Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
So Rolling Stone seriously overbid on this article that they just published about Dartmouth College and hazing, which covers the fratty shenanigans of the serial-complainer and bro-turned-whistle-blower Andrew Lohse (who I wrote about here). To give you a sense of the kind of kid Lohse is, all you have to know is that he is working on a "generational tale" about the "secret violence at the heart of the baptismal rites of the new elite" and that, in a fit of drunken rage, he threw a chair at a female security officer on campus.
As a refresher, Lohse wrote an op-ed condemning his frat--and frats in general--for hazing abuses. Moments after it was published, or something, Rolling Stone must have concluded that there was something like the Duke lacrosse team rape scandal here because they dispatched the same journalist, Janet Reitman, who covered the scandal in Durham up north to Hanover to cover Animal House.
I've known about this article for a few weeks and was actually looking forward to reading about it. Dartmouth makes for good journalism--which is why it was so frustrating to eventually read Reitman's piece, a poorly sourced, dishonest, and flaccid screed. The picture that Reitman paints of Dartmouth is so wildly off the mark that it's actually bewildering. For example, when she's talking about the camping trips all freshman take--an orientation of sorts--before arriving to Dartmouth, she quotes someone who berates them as experiences in which people are "hazed into happiness." If you know anything about Dartmouth at all, you know that these trips and the organization that puts them together--the Dartmouth Outing Club--are about as antithetical to frat and hazing life as you could be.
Another example:
"The fraternities here have a tremendous sense of entitlement – a different entitlement than you find at Harvard or other Ivy League schools," says Michael Bronski, a Dartmouth professor of women's and gender studies.
I'd be curious to know how many Dartmouth fraternity parties Bronski has attended, or for that matter, how many Reitman went to? Considering that he is a professor in the "women's and gender studies" department, oy, and that she never once gave a first-hand account of being inside a frat in her piece, I'm going to venture a guess: exactly none.
Another source Reitman quotes is a female student who claims that "it's depressing coming of age here" at Dartmouth. An alum mentioned in the piece is even more melodramatic: "No one has physically died at Dartmouth, yet, but the system destroys the souls of hundreds of students every year." Oh, please.
What bothers me about this article is not that it paints a fratty picture of Dartmouth College--Animal House did that in a much better way 30 years ago--but that the Dartmouth people quoted in the article come across as so unhappy, which is a far, far cry from the reality on the ground.
Along these lines, Reitman quotes another professor who says: "No matter what your actual 'Dartmouth Experience' is, everyone usually falls in line and says, 'Yes, we all love Dartmouth. It's really a very corporate way of thinking."
I don't know if Reitman just didn't talk to any happy, mainstream Dartmouth students, or if she was selective in the quotes that she used for the piece, because 95 percent of the people I knew on campus loved Dartmouth. The people who didn't love Dartmouth were usually the ones who, like Lohse, self-destructed socially.
Which brings us to Lohse and his allegations of hazing:
But Lohse still desperately wanted to pledge. Since Dartmouth students can't formally join a fraternity until their sophomore year, he and his friends cruised a number of frats as freshmen, trying to decide which house to rush. Alpha Delta, the infamous Animal House frat, was pretty much out of the question, as were the other elite or "A side" houses on campus, since they recruited jocks and prep-school types who "would have seen right through me," says Lohse. In a way, he was relieved. Rumors about hazing abounded. One fraternity reportedly beat their pledges; another was said to place them in dog crates while the brothers vomited on them. Another frat ordered its new members to crawl between the legs of a line of naked brothers, "with, you know, their ball sacks flapping on their heads." A fourth was rumored to require its pledges to have sex with a frozen turkey. . . .
"Andrew kicked ass at pledge term, did everything required of him and then some," one SAE brother says. But Lohse also began to complain, quietly at first, to a few sympathetic older SAEs. Why did smart, decent people who were supposed to be "brothers" have to do this to one another? Why did he need to debase himself like this just to belong to a group? Lohse, recalls one brother, "implored some of the guys to tone it down a bit. No one listened to him." . . .
