Caltrops - Balance of Power





	[quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"][quote name="Vested Id"]- Friends of mine and <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/goat-2016">the new Bosley Crowther</a> saying that they're shocked fraternities and sororities are still around. (c.f. American Male.) Frats are condemnable in their current state, but they're extremely old traditions, and if a society is going to have any notions of gender identity (as we do with women) it's the perfect place to build that kind of thing, and to create some lifelong bonds to sustain it. I could have joined a frat in college, opted not to, and left with no friends and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXdFJggkjzM">hours and hours of loneliness</a> and the feeling of having dodged the college experience. Maybe it was worth it to have dodged the <em>rape</em> part of the experience... maybe.[/quote] A bunch of guys (and girls) on my floor in the dorm bonded pretty well as freshmen. I didn't join a frat either, but none of us were lacking for new social bonds. One of my friends from this time moved from NY to Colorado and after a couple years said, hey, you should come on out. My life would be radically different; just from a financial perspective I would have lost out on tens of thousands of dollars not moving from Rochester to Denver, to say nothing of friends, girlfriends, experiences, etc. I have to think that fraternities have that going for them as well. Lifelong bonds, friends helping each other out, one person's good fortune being there if they can help another. The fact that frats are demonized because of 80s movies and that one guy from that one frat did something bad that one time (TOTALLY a huge problem because even though tens of thousands of people have been in fraternities, statistics are meaningless) strikes me as infantile in general. (Not that you were doing that.) The same people (again, in general) that I've read that have this huge problem with them don't think twice about basic ethics or standards in anything or putting their cronies first or acting like drama-fueled pieces of garbage all the time. ICJ[/quote]