[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Considering I'm talking about the people who are in college now, umm, yeah, that would be AFTER the nonhazing laws.

The point was, you don't know whether the numbers of ignorant people have changed or not.

I have no idea what your chapter did, before or after you pledged, so how can I even answer that? I can only speak for my own org and say there is definitely less knowledge of history and policy than there used to be.

It was a hypothetical. Why can't you teach these things without hazing? How is it that some of us figure it out just fine?

I didn't say to get rid of it. I said that AS WRITTEN, anti-hazing legislation hasn't been as effective as it should be, in exchange for what GLOs have had to give up. They need to say "X is wrong, Y is wrong" and give specific examples, not BS like "anything that causes physical or mental anguish." Hell, if I have a hemmerhoid, sitting in a chapter meeting for an hour & 1/2 is "physical anguish."

I think the use of the word "anguish" is key. And that would fall under a medical excuse for chapter for most people. if you make specific examples - "no scavenger hunts"- people get around them by holding "go and find things" events. Every would-be hazer goes and looks to check if paddling with a paddle is prohibited, but using a shoe is OK!

Binge drinking is accepted as normal because that's all these students have ever known. Would it magically change in a year? No. Would it change over time? Yes. It took time to get where it is.

Why would it change 'back' to the way things were? How are you going to convince people to allowe 18 year olds to drink when you've acknowledged that it would not create an instant change, and in fact would probably make things worse, even if it was only temporary.

When I was in college, 21 shots for your 21st birthday and drinking the amounts of hard alcohol current college students drink just wasn't normal. Nowadays it's a rite of passage. If those students had had time to drink like jackasses when they were younger (and often under their parents' roof) they might be a little saner about it when they came to college. Everyone is going to be stupid at first. Better to be stupid in an environment where you're going to get called on it rather than someplace where you're on your own to do whatever you want.

I'd think the first night at college would turn into a rite of passage instead. (How ever did I make it through life without ever being drunk or being hazed or making any of these other rites of passage that are so 'important') Many of today's college students do drink like jackasses under their parents' roof and that really hasn't fixed the problem either. "Everyone" isn't stupid.

I think America's attitude toward's alcohol is fucked up, but lowering the drinking age won't magically solve the problem and it puts alcohol into high schools. (you know, legally, instead of illegally where it already exists).