Throughout his sophomore year, Lohse lived up to every facet of debauchery he could conjure, from hooking up with multiple women to making sure he was the last to leave the basement at 3 or 4 a.m. "There was a nihilistic quality to Andrew," says Aimee Le, a senior who befriended Lohse in his sophomore year. "The difference between Andrew and his fraternity brothers was that most of the other brothers would try to justify their actions to themselves. Andrew wouldn't even bother."
I wonder why Andrew never depledged during any of this, if he was as haunted by his experiences, as he claims? I guess it's because he wanted to fit in and feared the social backlash from leaving his frat:
His goal, he says, was to raise his station in life as much as his grandfather, a man of humble stock who became a wealthy banker, had done by forging powerful connections. "I read a lot of Fitzgerald before I came to college," Lohse says, "and I guess I wanted to be like that, like a character. I took the idea of creating an identity really seriously. But it wasn't really me. I'm just a regular kid from Nowhere, New Jersey."
In some ways, Dartmouth's own history centers on the concept of identity. Founded in 1769 by a Congregational minister, Eleazar Wheelock, its initial mission was to educate the local Abenaki Indians, a dream that was never realized. Instead, Dartmouth became a college for wealthy white boys who adopted the Indian as their mascot and "Wah-hoo-wah!" as their war cry. They also drank heavily: One cherished facet of the Wheelock myth is that he "tamed" the Indians with New England rum. "It's all a false sense of history," says Lohse. "But it's also very tied into this idea that by going to Dartmouth you're being 'tamed' and civilized and ultimately made into a member of the upper class."
One interesting question the hazing issue raises actually echoes the age-old debate between the two strands of conservatism: the libertarians and the cultural conservatives.
As a libertarian, I just can't sympathize with Lohse's complaints, which essentially boil down to this: I really wanted to be one of the cool kids and I even endured disgusting and depraved things in order to secure my status as a "frat bro" and now that it's all gone wrong for me, I want to blame the frats and Dartmouth for it. One of his buddies nails the issue: "The problem with Andrew is he's always the victim, he doesn't take responsibility for what he does." As an individual, Lohse had the power to remove himself from his situation and rise above the culture.
The cultural conservative in me sees the issue from a slightly different vantage point: institutions do matter; the culture does matter. But to blame the frats is to completely whitewash the issue. The problem is much deeper. The mission of a liberal arts institution should be to educate its students in Western civilization--that is, the civilizing mission of our culture. Is it any surprise to anyone that, with the break down of a traditional liberal arts education--coupled with the decline in religiosity among the youth--that the civility of culture itself would degrade? Students today have no moral center, and so they treat each other awfully--just as Andrew, by his own admission, treated his frat brothers awfully--and don't think that there will be consequences to their actions. If there are no consequences, then there is no personal responsibility. Instead, they blame the "system" or the "culture" for making them behave the way they did.
This is the real cultural catastrophe. And banning frats, as Lohse wants, is just a band-aid that won't even get close to fixing the more serious problems.
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Dec '11
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
When I got to my unit in Germany they got me tanked and I ended being knocked out in a barfight and bled all over myself, and ruined my buddies sweater. These people were the best friends I ever had. Whenever I see my crooked nose in the mirror, it kind of makes me happy because I have lived.
Does this guy not get male comraderie at all?
I hear the masons have sex with demons and plot with the jews to take over the world too.
Edited on March 30, 2012 at 5:36pmNov '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
If I ever wanted females to comment about the male bonding experiences I can think of no better than Emily, Mollie and Diana. But I still don't think you get it, and why would you? Males have fought, bled and loved each other for thousands of years. I think some women are jealous of this bond for a multitude of reasons.
University professors pick on frats for hazing when many of them are pros at hazing for those students and faculty members that don't follow the progressive line. These are today's master hazers. As my Son told me, a recent liberal arts grad of an "elite" university, my entire scholastic career was built on two tracks, the one i showed my professors, and the one I really believed in.
