SpaceGhostofArrakis, have you or will you sit down with the victim, apologize for your behaviour, and discuss what you will do to prevent such abuse in the future?
sterra
Your readings are at odds to my experiences. It is easy to say that one is iummune to the types of psychological pressures we are discusing, it is quite another thing to demonstrate that immunity.
I find fault with the hazing that occurs at military academies, too, but I know of no training method which has proven to be superior. I also have seen little indication that it is dying out, though the specifics of implementation are certainly shifting. This has been the case for 2 centuries.
Anyone interested in continuing this discussion (since it already got pretty uncivil in here) can visit:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=84323
Zette
Well I hope SpaceGhost is at least reading these, even if he doesn’t reply.
YOU WEAR REALLY STUPID LOOKING BOOTS! 
Just a note, please do not refer to Texas A&M’s undergraduate Corps of Cadets as the “Corps”.
I heartily agree with those who say this is not the way to instill a sense of loyalty and prepare anyone for life in the armed services. I see it as sophomoric (literally), and liken it to the string of child abusers generation after generation. I know it exists in varying degrees and forms in Charleston, College Station, Lexington, Annapolis, West Point, and Colorado Springs, (The Citadel, Texas A&M, Virginia Military Institute, US Naval Academy, US Military Academy, Air Force Academy) as well as many colleges with a strong military undergraduate organization. I have served with many officers from schools such as these. In my experience they were not better leaders because of it, and many were good leaders in spite of it.
I am a Marine. I did OCS at Quantico where I was yelled at by professionals. Trained professionals who were adults, not kids. I have seen combat, and I have sent those who served under me into what we all saw as as a position very likely to get them killed, but it was a vital area where they needed to be. They understood, and they went. That is leadership. (they all survived fine, thankyouverymuch) I can count on one hand the number of times I yelled at a subordinate during active duty, or during years in the Reserves, and I can never remember degrading anyone.
Best of luck to you in your next three years of college, SpaceGhost. Honestly. If and when you get into the Army for real life, I really hope you don’t think this would be the way to treat soldiers. But I think you’ll learn a lot in your last two years that may help you adjust.
UncleBill
Major, USMCR
But what is being practiced is NOT leadership. It is abusiveness; it is (as you have admitted) assholishness.
No leader that I could look up to has ever spoken to me in an abusive manner. I seriously doubt that I could bring myself to follow anyone who felt that he had to abase me in order to make me follow.
This program appears to be designed to train abusive assholes, not leaders.
Can any of you even read? I mean really, SpaceGhost already admitted defeat and withdrew from this thread. Shouldn’t you be satisfied? Oh, I forgot - you guys get your sense of self-worth from trashing people repeatedly who make minor mistakes. It’s not like he drowned a litter of newborn kittens. He didn’t start a world war. He made a freshman cry and laughed about it. I’m assuming that all of you have never done anything worse than that, or else where in God’s name would you get the fucking arrogance to believe you can judge him so harshly…over and over and over again - even after he’s past the point of listening to you? Have any of you ever thought that maybe his laughing about it was a way of covering up a pang of regret? Did you even read his other thread saying how much he didn’t like having to be intimidating? Of course not, because you somehow think it’s your ill-chosen purpose in life to rehabilitate the poor online souls who aren’t as successful as you in being perfect.
Pukka: I think it’s fair to ask you what your relationship is with Mr. Ghost. At the moment I type this, every one of your posts at SDMB have been spent in defense of him. Unless you have some peculiar interest, I would have thought you could find other interesting threads on a site this vast by now.
Though I really don’t feel he withdrew from the discussion very gracefully, I’m willing resist the urge to pile on any further, here or in the pit, and drop the issue in hopes he will give it some thought and perhaps mature a bit.
I find your criticism of people’s input on the OP ill-conceived. The act of posting in-and-of-itself was an invitation to discussion. With one exception, this discussion, though critical, was done in a respectful manner. Furthermore, who are you to determine when a topic is dead and people should stop discussing it?
