The Badger Herald: Opinion: Fraternities not entirely to blame for UW’s drinking debacle

Opinion

Fraternities not entirely to blame for UW’s drinking debacle

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By James Sonneman
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 12:00 a.m.

9 Vote 0 Votes

I have a confession to make. Two, actually. First, I read Harry Potter, and I liked it a lot. So much, in fact, that during the summer of 2007 four fellow Badgers and I(not associated with Hufflepuff, the weakest of all houses) piled into a big, crappy van on an epic road trip to the East Towne Barnes and Noble. Our final destination’s treasure: the seventh horcrux, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

All five of us were UW Greeks. A former president of my own fraternity, a former vice-president, the newly-elected leader of another Langdon Street house, a sorority member dressed as Hermione Granger — complete with a caged, albeit stuffed, owl — and myself all chattered gleefully in anticipation for J.K. Rowling’s latest literary masterpiece while queuing with hundreds of middle-schoolers branded with a bolt of lighting across their brow. This is all completely true.

Herald staff writer Patrick Johnson wrote Tuesday of “huge Langdon parties that seem almost fantastical in detail.” I will ask you, reader: Was the huge Greek party I just described fantastical enough?

Greek life is not Valhalla — an endless orgy of booze and Gumby’s pizza. I know people who have rushed, pledged, been active and quit the fraternity life, and most will agree that there is a misconception of Greek life in Madison. Yes, there are more materially superficial people there than within other groups on campus, with their Uggs and poofy jackets or their greasy hair. And many do sport obnoxious East Coast accents — but many non-Greeks do as well. Others — most, in fact — are surprisingly articulate and cultured bros, local musicians, bookish engineering majors or headstrong political junkies. Fraternities will let you in if you pay — which I find ridiculous — but that only buys membership, not friendship. Weekly meetings do not involve paddling and live goats. They are mostly an exercise in the necessity of bureaucracy, preparing young leaders for parliamentary procedure and contrived motivational seminars.

Getting an accurate measure of how much Madison Greeks contribute in community service is hard. Usually it will be under-exaggerated by those bros who contribute piss-all or over-exaggerated by those who do pretty much everything else. In any case, services such as Trick or Treat with the Greeks, Langdon Street Watch or Humorology contribute much more to UW-Madison than stereotypical toga parties take away — parties that even the cooperatives down by Langdon are apt to throw now and again.

The big problem is that Greek life is associated with a binge drinking culture, sometimes creating situations in which girls get raped or people die. These are probably the two most serious offenses imaginable in any civilized society. However, the link between Greek life and rape or alcohol poisoning has nothing to do with the organizations themselves and everything to do with only a few that call themselves members.

The douchebags who roofie girls or force pledges to drink their weight in water or vodka — both equally lethal — should be the target of our venom, not the Greek system itself. Remove the houses, and you will still have the ballsacks who pop their collars and rate women from one to 10 as they cross the threshold of every building in Madison. Brosefs and their fraterniture will exist as long as men’s shirts come in pink and Dockers stay classy. They will outlast “Paper Planes” and Samoan rappers making hips swing. They are not a product of Greek life but a product of the material and shallow culture perhaps too prevalent throughout society. Fraternities do not create these people; they just take their money.

Thankfully, in Madison at least, the dudes who suck are far outnumbered by remarkable people across the Greek community. I cannot emphasize the quality of some campus leaders that are associated with the Greek system. Greeks are a “Breakfast Club” of sorts, though deeper than the characters portrayed in John Hughes high school psychology class masterpiece. “Each one is a brain, an athlete, a basket case,” and so on. Some are even a bunch of dorky book nerds who read Harry Potter.

James Sonneman (sonneman@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in political science and history.

9 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 3:50 AM | Reply
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Fraternities do not create these people; they just take their money.

Awesome line.

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply
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Great response to Johnson’s rediculous piece. Im not a supporter of fraternities but this was a good argument, Johnson’s was not.

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply
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“Fraternities do not create these people; they just take their money.”

Counldn’t be more true.

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply
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Thank you for the refute of yesterday’s article. I was appalled by the close-mindedness of the article, not because the author was a freshman, but rather because he was judging the men of fraternities. Too many people assume that greek culture is associated with drinking, sex and hazing, while the same could be said of college in general. There are douchebags within fraternity life, but they are the problem, NOT the fraternity.

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply
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“Fraternities do not create these people; they just take their money.”

wow, its just like IBM with the Nazis

(you’ve been Goodwined)

Anonymous | December 3, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply
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what’s with the trite categorization of the “materially superficial people there than within other groups on campus, with their Uggs and poofy jackets or their greasy hair” in columns?

Anonymous | December 4, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply
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No fraternity should just “take their money”… the money is an investment in a fraternal experience that helps these men become better. Fraternities need to hold these men accountable for their actions - especially those actions that go against the creed of the fraternity.

The measure of a fraternity is based on the actions of the membership…