The Germans have a great word: schadenfreude. It means the taking of perverse pleasure in the misfortune or misery of others. How German. And what with the latest Greek debacle concerning Zeta Psi fraternity's rendition of a poor-man's Kinsey Report for the base and idiotic, I, indeed, feel a spate of teutonic sadism coming on right now.
Fraternities have effectively shot themselves in the foot. Worse than that -- they've turned themselves into milk-fed baby calves wandering around Charleton Heston's property. The Greek system is, by popular demand, kaput, finito, on its last leg of a century long Dionysiac hoot and bender. You can already smell the burning bong water and moldy, beer-drenched house apparel going up in public effigy on the Green. Next year's bonfire will be an auto-da-frat.
I give the Greek system maybe one more official generation -- say, by the time the '04s are ready to graduate --before the rohypnol is retired for good, and every metaphorically-charged Native American visage in New England is summarily confined to those regions thriving with tax-free casino industry. Anyway you slice it, it's the end of the Greek system as we know it and you better believe I feel fine.
The real irony here is of course that the drink-and-binge lumpenculture did the damage to itself. Oh sure, they were given a gentle, indoctrinating nudge by the president and a few tragically hip, forward-looking trustees. But the credit is really all theirs.
Given the announcement two years ago of a radically progressive initiative to reform the social milieu of this campus, one would think the fraternities might have figured out by now that is was in their best interests to keep the naughty brouhaha-ing to a quiet minimum. Maybe whisper, but don't shout, racial slurs and epithets of hatred as minority students pass by. Certainly avoid a printing press of contentious anti-female propaganda, what with gender relations on this campus being as delicate as they already are -- that is, if Badly Drawn Girl comic strips are anything to judge by. Yes, maintaining a relatively placid, tight-lidded atmosphere certainly would have been the logical thing to do.
Instead, the frats opted for the two-pronged rebellious approach. For starters, we witness the wah-hoo-wah's and misogynist rhetoric that first lands them all in hot water, not to mention bodes poorly for image consciousness. Then, and in true the-rest-of-us-will-just-tell-people-we-went-to-Yale fashion, the communal Brotherhood of The Dumb adds insult to injury by resorting to such high-minded rationalizations of their reprobate behavior: "We're just, like, raging against the fascist machine that tries to keep our spirit and our testicles down, man. Yeah, I think Nietzsche said that. Woah." This misguided pap subsequently ends up cited in national press syndicates and becomes Notoriety Writ Large for Dartmouth among college guides and dinner table conversations of parents looking to send their desirable 18 year olds off to university (way to sell the future alma mater, boys).
So this leaves the remainder of us with one burning question: what's wrong with these cloistered off-field athletic clubs, anyway? Not that I mind them pounding a few nails into their own coffins, but what gives? Can we extrapolate from Allen Ginsberg to say that we, by turns, have seen the commonest minds of our generation destroyed by chug-a-thons and inebriated romantic rebuffs? From whence the Greeks' self-loathing and almost Freudian desire for organizational self-annihilation?
Then it hits me. Maybe the actions and consequences of Psi Upsilon fraternity, Zeta Psi fraternity and the rest aren't all that ironic. After all, what is a fraternity's raison d'tre if not to wreak havoc whereupon the more responsible, civilized have attempted to tread? The controversial events that have transpired of late make perfect, phylogenetic sense. This behavior is not self-defeating nor is it incongruous to a grander design of justifying the Greek system's existence. It is the Greek system's existence.
What we might first view as violent, insensitive stupidity inhabiting our daily headlines, we later see -- through the lens of a less outraged, more mellow psychopathological perspective -- as mere self-expression. And not of the hackneyed, pre-fab, "boys will be boys" variety, either. No, this is deeper. It hints at an earnest cry for help which lies just below the surface of our misunderstood lettered majority. Nah, frat folk aren't bad, they just need attention, therapy, an emotional outlet of some kind, federal funding! They see their plight as a legitimate call to arms, so why not thumb their collective noses at would-be deposers of their social aristocracy? To follow in the path that a joyless, misanthropic authority has laid out for them (i.e., the Student Life Initiative) would be like a daughter with facial piercings and a Nine Inch Nails discography actually obeying a father who tells her who she can and cannot date.
We fuddy-duddy GDIs and you humbug trustees are just a bunch of depressive lame-os with major angst-addled axes to grind. It's our problem, not the Greeks'. We didn't have any fun in college. We weren't cool, we weren't popular, and most important, we don't have as many good "Dude, one time I got so drunk..." stories to tell. To quote from a decidedly depressive pop star with a definite angst-addled axe to grind: behind the hatred there lies a plundering desire for love. And hey, what was it Chris Miller was trying to say to us in "Animal House" in between takes of John Belushi's fast-paced gait towards Darwinism?
Who the hell are we to tell them they've lost their right to party?
Gee, you know, I'm starting to feel all warm and cuddly inside for the "Non-Affiliated But Supportive" cause. I mean, it's not as though fraternities haven't produced some respectable curriculum vitae in the past. Hell, you could easily summon a room full of Indian jacket-wearing Gamma Delts with higher GPA's than mine, proving that a four year college career experienced in a generally hungover, morning-after state has shown to pay precious dividends throughout the course of American history. Proudly clad in cap and gown with Ivy League diploma in hand, members of nationwide Hellenistic councils have marched even more proudly across graduations stages and into investment firms, emergency rooms (primarily as patients but also as MDs), editorial boards, and most recently ... into the White House.
Hmm. On second thought: burn, baby, burn!