Aug '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Just as Andrew apparently treated his girls awfully, too. Even before he got to college.
That he already believed in high school that conquering girl after girl was just dandy and that "dating this really hot skanky cheerleader" his senior year was "the pinnacle of adolescent cool" suggests that he was well down the road of the highly accomplished, soulless "playa" before he ever set foot on campus, much less a frat.
What guy with any self-respect is proud that "his woman" is a skank?
(And what kind of girl is proud that "her man" thinks she's a skank?)
Students' moral center doesn't magically vanish through attending a particular college or pledging a particular fraternity. If it disappears then, it's because it was well eroded beforehand.
Edited on March 30, 2012 at 8:52pmDec '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Overly generalizing, here, but I do think it is difficult for women to understand male camaraderie.
Also, I detect a tension in the critiques of fraternities that dovetails with the 'conservative' half of Emily's observation:
While I do not have hard data to support this, it seems anecdotally true to me that degrading hazing got worse starting in the sixties or so when social mores began to severely erode. I attended most of my undergraduate years at a very Greek-centric school: Washington and Lee University, and was a member of a fraternity.
It was my impression that these types of shenanigans would have been unimaginable before the Boomers came along. I am sure, of course, there were all sorts of power-plays, pledges were made to be submissive, and all the rest. But the crass absurdity of contemporary hazing, it seems to me, is a phenomenon that would have been totally out of character with the Founders of my fraternity.
And, more importantly, whatever happened to our respect for diversity? Hmmmmm? What's yer answer to that, Professors of Women's Studies?
Apr '11
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
C.S. Lewis' great treatise on education, "The Abolition of Man," published in 1943 says it best, in the very last paragraph of the first chapter, "Men Without Chests" -
"And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
Feb '11
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Guruforhire: When I got to my unit in Germany they got me tanked and I ended being knocked out in a barfight and bled all over myself, and ruined my buddies sweater. These people were the best friends I ever had. Whenever I see my crooked nose in the mirror, it kind of makes me happy because I have lived.
Does this guy not get male comraderie at all?
I hear the masons have sex with demons and plot with the jews to take over the world too. · 4 hours ago
Edited 4 hours ago
Well, there's male comraderie and then there's scrotums on the forehead. Somehow I doubt such a custom would be accepted practice for your old unit back in Germany.
Dec '11
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
I ridiculed much of the innuendo and rumors that pass for exposes on fraternities.
Feb '11
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Maybe they're rumors, maybe not. While all of it sounds vile, none of it is outside the realm of real possibility. Even if the truth is less sensational, if it's in the same vein as what's described then it's still entirely different than the type of beneficial formative and group bonding experiences you likely had in the service.
Edited on March 30, 2012 at 10:10pmRe: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
People need to start calling this whole affair like it is: a botched attempt at retribution. One unfortunate person with a grudge didn't have the patience to settle a score with any finesse. He didn't even realize that he was implicating himself!
Irrational initiation rituals have existed for all of civilization. Colleges have been nihilistic playgrounds forever. Nothing new is being exposed here. It's news because people like to find fault with the elite by exaggerating the same vices found in everyone.
As for Dartmouth, my alma mater too, it doesn't matter how it's portrayed. The people who were happy there will never think any less of it and the people who weren't happy will never change it. The vast majority of the population that has no affiliation with it couldn't care less what goes on there.
Aug '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
The New Clear Option
C.S. Lewis' great treatise on education, "The Abolition of Man," published in 1943 says it best, in the very last paragraph of the first chapter, "Men Without Chests"
The quote taken from "Men Without Chests" made no sense to me until I read the whole essay. So I did and now it does. Thanks.
May '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Ed G.
Maybe they're rumors, maybe not.
I was a pledge in 1980 in a large fraternity at a medium-size public university in the midwest. There were all sorts of wild rumors about Hell Week and its preludes. Here's what we actually went through:
- The worst: on our first day of work duties, they took us one by one and dipped the upper parts of our heads in a toilet. This was called a swirly, and we were just happy it was a clean toilet. Then we went back to work, wet hair and all.
