Seeing Through the Haze, Part 2 – Motives and Myths of Hazing

            This was originally after the facts section of the last entry, but it would have been too long.  These ideas belong in their own entry.  While researching, I found two pages on websites for Cornell University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania that intrigued me.

Cornell has a list of motives regarding the mentality of hazers and their victims.  IUP has a list of hazing myths that they debunk.  I listed the motives and myths that I liked most and I added my own insight to them.

            Ironically, an example you will see I used in the Motives section was a Cornell incident, and the instance I used in the Myths section happened at IUP.  Both examples for illustrating points were hazings that happened at the school that created the pages.  As I mentioned in the last entry, college’s anti-hazing policies do not guarantee they will be adhered to.

Motives

-Lack of external constraints

            The idea is that no one is enforcing anti-hazing policies.  There are three elements to the problem; favoritism, no monitoring, and no enforcement.  Favoritism corrupts by selectively allowing some people to break rules while others are punished.  Selective attentiveness leads to a lack of monitoring of the favored.  Then the policies are not enforced, and the laissez faire approach makes the administrations into cardboard standup authority figures.  The favored take advantage and freely do what would otherwise merit punishment.  They feel like they can get away with anything, so why not do it?  It’s a luxury the non-favored lack.  This is analogous to a tenure-abusing teacher or an abusive cop who is not supervised or favored by his/her superiors. 

-Sociopathy

            Hazing is an outlet for people with Anti-Social Personality Disorder.  Instead of joining for the group’s intended purpose, it is possible for someone to join just to become a hazer.  Tolerating their own hazing is worth the satisfaction later.  A possible instance of this would be the two Cornell freshmen who hazed their sophomore frat brothers, which I covered in the last post. 

Anti-socials revel in the cruelty that they can not express in other situations, and knowing they can get away with it is glorious to them.  Socially accepted torment frees them from expectations of remorse.  Instead of fearing punishment, the sociopath gets respect.  The increased brutality or degradation is a result of them using people to experiment with what they can get away with. 

            Mistreating people to make them your friends is counter-intuitive to the concept of friendship.  In order to subject people to sadistic whims even if they were once brought upon you would require you to embody the qualities of your tormentor.  You would have to like the act.  You would have to want to harm someone you had just met.

-Shared coping

            Group trauma makes individuals feel closer, but with hazing the unity is based on an artificial hardship.  The bad experiences were contrived and planned.  Real hardship is not scheduled.  Also, it is a bold assumption to assert that everyone had not previously endured any personal difficulties prior to hazing.  The consenting victims want to believe that “we have really gone through something,” but not everyone is naïve to the cruel world.

-Cycles of abuse

            Just like in families, the abused children may grow up and beat their children or emulate the bad parenting they were once subjected to.  The adults in the family set an example of how you are supposed to act in adulthood.  In a fraternity, sorority, or sports team, the upperclassmen set the bar for how severe a hazing experience should be.

            Cornell also mentions a belief I hold mutually with them, displaced revenge – on which I elaborate in the My Insight section of the last entry.

-Rite of Passage

            Literally it means, ritual for passing into something or someone new.  Healthy instances would be celebrating birthdays and graduation ceremonies.  You don’t need to be punched, screamed at, or covered in condiments in order to transition to the next stage of life.  No one should have to be sexually traumatized in order to become a softball player.  The passage into becoming a new person does not have to be a bad experience, especially if it has nothing to do with the new role.

I believe initiations can be stumbled upon, like in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.  The protagonist’s first bee sting was her initiation as a beekeeper.  No one caught a bee and forced her to get stung.  A bee just happened to sting her.

-Need for esteem

            This idea regards the pride derived from surviving hazing.  It makes people feel tough even though they did not have to go through it.  It is very backwards logic.  Degradation is not supposed to induce high self esteem.  If you need to humiliate someone in order to respect that person, then you probably have low self esteem.

-Expression of power

            Senior members in groups feel empowered in wielding a false sense of authority.  Just being three years older than someone derives a myopic sense of superiority for them.  Those “seniors” need to wake up and realize they are not the oldest people on Earth.  Being the head of a sorority house is not the same as being a CEO or a political leader.  Moreover, every human being is just a human being like everyone else.  The tormentors seem to forget human equality.

-Fear of reprisal

            Consenting victims may not be truly consenting because of the fear of ostracism.  Unhappy victims are silenced with the threat of retaliation from the hazers or the whole group.  That silence allows the hazers to continue the criminal traditions.  Scarily similar is that abused children are pressured by their parents or relatives to remain silent with the threat of punishment.

