. There are brilliantly positive benefits from hazing and ultimately dark and negative outcomes.This particular post however will be related to my personal experience when I was pledging my fraternity at JMU. Now for some time I really have wanted others (meaning the young bucks that are currently brothers of the Best Fraternity at James Madison University and the guys who became brothers in the fraternity after my pledge class) to understand that they have about as much of a clue as to what real hazing and earning your letters is like as a 90 year old crack whore with alzheimers who hasn't had her crack in a month and doesn't realize the white rock she just smoked was really a fermented piece of bird poop that was scrapped off the pavement two days ago. That being said I would like to bring you to the beginning of pledging through the eyes of Wayne Moore.

Its freshman year, august 2004 at the great James Madison University, and freshman orientation is currently being held where basically you meet tons of absolutely gorgeous chicks in the hope of laying as many of them as possible throughout your tenure at the university (come on give me a break, I was 18 and my libido was about to collapse on itself in the form of a super nova). Yes the orientation was a great experience and is also ranked as one of the best in the nation (not bullshiting this, so if you don't believe me then look it up you doubting sons of bitches from USC "University of SC") along with our business school (not international business, but the entire business school) being ranked among the top universities in the U.S. (http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/undergrad_bschool_2009.html).

As freshman orientation came to an end and classes began, anxiety and excitement continued to rise in the new freshman class of 2004. From the very beginning of the school year up until Rush began for the fraternities I decided I would try to check out the majority of the houses on campus. However long story told short, I decided to rush and pledge the Best Fraternity. Now I'm sure you are wondering how I came about this decision and who some of my fellow pledge brothers were. Well for one during my senior year in high school I had the opportunity to experience JMU for one night at the Best Fraternity Rush party. This was something I had never experienced...ever...females making out with each other...unlimited beer...camaraderie among the brothers...and just a general sense of fucking awesomeness is what I beheld that night. So as  your can see my mind was pretty much already made up when I first stepped onto JMU's campus officially. I was bound to a be $$$$, or as the saying goes Once a &&&&, Always a ****. My pledge class was labeled Alpha Zeta, "AKA the Dirty Dozen." I could spend countless hours telling you of all the ridiculous events and substances that we were told to endure just to become brothers, but then I would be here all damn night and day. Basically everyone before us had dealt with the unabated constant state of drunkenness, physical exercise (calisthenics, bear crawls, duck walks), being made into sorority gifts by stripping for older sorority girls little sisters, and mental terrorism so we decided that since they went through it and they lived to tell about it so that we will have to do the same in order to become brothers in this fraternity.

If you really break it down you will see the cyclical cycle that was developed within the Greek fraternity system that I subjected myself to. Here I have outlined the major factors that play into system itself, see below:

First impressions (Make everyone that isn't a brother see being a brother as a glorified position that is only achieved by those are tough enough to deal with the bullshit).

Promise of this glorified position (after pledging and showing loyalty to the fraternity as a whole)

Establish power plays for brothers to make during all of pledging (to reinforce the division between the pledges and brothers and how you do not receive full benefits as a brother until you complete pledging).
Examples of this being (and yes I know they sound trivial but really were used a power plays or displays of dominance even if the person using the method didn't realize it):
- Only Brother were allowed to sit on the bar of the Party Room. (resembled a pack of lions looking out across the field showing ownership of what lay before them).
- Ability to pass any line during a party for a refill of beer and to pass over a nonbrother or even other women for a beer.
- Indoctrinating pledges to believe that Alumni were to be given utmost respect even if they were complete dousche bags and wastes of life.
- Requiring pledges to line up in front of brothers and recite information about the Fraternity and if a question was answered wrong punishing the pledges with calisthenics, drinking, extra cleaning, and so on.
- Requiring pledges to clean brothers living areas twice a week (brothers would usually take the liberty of completely destroying these areas in order to make the cleaning of pledges that much more difficult)
- Making pledges be sober drivers during the weekend nights in order for brothers to have a free ride around the college campus to parties and other places they wanted to go without getting a DUI or DWI.

I'm sure you are wondering what this information has to do with the title of this blog. Well I know that most of you have heard the horror stories Fraternities and the crazy shit each pledge was made to do depending on the Fraternity and the college campus. However what all of these things you have heard of and have possibly experienced do two different things to the pledges themselves. First they create a division and secondly unity within the brotherhood at the same time. The pledge class itself grows closer usually because the members of the pledge class must pull together at times and pick up each others' slack in order to make it through the process of becoming a brother. Also even though the brothers are creating a sense of pride by making the pledges earn their way into the brotherhood, at the same time they are creating dissonance between themselves and the new pledges. Yes they are creating dissonance by the simple fact that the brothers are basically acting as if they are mental terrorists and because of their expression of distaste with most of the pledges and their shortcomings as a group. However little do they know that whilst outcasting the current pledges for not being brothers just yet and indoctrinating them with the fraternity's values and beliefs, they are also creating a conflicting sense of a disconcerted need for approval from the brothers who hazed them throughout their pledging period.

So what I'm attempting to indicate here is that while pledges often label certain brothers as most hated because of how the brother/brothers decided to haze the pledges, the pledges themselves still look up to these older, most hated brothers for the majority of their tenure within the Greek system. This hatred/seeking approval characteristic seems to manifest itself in ways that even the person experiencing the discontent within themselves will have a difficult time understanding why they give a rats ass what this person approves or disapproves of them.

So what good has hazing accomplished?
It pushes individuals to a point where they break down psychologically and begin to accept the culture within the organization they are entering in order to more truly become a part of the brotherhood.
It allows pledge classes to work together to get things done and to take up after one another when impossible tasks are set upon the group as a whole.
It teaches that in order to truly become part of an organization you must go through some sort of initiation or proving yourself stage that occurs within almost every organization we know of (i.e. Corporate America - gives you shit work and projects in the beginning, because everyone had to do it at one point or another).

So what bad has hazing accomplished?
It breaks individuals down to a point where going with the group norm is easier than standing alone and being ostracized.
It creates a conflicting mental state of discontent within the younger brothers who constantly seek approval even if they claim to care less for it of the older brothers who hazed them when they were pledging.
At times hazing can even cause death when pushed too far.
It often creates enough anger within the newly initiated brothers to juxtapose that anger and resentment on the new pledge class, when really it should be directed towards older Fraternity brothers who hazed them to begin with. (However this as you can see is a vicious cycle that continues and continues until someone comes up with a more appropriate way to haze new members of an organization.)


Finally I wanted to mention that this does not just apply to the Greek system. This applies to Sports teams, religious organizations, universities, secret societies, workplaces, and families. Hazing is used within all of these organizations and there are both pros and cons to hazing but one thing is for sure, that the lasting affect hazing has on individuals will definitely impact their life in the years to come.