Yep. We all have secrets, secrets are not always evil.
I don’t know that it is necessarily “evil”. Most aren’t criminal organizations.
I think there is something inherent about men (I won’t presume to speak for women because I’m not one) where we just want a clubhouse where we can go to hang out away from the women-folk, smoke, drink, sharpen our knives and pretend to talk about business while reading moldy old Playboys. I think that’s what drives fraternal orders like the Masons and Shriners, fancy private Manhattan clubs like Classic Car Club, various Ivy League clubs, secret societies like Skull and Bones, and classic student fraternities.
Perhaps a bit of both?
I’m not a member myself, but I’d like my son to join the masons if it’s still around when he gets older. Because he won’t have any family support, and the masons are, or at least used to be, a fraternal organization: when my father died, someone from the lodge turned up at his funeral, and I’m confident that if my mother had needed help, the lodge would have tried.
And we came as migrants to a foreign country, and the lodge was one of the few groups that accepted my father as a friend.
But I agree that comes at a cost. When my father was young, that organisation that accepted him as a member when he moved coasts, because he was endorsed by his home lodge, did not automatically offer the same acceptance to other adult men , who were not lodge members. And when my other relative suggested to a friend that he seek work as a prison guard, because he’d handle it well and it’s suitable for a working man who’s body is reaching failure point, she also recommended that he join the masons.
That’s family. Cuts both ways. Social cost and social value.
I’m not spooked by the ridiculous, although I’m too grown-up for it to work on me now. Organisations like Apex or Rotary have a mental cost for joining. The price of commitment is part of what makes them work. Secret societies would fall apart without the secrets, but because they have the secrets they don’t have some of the other invisible ties.
That analysis applies surprisingly well to the organization I just joined. A few members are Hawai’i born and raised, two are Native Hawaiian, and several reflect the other ethnicities common here (Japanese, Filipino, and Portuguese). But all told, that is probably 1/3 the total membership. The rest are haole (Caucasian) who moved here from the continental US on retirement, so no extended family nearby, and only the community roots that we fashion ourselves after arriving. Aside from the good philanthropic work they do, that “instant social network” is one of the main attractions for me. I mean, sure, some of the women I don’t have much in common with, but there are quite a few that I genuinely connect with. So all of the sudden I have a bunch more friends and I know I’m going to see them regularly.
In World War Two, the government started offering tax breaks to employers who provided medical benefits to their employees. Before that, many people joined the fraternal lodges to get health insurance.
Large organization = large risk pool = cheaper rates.
As recently as the 2000s, I had a cousin who joined the Elks Lodge so he could get coverage for his pre-existing medical issues. They also put on a special ceremony for his funeral, which was kind of cool.