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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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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.