Rousseau in Greek Life?

             As a member of a social Greek organization, I have encountered many prejudices about Greek life since going through recruitment. Many of these are perpetuated in different ways, from the mass media to secretive rumor. While I am a major proponent of Greek life and believe that every person’s experience in most Greek organizations is different, I do believe there are some flaws with the system. Greek fraternities and sororities are constantly involved in partying and socializing, with academics way down on the priority ladder.   People love a controversy, and those unfortunate instances of academic probation, binge drinking, questionable sexual health, etc., make the media spread their ugly connotations over all those who choose to go Greek.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

So I know what you’re thinking, what does this have to do with political science? Well, Jean Rousseau’s novel: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, discusses the transformation of man, essentially. His novel can best be described by saying once man leaves his pure, initial state of nature and enters civil society he becomes corrupted by conflicts of power and wealth.  After reading an excerpt from Rousseau I was debating what the 17^th century philosopher’s perspective would be on Greek Life. I could see him viewing Greek life today as the epitome of this self-interest and survival at college (civil society), which I will explain as this post goes along.

The origins of Greek life were very different. I believe that Rousseau would consider its origins in the state of nature, untouched by society. The founders initially intended their organization to consist entirely of an intellectual nature, where members discussed current events and literature in closed meetings. With the first named Phi Beta Kappa, it was established at the college of William & Mary in 1776. It was first created as an underground group, where they performed secret rituals, handshakes, mottos, and a code of laws, many of these traditions that Greek organizations still followed today. However, the similarities end there.

Where Rousseau’s theory of civil society really has occurred is Greek life in today’s world, where the intellectual roots of Greek life have seemingly been reversed.   A highly competitive and sometimes cruel system exists now where fraternities and sororities are constantly trying to “one up” each other.  In an informal and undocumented system of ‘Tiers’, there is a somewhat general consensus as to which of these Greek organizations belong to each tier.  Top tier sororities and fraternities reach that lofty perch by being informally judged to have the best parties and the most attractive members. This ranking is completely subjective and rumor-driven, and tends to draw only a negative connotation on a seemingly shallow system.  Rousseau believed that modern society is blamed for blemishing the pure people who support this type of Greek organizational ranking system. Rousseau claims:

“Each one began to consider the rest, and to wish to be considered in turn; and thus a value came to be attached to public esteem. Whoever sang or danced best, whoever was the handsomest, the strongest, the most dexterous, or the most eloquent, came to be of most consideration; and this was the first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice” (Rousseau 67).

Rousseau would describe the competition between fraternities and sororities as an invitation to sabotage for the prize of power.  They achieve this by constantly trying to improve their reputation, because they are all trying to become the most selective organization.  It is similar to applying to college, without the judgmental physical aspect.  College applicants are accepted or rejected on many factors and those deemed worthy would receive acceptance.  During rush, the factors now include physical appearance, which can trump all other attributes.  The more applicants, the better your organization looks, and the more selective recruiters can be of new pledges.

Each Greek Organization has their own unique set of Greek letters

On a lighter note, the final comparison I want to make is through civil society, or the formation of laws, government, and bodies of people, which was created in part out of pity and love for our fellow humans that has psychologically imbedded itself into our wiring as human beings, and in part a love for ourselves. From this, according to Rousseau, the idea of family came into being, and of love itself.  This family system can be directly applied to Greek life, with each member of the organization being either a brother or sister and caring bonds can be established. This family theme continues with lineages, with ‘Bigs’ and ‘Littles’ being a sort of parent/child relationship with the purpose of acclimating to the Greek environment.

            While there are many blemishes on the face of Greek Life, it has evolved into a tightly knit group where men and women come together and make lifelong friendships. Although this does sound slightly cliché, having a huge organization that you can rely on and associate yourself with is truly a great feeling, and I believe that Rousseau would see it this way as well, regardless of its corruption in civil society. Joining a fraternity has hugely expanded my social network in a very good way. I have friends from high school and people I have met through classes, hall-mates, etc.  However, I would never have been able to have the incredible opportunity to meet so many people, and so many diverse people, by going Greek.   In my opinion, making new friends and expanding ones perspective to include the viewpoints of others are some of the most important things one can do to enrich deepen one’s life experience.  

A very interesting article I recommend everyone reading:  USA TODAY

 Works Cited:

http://www.janeleichhorn.com/Fall-Fraternity-Rush

http://fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca/2010/06/28/jean-jacques-rousseau/

http://greece.mrdonn.org/alphabet.html

The Blue Pill, or The Red Pill?

http://thecaveisanexus.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/the-matrix-is-invisible/

Would you like to be fast enough to dodge bullets?  Jump a hundred feet in one leap? Effortlessly run up walls?  Well, that’s not possible…except if you live in the Matrix, a 1999 sci-fi movie about a dystopian future world in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually simulated reality. As I watched the movie for the first time, I learned that for people trapped within the Matrix, they believe that everything they see, do, touch and feel exists, even though it is only a cyberspace simulation of a real world.  

When professor La-VaqueManty went over Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in lecture, I immediately thought of the movie, The Matrix. What we perceive as reality vs. what is actual reality can be two completely different things, and it is a mistake to limit ourselves to conventional thinking due to our unwillingness to change.  Both Plato’s story and Hollywood’s movie perfectly illustrate this intellectualism.  

