Fraternities Should Be Banned

Sociologists tell us that a good way to understand a deviant culture such as the Greek system is to examine its language. The special terms fraternity brothers use for their fan and games are, literally, telling. Mung: the organic slime on a fratbasement floor, consisting mostly of aged beer and vomit. Ding: to reject a prospective pledge. Pong: a combination of ping-pong and drinking games. Not to mention the myriad terms that denote vomiting, a vocabulary so extensive at Dartmouth that Outside magazine compared it with the Eskimos' snow lexicon.

It is hard to see these monosyllabic ejaculations as anything but signals of corruption, a rotting away of what once were the legitimate gatherings of young scholars. Note our alter ego's sneering remark below about turning the houses over to "discussion groups"; in actual fact the original fraternities were discussion groups. Take the club Literary AdelphZ, for instance. Founded in 1821 for the "cultivation for extemporaneous speaking," it eventually became the fraternity Alpha Delta and devolved into the organization that inspired Chris Miller '63 to write "Animal House." Once the sparring centers of aspiring intellectuals, fraternities have acquired the sanitary characteristics and taste of mung, the egalitarianism and welcoming bonhomie of ding, the temperance of pong.

At a time when society needs young people of various races and backgrounds to talk, truly talk to each other, students are segregating themselves in bastions of conformity. A savvy undergraduate can identify a peer's fraternity just by the clothing he wears. Some of the nation's best minds are encouraged to participate in mindless, deliberately meaningless rituals in which they give up their identities to the rule of a small mob. This is not social behavior; it is anti-social. This is not a place to learn responsibility; it is a place to learn to abuse alcohol.

There are good houses, of course, including sororities, co-ed houses, and some non-"mainstream" organizations where students are respected as individuals and where people can actually have intelligent discussions. But the glory that was the Greeks is no more. The largest, most popular houses are doing Dartmouth far more harm than good. The administration should show the nerve to eliminate them and give the life of the mind a chance.

Should AlphaDelta revert to aliterary society?