David Burkman
Why frat boys like hazing after they live through it
Naked, I stood shivering among my frostbitten pledge brothers on a February night. “Drink! Drink! Drink!” the fraternity brothers chanted, forcing me to consume my 15th beer. They cheered me on to run in bare, bloodied feet on snow and ice and then climb into a trash can filled with vomit and other bodily fluids. Some call this hazing. We called it fun.
Each year, when another pledge is killed in a hazing incident, everyone asks: “How could this happen?” The question is coming up again after a Pennsylvania district attorney charged fraternity brothers with involuntary manslaughter in the hazing death of Timothy Piazza, 19, at Pennsylvania State University. The fraternity he was pledging, Beta Theta Pi, is also being criminally charged.
I’d ask why it doesn’t happen more often. As a pledge, I endured grizzly, military-style lineups, dangerous levels of starvation, sleep deprivation and physical endurance tests. We were forced to consume such massive amounts of alcohol that it’s a wonder anyone survived. And for every hazing-related death, scores are psychologically and physically damaged.
Evidence prosecutors released reads like the screenplay to my feature film, HAZE: A Greek
Tragedy, a fictional story inspired by my own pledging experience. The producers are taking the film to campuses nationwide. Many screenings have led to productive conversations. But after the film ends, many members, particularly male, walk out in protest.
I can certainly understand. Take death out of the equation, and being hazed feels like a profoundly important, exciting time in my life. Why? As humans, we are hardwired to require the fight-or-flight mechanism to engage when needed. In a modern society of luxury and comfort, we rarely feel that sensation. We also need to shrink our world, to feel a part of a tribe. We are social animals. We need the pack.
We invented rituals and secrets, and symbols and chants and cheers. We’ve always done it with religions. Now we do it with sports teams and colleges, law firms, country clubs, private schools and fraternities.
Just joining a group isn’t enough. We have to feel that we earned it, that we went through a trial. It’s in every story: The hero must face trials and tribulations to grow in strength and knowledge to become all that he or she can be. It has to be hard. But how hard is hard enough?
In HAZE, I decided to lead the audience through a realistic, brutal pledge process and let them decide how hard is hard enough.
We can decry hazing. We can sanction fraternities. We can give lectures and use scare tactics. But fraternity hazing is not going away. To avoid its darkest outcomes, we must first understand that hazing serves a need and find better ways to fulfill it.
Without some meaningful alternative, if put back in the same position as a teenager away from home for the first time, trying to find a place in the world, I would do it all again.