Larger Social Issues

Let’s shift the focus of attention away from the socialization of individuals and towards the larger socialization picture. In every society in the world today, there are both agents and agencies of socialization. In the US our agents include parents, other family, friends, day care employees, teachers, religious leaders, bosses, and peers. Our agencies include the family, religion, daycare, schools, and employment. The cultures vary dramatically between the US and Darfur, but the structure of agents and agencies is very similar. In Darfur, “Homeland of the Peasants,” agents are parents, other family, friends, Sheppard’s, farmers, military leaders, religious leaders, and tribal leaders. The agencies also include the family, religion, clan or tribe, military, and political structures. In general, Agents are people involved in our socialization while Agencies represent the organizations involved in our socialization.

Many members of society experience a total institution and the intense socialization that come with them. A Total Institution is an institution that controls almost all aspects of its members' lives and all aspects of the individual life is controlled by those in authority in the institution. Boarding schools, orphanages, military branches, juvenile detention, and prisons are examples of total institutions. To a certain degree sororities and fraternities mimic the nature of a total institution in their strict rules and regulations required if members choose to remain members. A core difference among these total institutions is the fact that some are voluntary while others are mandated.

Erving Goffman was a well-published Canadian Sociologist who lived from 1922-1982. Among his many studies of society was a monograph entitled, “Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates” (1961’ NY Doubleday). Goffman defines total institutions as places where “like-situated individuals are cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life…(page xiii).” He also suggested that total institutions have a method of depriving individuals of their former life. The recruit comes into the establishment with a conception of himself made possible by certain stable social arrangements in his home world. Upon entrance, he is immediately stripped of the support provided by these arrangements. In the accurate language of some of our oldest total institutions, he begins a series of abasements, degradations, humiliations and profanations of self. His self systematically, if often unintentionally, mortified…(Page 14).”

Do fraternity orientation rituals fit the definition of what Goffman described above? True enough, fraternities often strip down pledges emotionally, physically, and at times sexually to degrade and humiliate them. Many force pledges to eat and drink disgusting things, while all the time testing their loyalty to the fraternity. But, keep in mind that few if any fraternities incarcerate their pledges, have total control of every aspect of their lives for extended periods of time (“rounds of life” as Goffman put it), and rarely attempt to deprive pledges of their former life. Yet, urban legends abound about how institutionalized fraternities and their rituals have become. Many pledges are misinformed to believe that the US Library of Congress has almost all orientation rituals in writing in their collection. Not true says Rousey, E.L. Kappa Alpha Order, “The Library of Congress Fraternity Ritual Myth” (Taken form Internet on 27 May 2008 from www.phigam.org/history/ritualmyth.pdf ).

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1192