It’s pathetic what blind conformity and the desire to belong will allow some people to submit themselves to.
Why get hazed merely for passing on to the next grade? Being a senior in high school does not make you part of a fraternity or distinguished society of Special Human Beings; it just means you did all the necessary classwork and passed it with the necessary marks. How many people all over the world have managed to do that Herculean feat?
Million dollar question: Does the person who gets beat upside the head and forced to eat feces encased in putrid pig intestines have any more of a fulfilling experience their senior year than someone who didn’t partake in the abusive festivities? I can’t imagine that they really would. This lack of understanding on my part leads me to wonder why anyone would pay to get treated worst than a POW pre-Geneva convention.
Ohhh, wait a minute. I know why. So they can have free license to torture someone else when they become seniors.
Poor girls. They’re afraid that they are actually going to get in trouble for cracking other people’s heads open with baseball bats and paint cans. Well, we can’t have that, can we?
There were three monkeys sitting in a tree. One fell out because he died. A few minutes later, another monkey fell out because he died too. Finally, the 3rd monkey fell out of the tree. You ask why the 3rd monkey fell out. Peer pressure.
‘Hazing’ builds character and reinforces social bonds, unless someone gets killed. It’s too bad that so many institutions are curbing/banning hazing rituals simply because one or two got of of control.
Yep. And if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.
For a fine example of the character building associated with hazing, simply check out the Air Force Academy (where the hazing never got out of hand–just the crappy society it reinforced).
More to it then that (To a even vaguely creative hazing). Generally, a good hazing will have some pain/humiliation as a part of it. When you are finished, you share a greater bond with the group, since you shared the same unpleasant experience. From ‘beating in the wings’ for paratroopers, to being beaten with pig guts (as seems to be the case here), the scope varies but the end-result is the same.
If you have never been through a hazing, you won’t understand.
You have to understand the insanely competitive mentality at that school, and on Chicago’s North Shore in general. I grew up in a suburb a few miles away (close enough that we all played inthe same sports leagues - not me, I’m useless as an athlete, but those of us who did play sports). It’s the kind of school where people look down on you if you don’t get accepted to an Ivy League school, and God forbid you should want to do anything like consider not going to college right away.
The hive mentality up there is sickening. For fun in high school, my friends and I used to pile in with whomever had the oldest, rustiest, and scariest-looking car, drive up to Northbrook or Wilmette or Winnetka, and time how fast the cops would pull us over and ask us to leave town. And we were the “good” kids for the most part; most of my friends were the math team, for chrissakes! But the hypocrisy is equally sickening; the cops will bust you for breaking curfew or being on the beach past closing, but refuse to face issues like the rather serious coke problem some of those filthy rich kids had.
The North Shore is a weird, weird place. This is just visible evidence.
Uh…why can’t the “bond with the group” come about more naturally. Like, say, going through the same classes together, studying together, bitching about bad grades and mean teachers, skipping classes, etc. If you’re doing it right, you don’t have to force bonding through hazing.
I wonder if the so-called victims are also going to get in trouble. I think they should, just for being so stupid.
And what will a bad hazing have? Guys baking cookies together?
As far as sharing the same unpleasant experience I believe it has been shown that the CrapHattedness/cruelty/pain/humiliation level inflicted on the “newbies” gets jacked up higher and higher for each succeeding class. that isn’t anywhere close to sharing the same experience, it’s a class in how to be a sadist in one easy lesson.
This reasoning doesn’t really stick in this particular situation. These were juniors being hazed. A few more months and these guys will be seniors, so it’s not like there’s much in the way of experience that separates these people from the ones abusing them. If they were freshmen and being hazed by seniors (kind of like in Lords of Discipline) that would make more sense to me, because it would be like they were being inofficially inducted into The High School Experience by people they look up to a lot. But making it all the way to your third year of high school only to be beaten by someone who is not that much older and wiser than you seems highly foolish. The “bonding experience” that hazing supposedly instills should have been set in place a lot earlier in the game.
I think high school in and of itself is hazing. Why any would add more discomfort to an already excruciating ordeal is beyond my comprehension.
Brutus, obviously we have different mentalities. I am not willing, in any situation on Earth, to give up one iota of my own dignity to join some group.
Hazing in -any- case is primitive and wrong. I fail to understand how ‘bonding with the group’ is really that desirable. I would rather, as another poster noted, bond naturally with a group of people I choose, based on mutual affection and having things in common than being humiliated.
AS far as High School hazing goes, it seems ridiculous to an absolutely amazing degree to me. A Senior who has managed to suck up years’ worth more resources than a Freshman is given no authority over that Freshman.
On The News With Brian Williams they had a sound bite from one of the participants. “I don’t see what the big deal is. So some girl got her head split open. It’s not like anyone died.”
I am of the opinion that if the hazees are not willing to come forward and get it stopped, or even just walk away, that the authorities should not need to involve themsleves. Of course, when I was hazed, I did both, and it worked splendidly, so I am prejudiced.
Not with my money. Blah “bonding experience” blah blah “group” blah blah. Did anyone else see the movie Dazed and Confused? There was some vicious hazing in that movie, but it didn’t hold a candle to this. But if you took your beating/massive humilitation like a good boy/girl, you were part of the “in crowd.” Fuck that. This is bloody high school, people!
The only place I can understand some “hazing” is the military. But not just for the sake of hazing. Teams like the Navy Seals must learn to work as a group, and a strong bond between teammates is essential. And it damn well better be under the strict supervision of some sort of CO. Hazing for hazing’s sake is nothing more than sadism (IMHO, shared by several esteemed posters that have already mentioned this viewpoint).
You’re right, Brutus. I’ve never been hazed and clearly don’t understand it.
Why someone would subject themselves to pain/humility to join a group of other people subjected to similar pain/humility is beyond scope of my comprehension.
What would compel these young women to sit passively and be soaked in blood/guts/shat is also beyond my scope of comprehension.
To what purpose, may I ask? To be another victim of peer pressure?
Wearing blue does not encourage sadism, nor does it encourage people who have been abused to accept the abuse silently. Hazing does not equal rape, but the idiotic mentality encouraged by hazing will, if rape is introduced to the organization, permit it to go unchecked.
I will grant the “bonding” claim–but only because that sort of activity binds people to the communal silence of guilt.
I will even acknowledge that there is some hazing that probably does not scar the participants for life. The Navy’s abuse of crew who have never previously crossed the Equator might be one example. However, the claim that any “character” is built is simply unthinking, juvenile posturing.
Character traits encouraged by hazing:
Honesty? nope
Bravery? not really
Individualism? nope
Helpfulness? nope
Friendship? nope
Courtesy? nope
Respect? nope
Intelligence? bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!