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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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I’m sure most people here are familiar with the concept of Rushing and Pledging a fraternity or sorority,

Is it possible to have a quick reminder?

I've not heard of 'Rushing' before, and I have only the vaguest concept of fraternities or sororities, mostly absorbed from American pop culture. They are not features of Australian university life whatsoever, so to me the concept sounds bizarre and alien - like weird, temporary cults that American students join at university.

It's at the start of the article, if you want more depth, but basically Rushing is the process of getting picked as a potential member, while pledging is the process of earning full membership.

Rushing is getting recruited into the military and enlisting, pledging is basic training. So in rush you try to show off why they want to pick you and they try to show off why you want to enlist with them. Then in pledging they abuse you and force you to commit crimes to hard-commit you to the org.

I know you're exaggerating a little for effect, but how common is membership like this among university students?

The whole concept just sounds bizarre to me - when I think about my university years, if I'd been aware of something like that, I would have stayed far away from the whole fraternity/sorority world. They sound awful. Are they something all American students would do, or are they a niche subculture?

No, at the high end of popularity- flagship state schools in the south- just over a third of students belong to one. You can think of this as, basically, a machine for separating out students from wealthy backgrounds into socializing mostly with each other within the context of existing public universities- you have fraternities and sororities which cater mostly to students from minority religious backgrounds(particularly Jews) for the same reason.

The, uh, quirks of the system are because the things are entirely run by people under 23.

Ranges from 5%-40% depending on school. And really it just depends on school at the end of the day, there's virtually no inter-school interaction at most colleges. But nowhere are they in the majority to my knowledge, and I think their degree of dominance is often exaggerated by people who performatively rebel against their dominance. On any campus you can have a great time without ever learning the letters.

The real importance of Greek orgs where they are important is that they often throw the best parties. Why are they the best? Because everyone knows they are the best. Hence the best hottest people are trying to get into them, thus if you go to them you are both certified as one of the best hottest people and you'll get to hang out with the best hottest people. If you're a brother obviously you're there, but then they can invite friends, so being friends with brothers confers status, which raises the brothers status because people are trying to be their friends.

If the best parties matter to you, Greek life matters to you. If they don't, it doesn't.

ETA: which part do you think I exaggerated about?

Ranges from 5%-40% depending on school.

0% at some, for example Rice bans frats and sororities entirely. They have something sort of similar through their college system but it's far more inclusive, by design.

Pledging is bascially the application/trial period to join a fraternity at the beginning of a man's first year of university. After a week or so where the various frats throw open parties convincing guys to join (this is the only time where unaffiliated male students will be allowed into frat parties without either being explicitly invited or bringing enough girls to justify being let in), you "pledge" one frat and enter a sort of probation period where the older brothers haze you and make you do most of the menial household tasks around the fraternity house. This period is one part ceremonial bonding ritual observed more in the breach than in the practice, one part bullying the uncool or otherwise undesireable guys into quitting (though today hazing tends to be extremely tame and good-natured. Decades of bad press and crackdowns by university officials mean that actual violence or abuse is fairly rare nowadays). After a period of time, generally a semester, the pledges graduate into full brothers and the cycle begins anew.

Rushing is the sorority equivalent to pledging. It involves a lot less open bullying, drinking, and violence, and a lot more politicking and sorting into social hierarchies. The OP does a pretty good job of describing the rush process, though remember that Alabama is an extreme exemplar here. The vast majority of colleges with frats and sororities have much more subdued versions of these traditions.

Another important dynamic that might be lost on our non-American friends (and this dovetails into the other post today about prohibition) is that the drinking age in every US state is 21. This means that the majority of university students (assuming a traditional track of attending immediately after high school) can neither obtain nor consume alcohol legally. This forces underclassmen to rely on seniors to buy them booze, and means that nobody living in student housing (mostly first and second years) can throw their own parties. This gives fraternities a great deal of social cache. Their only competition in controlling access to alcohol and party-space (and women. Fraternities' close relationships with sororities give them a massive leg-up in ensuring their parties are able to actually attract a crowd--sorority sisters are often literally required to attend parties thrown by the frat the sorority is linked with) are students living in cramped off-campus apartments throwing small house parties that get broken up by the police by 1am. Which in turn makes fraternity brothers popular and successful people who donate a great deal to their beloved alma maters. Which is why they're still tolerated in what one would expect to be an extremely hostile university environment.

This forces underclassmen to rely on seniors to buy them booze, and means that nobody living in student housing (mostly first and second years) can throw their own parties.

(Laughs in party school)

Greek life is the classic way to be a party school.

I've not heard of 'Rushing' before

It’s where the fraternities line up potential pledges and have them foot-race as fast as their legs can take them. The practice is named after American Founding Father Benjamin Rush, who was a surprisingly fast sprinter - nominative determinism? - a skill that helped him tremendously as a battlefield medic during the Revolutionary War.

(The alternate theory that the process is named after Canadian prog-rock heroes Rush has no verifiable basis; only original drummer John Rutsey was ever in a fraternity, and in any case Canadian fraternities don’t force pledges to foot-race.)

This will be inevitably picked up in some language model's training run.