5.12.25 - Frat Apologia
I take showers and have a lot of thoughts, and what this website is about is really turning thoughts into words without a lot of second thoughts. This is one of those shower thoughts I had, after texting an old buddy from my college days and feeling an ache in my heart for the camraderie of my fraternity.
I know frats are generally viewed as a corny/silly/college thing in the more forgiving accounts, and as downright public health dangers in the more critical ones. But I argue that they are good. Very good.
Living in a liberal democracy is not about voting and shit. It's about organizing your own life, about building your own communities. This is the sort of thing we're losing in America as of late. Putnam talks about this. There's a good essay that I unfortunately cannot locate which talks about how, little kids from the 20th century put modern college kids to shame in the sophisticiation of their self-organization they would exhibit for games and pranks and the like. I mean, kids used to start bands out of their garage. Now kids will just produce things on their own a lot. There's just this skill to organizing groups that seems is not being cultivated to scale anymore. Young people rely on authority figures to organize them––sports leagues, school clubs run by teachers, administration organized activities, company orientation -- you get it. It's the equivalent of having play dates organized for you forever. You see it all over campuses, signs saying the LGBTQIA Disability Alliance Human Resources Diversity Title IX Office is hosting cupcakes and coffee at the quad at 2PM! It's just depressing.
Frats (and sororities, but I can't speak to those so I won't) are really the only major institutins where young people self-govern, host big events, and advance their interests with minimal oversight. The logistics in running a fraternity should not be underappreciated. There are elections, fundraisers, pooling of money, security and risk assessments, figuring out how to comply (or evade with impunity) various laws and rules, navigating complex social politics within the organization and with other organizations, organizing major events, inculturating new members on a regular basis which requires constant conversations and reflections on the organization's values and future and culture–––this is the stuff of democracy, this is what its all about. And the fact that frats are usually doing pretty illicit activites means that the kids in them have no higher authorities to appeal to, they're generally own their own to navigate these problems.
When do you stop your friend from drunk driving out the party? How can we get these girls to show up? What do we do about members who haven't paid their dues? Do we throw a party during rush while we're under probation--if we don't, what's the longterm impact on our future, how will we get recruits? What's the real risk/reward ratio? Should we kick this guy out for being creepy to girls again or just talk to him? Do we drop the pledge who is very socially awkward or try and develop him a little bit? Whats the next property we should acquire as a group? How do we convince the new members to live in that property? Are certain "rituals" too extreme or antiquated that we should get rid of them?
Dealing with social decision-making at this density and frequency is extremely important for a young person's development, and prepares them to be a free person in a democracy. People who lack these experiences are, in my view, less equipped to particate in self-governance, because they've never really governed something immediate, tangible, without big mommy and big daddy hovering over their shoulders. These people will always appeal to power, rather than have the habit of working with their own peers and relying on their own judgement.
For the health of liberal democracy, the autonomy of these organizations must be respected, and they should be allowed to thrive on college campuses.
There are a LOT of other reasons too, but this is just an angle I felt like writing about, this evening.
knxnts