-Perceived lack of alternatives

            Since the group tells you that the rite is mandatory, it is hard to believe otherwise.  Perpetrators close the box on the outside-the-box thinking.  The victim will consent because he or she does not realize other ways that a person can join a group.  They are not able to make an informed decision, and the tormentors can exploit that.

Myths

-If someone agrees to participate in an activity, it can’t be considered hazing.

            A consenting victim is still a victim.  They are threatened with ostracism and more abuse.  Intoxication alters a person’s ability to make decisions and does not yield true consent.  A victim can also be unaware of all the factors in a given activity or have no advanced knowledge of the outcome.  Ex.  During 2001-02, I learned that a sorority at IUP told pledges to do sit-ups on a wet carpeted floor.  The backs of their white shirts turned yellow, and they did not know it was really urine.  The upperclassmen lied, saying it was just water.  The consenting pledges could not make an informed decision, and their unawareness was part of the seniors’ sadistic pleasure.

-Hazing only a little bit is not really that bad.

            The element of force, alone, can have a negative impact on the recipient.  Manipulation, whether physical or psychological, play a big role in silencing and coercion.  Most importantly, saying that the ritual was not that bad is minimizing the issue – another sign of psychological abuse, which inarguably leaves long term scars. 

-Since alumni and current members were hazed it is only fair that the new members go through it too.

            This may draw sympathy from the new victims and may cause them to consent to the hazing.  Not wishing your pain on a new, innocent person is a good idea as well.  New management has the power to break the unhealthy cycle.  This myth’s response also mentioned tradition, which I covered in My Insight.

-If it doesn’t kill you, it only makes you stronger.

            What doesn’t kill you can also maim you.  Tragedy leads to maturity.  However, the victims should thank themselves for changing for the better.  Otherwise children would be thanking their child abusers, women would be thanking their rapists, and society would praise terrorists because the surviving families have found personal growth from their grieving.  This is twisted, backwards logic.  No one should ever have to thank a hazing agent.

-Hazing builds unity among new members.

            This repeats the idea of shared coping, however I would like to add to this.  This statement is assuming an absolute outcome.  Someone might understand that the hazing is unnecessary and not feel closer to the victims who thought it was.  Some might be angry enough to leave the group, which only empowers the others into believing themselves “survivors” and the disgruntled ones must be weaker for refusing to endure.

-Hazing is a way to improve the attitude and character of a new member.

            No, the only people who are “happy” with it are in denial that they are victims.  The sane ones who didn’t get brainwashed are angry and resentful.  Also, like bad parenting, the new people are educated by the older members that this is how to wield authority and how to get what you want.

-It would be too easy to become a member without hazing.

Professional student organizations do not require hazing, and the lack of hazing has never posed a problem. 

            Making the team should be proof enough that their skills are sufficient.  College admission boards decide a student’s acceptance, not some alcoholic 22-year-old frat leader.  Running, passing balls, and scoring goals in tryouts require effort.  Four years of toiling in high school books and papers were hard enough.  Then there is the option of rushing for the Greek system, and all your hard work means nothing to them.  Then after the hazing, you might not get accepted anyway. 

            They say you have to really want it.  They want to see who truly wants the membership the most and who will walk away.  Seniors may feel flattered with the thought of, “Look at what people will go through to become my friend.”  No one should have to risk their lives to become someone’s friend.

If hazing is part of the process, it is easy to characterize those cruel actions as part of the organization’s ethics.  All the sweet words spoken in recruiting pledges seem to be lies when hell week starts.  Look at people’s actions and you won’t be fooled by their words.

-Enduring hazing is a sign of strength.

            I agree with IUP’s response.  Standing up to a tyrant is real strength and has been done by brave people in history.  The mentality that asserts hazing survival as a sign of strength is an emotional reversal of the truth.  Unlimited toleration allows a person to take any abuse without a filter of discretion to judge right and wrong, what is fair and unfair.  Anyone not willing to undergo maltreatment must have a lower tolerance and is easily hurt.  That person must be weaker.  No, that person just has dignity and feels he or she deserves better.  Strength is a balance of toleration and advocacy. 

©2015 Caroline Friehs

Originally Posted:  April 17, 2015

References

Cornell University (2014).  Hazing.Cornell.edu - a revealing look at hidden rites.  Cornell.edu.  Retrieved from:  http://www.gannett.cornell.edu/hazing/issues/research.cfm

Indiana University Pennsylvania (2007-2014).  Hazing Myths.  IUP.edu.  Retrieved from:  http://www.iup.edu/page.aspx?id=55913

Kidd, S. M (2002).  The Secret Life of Bees.  Penguin Books.

Winerip, M (2012 Apr. 12).  When a Hazing Goes Very Wrong.  The New York Times.  Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/education/edlife/a-hazing-at-cornell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&