Reddit reviews Male Peer Support and Violence against Women: The History and Verification of a Theory (New England Gender, Crime & Law)

>There is no reason to suggest people feel some amount of artificial safety due to hazing. Why would you even think that? Seriously. You just wrote that, there isn’t any evidence to support it and no logical reason to think it.

Safety in this sense means less uncertainty about social standing. Previously, men were willing to do this to maintain job prospects and familial connections. This was particularly true for wealthy white people in the 19th century when they began, and the model has been modeled and emulated. This notion has transformed a bit more recently, where people haze and are willing to be hazed to deal with insecurity and uncertainty in a world if they don't participate. Young men don't have a good understanding of what it means to be adult men, and left to their own devices (and they often are) make rituals to define that for themselves. Slightly older boys consider themselves men by abusing younger boys, who then get to become men through being abused and abusing the next cohort. Ritual abuse is usually (but not always, as there are plenty of hazing injuries and deaths) safer, at least psychologically, than navigating life without map of meaning, so to speak, especially in university environments. Greek life gives a framework, schedule, social life, track that people would otherwise have to figure out on their own.

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>Who gets to say what their part is? Society does. What are the consequences? Society becomes worse off. Who pays it. Everyone but some more and some less.

I was asking you to think through these abstractions better. Society isn't a who. What is better or worse for a society is subjective. Some people may actually benefit when others pay. Figuring some more of these details is important when making decisions and forming opinions.

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>These frat guys enter the work force connected and move up in their respective careers faster than non connected people. And frat meme nerd aren’t the only young people that party. You’re accepting a rumor that you don’t know about.

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This is generally true. Is this ok though? It can be materially beneficial to join a frat. Banding together in a collective, like a union or ethnic affinity group, can help people move up their careers too, but I don't get the sense that you think that is ok.

Joining a frat also does this less reliably than before, which is why I stress the other elements of Greek life, the respite from the turmoil of uncertain futures and sense of self/community during a transition from childhood to adulthood that it provides. I would argue that is has a sordid history that continues today of handling this tumult poorly, particularly through tacit acceptance of ritual abuse, sexual violence, and dangerous substance use.

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>Tolerating sexual assault. That’s not what happens. You’re just making caustic accusations to bolster your lack of an argument

This is not really up for debate. There are tons of public investigations into frats for sexual assault allegations.

Of men in universities, frat guys rape more often than not-frat guys. https://works.bepress.com/john_foubert/5/

Fraternerties are networks where guys encourage and protect assualters while guys who object are ostracized (talk about men enforcing codes of behavior...) https://www.amazon.com/Male-Support-Violence-Against-Women/dp/1555538339/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1381328933&sr=8-4

Of course campus sexual assault is not only a fraternity problem and I do think that if fraternities could be leaders in reducing sexual assault across campus. It doesn't change the facts.

>You think all fraternity brothers are children of the wealthy?

Historically, university admission was for children of the wealthy. When less wealthy people started attending prestigious universities, wealthy students formed fraternal orders to separate themselves. (Frats also seperated into primarily whites only membership when Jewish people and people of color started to attend prestigious universities in larger numbers). They were able to do this, much to the chagrin of universities themselves, because their families had sway. Of course Greek life has expanded quite a bit over their 2 centuries in America. But you note yourself that even now people join frats for the career networks. This has been happening for many generations. Greek associations of wealthy students give special favors to members at the exclusion of other or even more competent people. These people maintain inherited wealth/get wealthier. They send their kids to join the same/similar frats, who continue that cycle.

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This discussion is going into a debate about Greek life, which I am not all that passionate about, except as an example of being a good example for exploring what hazing is and why it is bad, because you are still defending hazing as an evolutionary good (when it is neither evolutionary or good).