Um, it should be clear to everyone what my “relationship” to SpaceGhost is given my screen name. And it should also be clear that a topic is pretty much dead when four or five posts were a series of apologies and explanations about a grammatical error. Only until I suggested that we give it a rest did the whole thing start up again. I encourage people to voice their opinions - after all, that’s what I’m doing right now. However, many people who have posted seem to think that’s it’s not enough to voice their opinions; if they had it their way, they’d keep bellowing about what a scoundrel he is until SpaceGhost came crawling back, begging for their forgiveness. I’m just saying that all these diatribes are pitted against SpaceGhost, but he’s left and isn’t coming back, so why keep going on and on with things that have already been said repeatedly?
I realize that I didn’t completely answer what is, I agree, a fair question. I’m an Aggie. I go to Texas A&M. I do not know SpaceGhost personally, but he is an Aggie, and I felt that seeing as he didn’t do anything heinous yet was receiving lots of flames, he could use someone on his side. That’s not to say that I defended him just because he’s an Aggie. I really do believe in the virtues of the Corps of Cadets, and I understand that occassionally, shit gets carried out in the name of these virtues. I really do believe that people take “emotional stress” too seriously - if you haven’t figured it out, I have major issues with the media for fooling people into thinking that they’re emotionally or mentally imbalanced so that they’ll buy products. That was the major point I was trying to convey. I don’t agree with everything the Corps does (God knows I’d certainly never join), but I appreciate what it stands for. And moreover, I appreciate the hell out of this school and what it has given me, so I will defend it if need be.
I’ve read Dune and Dune Messiah. I’ve seen the film. I don’t remember Pukka_Ag.
If you read the posts carefully, you’ll see it was about comprehension (and a perceived lack of associated skills to go with the bullying regime), not grammar.
If you think these expressions of mild distaste about the bullying (and particularly the enjoyment of it) are ‘bellowing’, you’ll have a shock in the Pit!
But I take your point. We’re using our superior experience and communication skills to ridicule SpaceGhost just for our own enjoyment, until he runs crying from the thread.
Irony? What irony? :rolleyes:
I think you misread my post. I was talking about the ones who could not stand the psychological pressures and broke down because of them.
From what I have seen it is dying out. I would say that emotions are becoming less of an issue in a battle and uniformity will not be an asset as the destructive power in weapons increase.
Perhaps so; but in that case, I’d say the people who deserve blame are the ones who pressured a young person into joining an organization that he wasn’t prepared to handle, not the organization itself for doing what it was always intended to do.
It was always meant to psychologically torment young people?
Folks, I don’t know how familiar you are with Texas A&M, but you’re not going to win points arguing with Aggies. A&M is like a religion…traditions are sacred and irrational loyalty abounds.
When the Bonfire incident happened, someone nominated the deceased students for a Darwin Award. The message boards on Wendy’s site were thereafter packed with flaming, abusive, irrational, angry, “screaming” Aggies and Aggie family members. The furor didn’t die down for months. Admittedly, it was a little mean-spirited to say that the Aggie students who died were stupid because they just had to go to this incredibly dumb ritual despite concerns that the Bonfire that year was unstable. But the responses were just scary.
You think the Bible’s big in Texas…A&M is at least as big…
jayjay
I’m not going to argue with the comment that Aggies are insanely loyal to their school. But for the record, most Ags were not in support of the whole Darwin Award thing. I resented the idea because, whether intentional or not, it exploited the accident - kind of like the A&M equivalent of Princess Diana commemorative plates.
Yeah, but you sure can piss 'em off by laughing at their boots!
Would a moderator PLEASE put this in the pit?
This could be the start of another thread: what’s the deal with Texans? 
Actually, here in Michiagn you have the same semi-religous fervor dealing with
U of M and/or Michigan State. It gets plenty tiresome, I can tell you that…
No. I took your meaning. You seem to have missed mine.
I can’t speak to A&M, but in my time at West Point I had 3 roommates, all of whom volunteered freely and all of whom were broken down to tears at least once.
I say again, your reading does not conform to my experience. It’s an easy answer to say the people who break down didn’t really want to be there. That doesn’t make it the right answer.
As I understand it, it is common knowledge that the sort of behavior described in the OP goes on in the Corps of Cadets. If you consider that to be “psychological torment,” (and really, it may be a shitty thing to do, but “psychological torment?”) then don’t join the Corps. It’s very simple.