Ancient Greece, said to be the creator of European democracy, also had an
influence on what we know and hate today as hazing. It turns out the Great Thinkers of that time also forced new students and teammates to binge drink at a raging kegger. In a report created by Hank Nuwer, a professor of journalism at Franklin College in the United States, it is revealed that Plato was allegedly one of the first to observe hazing. Back when toga parties were just called parties, students were treating each other just as terribly. In 387 BCE, “Plato commented on the savagery of young boys” that attended his lessons. By this time, the Olympics were alive and well in Athens. Often fraternities would establish their own sport teams to play against one another. When many fraternities were founded, initiation rites and ceremonies were often borrowed and/or modified from any combination of the following items in history: Philosophy and Literature from Ancient Greeks and Romans; Jewish and Christian Scriptures; Chivalric traditions; military codes of honor, precepts and forms of Freemasonry; Enlightenment Science and Philosophy and Romanticism. These items no longer held the importance in the curriculum that they had previously. So as time went on, teachings of The Classics became less and less common. As a result, the meanings of many of the rituals the fraternity was originally based on began to fade and become unknown to its members. Due to this lack of knowledge, some fraternities began to depend on theatrical aspects of ceremonies, as opposed to the deeper, more profound meaning that had essentially been lost. Some say this was the period in which "Hazing" took its roots. Hazing bans are now ubiquitous, but some fear they’ve done little more than hide these rituals from public view. An unintended consequence is that students who know they are breaking university rules may be less likely to go to authorities when things get out of control. In the wake of each death, a familiar pattern repeats: the victim’s parents express outrage, students mourn at a candlelight vigil and university leaders promise reforms—but too often, critics say, little changes.
Sources: 1. Reilly, K. (2017, October 11). “College Students Keep Dying Because of Fraternity Hazing. Why Is It So Hard to Stop?” Retrieved from http://time.com/4976836/fraternity-hazing-deaths-reform-tim-piazza/ 2. Appalachian State University (???). “Fraternity and Sorority Life: History of Greek Life.” Retrieved from https://greeks.appstate.edu/history-of-greek-life 3. Czenczek, K. (2017, October 18). “How Fraternities Have Influenced Team Sports.” Retrieved from http://theotherpress.ca/history-of-hazing/
