It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.
We are barely five months into the 21st century, and the Greek system, that gloried institution of everything Dartmouth, has clearly demonstrated its obsolescence. When people start going out onto their lawn just to shout stupid stuff, it is obvious that even they are screaming --literally screaming -- for change. (I find it ironic that the oldest fraternity would usher in the newest century with a patent expression of its desire for change.) What we need now is action. Too long have we been sedentary, believing that the Greek system is simply experiencing a "rough patch," and hoping that the problems will work themselves out. Unfortunately, the problems are not working themselves out but instead are spawning new problems that in turn create more controversy and inspire even more strife.
Change is inevitable. Zeta Psi will be censured or derecognized. There will be programming events, and for a fleeting moment people will recognize that the Greek system is essentially a segregationist system and they will want to do something about it. But then they'll attend a party, get extremely happy, and for a very long while be unable to see past the end of their nose. The Student Life Initiative will mandate new rules of accountability. I will graduate, and my fortnightly diatribes on the evils of the Greek system will cease. These things have been prophesied in the Book of Recurring Patterns and will transpire.
Meaningful change, however, is another question entirely. Real change can only come from within the Greek system itself. The Greek system is an institution and it has power: social, political and economic. I am an individual, and I am nothing. I can pontificate forever, but until proponents of the Greek system recognize the tremendous psychic violence they commit daily not only to others ("Others") but also to themselves, my words will mean nothing. If real, meaningful change does not happen, the Greek system will eventually destroy itself from the inside out. It will be ignominious and it will be painful. Its destruction will have immense, appalling manifestations in the physical realm unlike anything we can know.
When I criticize the Greek system, I am not attacking people. People are good. I know there are "good fraternities," but I question the goodness of anyone who would pledge allegiance to an institution that regularly hurts people. People have internalized their Greek affiliation as one would a racial or gender assignation. I know what it means to be black and to be a male, but what does it mean to be Greek? Can't you see that the Greek system is an arbitrary social construction in that it is a blatant appropriation of the Greek alphabet and nothing more? There is no ideological depth to being "Greek." (Deconstructionists argue there is no ideological depth to being anything, but it is especially apparent with an institution like the Greek system that exists painfully).
I am an old man. I have witnessed the classist, racist, sexist and homophobic horrors of the Greek system for far too long and I am tired. Perpetrators of these horrors have literally come out of their houses to scream for salvation. Defenders of these horrors have fallen back on the rhetoric of "reverse bigotry," for it is easier for them to believe that vociferous women (the "chalkers" of the second to last weekend) hate men and in my case that I hate white people than for them to realize that the Greek system must be dismantled.
A Tale of Two Dartmouths. One of the past, one of the future. The Greek system will end; it is simply a matter of how and when. We must resolve not to look behind, but to look forward and to be confident in the hope that the future will be better.