- Fake Hell Week: The lights go off throughout the house, and the actives start screaming at the 30 pledges. We have to strip to our underwear, walk backwards and make only right hand turns, and then slither through a "worm pit" of kitchen discards mixed with snow. They hose us off, we get dressed and go out, blind-folded, for a walk through the town. Actives recited melodramatic accounts of historical events in the fraternity against fake, apocryphal backdrops (e.g., the cooling tower at the power plant was the waterfall where our first Big Sister fell to her death in 1890).
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 2:39amSep '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Lordy don't the nerds want their revenge. Animal house came out my sophomore year at a small, southern, private, liberal arts college. We were fond of telling folks they made it about us but cut out the really bad stuff. In those days if someone had told us that racism, sexism and homophobia were the three horsemen of the apocalypse as they do now routinely, we'd have erected a monument to each one and worshiped it like holy rollers just to make them mad.
May '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
(cont'd)
- Also during fake Hell Week: they made us do stupid things like walk by pairs into a 7-11, holding hands, to buy vaseline and a Playgirl. (Yes, it was sophomoric, but given that we were freshmen, this was an upgrade!)
- During actual Hell Week: we were given worm names and told to fashion a shirt out of a burlap back. We wore onions round our necks which we would take bites out of if we emoted (something worms don't do). They were "happy apples" because of the tears of joy that would stream down our faces.
- At mealtime, they'd tie our eating hands to a single 2x4, which we'd have to maneuver together in some precision in order to get food into our mouths. This was called a "square meal." We were also instructed to dump stuff like chocolate pudding on another pledge's head. All the while, the actives were trying to get us to smile, so we could take another bite of the onion.
- Toward the end, we participated in more serious activities like a Fire Walk (with the real history of the fraternity).
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 2:35amMay '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
My point is that this was all pretty silly stuff. An active always stood by with a pitcher of water when the pledges had to take a bite of the onion, in case they choked or something. Most of the time, they were trying to get the pledges to laugh, and they were often successful. (How could one not laugh while doing surfing poses in the roiling waters of a flushing toilet against a Beach Boys backdrop?) And on the last day, they gave the pledges an opportunity to lampoon the actives through skits.
Most important, if anybody wanted to opt out, they could. One pledge did just that, and the actives just told him to try to do so quietly so as not to ruin it for the other pledges. He didn't receive any punishment or fail to get activated.
Just as notably, alcohol and sex (scrotums, frozen turkeys, whatever) were completely absent from my fraternity's hazing, but not from the dorm I lived in during my first quarter. What constituted hazing there was far weirder and a lot less funny than anything I experienced at a big Greek house.
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 2:42amAug '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Except this guy wasn't a nerd.
Even before college, this guy's life revolved around being "cool". What makes nerds nerds is chiefly that their life doesn't revolve around being cool, as exquisitely limned in this essay, "Why Nerds Are Unpopular", by Paul Graham.
This guy already knew before college that an overarching goal of his life was to cultivate a certain image of "cool", and that he'd do it by being a Dartmouth frat boy.
He'd glimpsed the grosser aspects of frat life on a visit as a high-schooler, but went ahead anyhow.
Also...
That's a nerd?
He'd probably have more moral fiber if he had been a nerd.
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 4:23amDec '10
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
MFR:
I think your description matches how I've always imagined David Frum. Go through the rituals, attempt the social climbing, fill out the networking, and then just start throwing things under the bus once you've used up the whole scene for as much as is useful.
I do not mean to imply that my perception of Frum is accurate, btw. Just, for whatever reason, that's how I've pictured the guy.
Feb '12
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Well put indeed, Dave!
I was going to cite Deuteronomy 19, but raycon beat me to it.
Feb '12
Re: Hazing, Dartmouth, and Animal House, Part II
Oops - wrong thread; sorry!