The “Allegory of the Cave” is written by Plato about a hypothetical conversation between Socrates and Plato’s brother, Glaucon.  The conversation is about prisoners who have been chained in a cave facing a blank wall all their life. Their legs and necks are held in place, compelling them to do nothing but stare straight ahead.  There is a fire on the ground, and between the wall and d the fire objects can pass.  Occasionally, shadows are projected onto the wall by things as they pass in front of the fire. The prisoner’s only conceptions of reality are the shadows of what they see and so the prisoners claim to understand the world based on these shapes.  Socrates suggests that because of their highly limited view, the prisoners take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds created by the shadows, not just the reflections of reality.

In the Matrix, Thomas Anderson, a computer programmer, with a double life as a hacker under the alias of “Neo,” seeks to find a truth that he does not yet understand. The Matrix is the name of a world created in cyberspace that is used to pacify and subdue most of the human population.  Humans submerged in the Matrix believe that they are living in the world circa 1999, or the “peak of human civilization.” But this is far from reality.  Although people believe they are living normal lives, they are kept in pods where their bodies are sources of heat and electrical energy for the artificial intelligence machines that have taken over the world. They use the energy generated by the human body to power their systems. The Matrix is a computer program created to occupy the minds of those trapped.

http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/post/i-choose-the-red-pill/

  In one of the most pivotal points of the movie, Neo is given the choice between two pills, red and blue. This represents a metaphor between blissful ignorance of illusion (blue) and embracing the difficult truth of reality (red).   But my thought is what would one chose, using the example of the Matrix, if one were fully informed of opting for the dystopian world which really exists or the much more comfortable cyberspace world?  The red pill represents a stepping away from conventional thinking and enlarging one’s view.   The Matrix trilogy sets the story up so that if Neo fails, he would live and die in an authentic life.

http://tamayaosbc.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/74/

In Allegory of the Caves, Socrates supposes that if one of the prisoners is freed and permitted to stand up and see what is causing the shadows, he would not be able to identify them. He would believe that the shadows on the wall were more real than what he sees.  If this man was able to leave the cave and enter the sunlight, would he not be blinded and turn back to the dark comfort of the cave? I believe that after sometime on the surface the freed prisoner would begin to adapt to the new world. He would see more and more things around him and eventually try to return to the caves to make others aware of their ignorance.  

At the beginning of the Matrix, once Neo has swallowed the red pill of enlightenment and is released from the grasp of the Matrix, he awakens in a body pod encasing him in a pool of glutinous solution and wires coming out of nearly every part of his anatomy.  Once he is released to look upon the throngs of people in the real world encased all in similar pods, he abruptly passes out.  His transition from Matrix to reality takes a long period of time.  There are mental hurdles and also great physical hurdles to pass as well.  It requires a lot of time to build muscles that have never been used.   Like the prisoner of the cave newly released from his shackles, he eventually adapts to the new environment and decides he must re-enter the Matrix to free others.

Like Neo, the freed prisoner returning to the cave is something else that Plato considers. He says: “Wouldn’t he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable?...Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn’t he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn’t it be said of him that he went up and come back with his eyes corrupted, and that it’s not even worth trying to go up?” Why would one go back to the cave after being trapped there all of their lives? Would not those who were free take pity on those who were still trapped and have a skewed version of the world? The answer in my opinion is  - absolutely yes. Why would you not take pity on those who do not know anything about the world as you do?

Neo decides to return to the Matrix for exactly the same reason.  Neo has to learn more about the real and virtual world n order to try to stop the artificial intelligence machines holding the population as prisoners.   When Neo returns to the Matrix the first time, he seems in shock because everything he has ever known is right in front of him, but he knows that none of it is real. He appears to take pity on the many who are as completely ignorant now in their limited view just as he was just a few weeks prior.

Neo and the prisoners both begin with a very limited view of the world. When Neo was approached by a mysterious man who offered the choice between taking a red pill of reality and a blue pill of blissfully continuing ignorance, Neo chose the red.  Which one would you choose?  Is it entirely wrong to choose the blue pill, and live within the pleasurable confines of the Matrix when the outside world is so ugly?  And in the Allegory of the Caves, if a prisoner was released outside and came back in to spread the “truth” about the “real” world, and free the others, could he expect to be readily embraced for his efforts or be condemned because of a stubbornness to change?  Plato suggests that it is always a mistake to be limited in our views, and he would have chosen the red pill also.

 I want you all to ask yourselves the question: What is real?

The Fight for Property in Early America

After the recent presidential election, I was in a patriotic mood, and pondered the creation of the great United States of America. After listening to Mr. LaVaque Manty’s lecture on Locke and property, it dawned on me how important the concept of property was to the birth of our country. With the vast expanse of untouched land and the untold fortunes it could contain, Native Americans and the European immigrants fought and died for three centuries over rights to it.

http://8globalhistory.wikispaces.com/The+effects+of+European+colonisation+on+Native+Americans

From the Native American’s perspective, the initial intentions of these unfamiliar Europeans immigrants were not very clear. Some indigenous groups were approached with kindness and respect, while others were slaughtered, captured or forced off their land. But what I am really questioning is how Locke’s view of property would apply to the colonization of the United States and its effect on Native Americans.

To better understand this, we need to look at the concept of Locke’s definition of property:

“Property is a claim against other people about a right to the continued use, possession and disposal of some object, whether such object is currently in the possession of or in use by the owner or not.”

Many believe that Locke would support the Europeans takeover of the land in America, because he was a proponent of unrestricted capitalist accumulation. But it is important to look at the differences between the natives and the European interlopers, because they were starkly different. From the quote above, Europeans were essentially trying to “claim (land) against other people about a right to the continued use” (Locke). But what is making the claim to property in America difficult to understand was both Europeans and Native Americans had completely different views of what property was.

In general, Native Americans were matrilineal; Europeans were patriarchal.   Native Americans thought the land belonged to no one; Europeans owned land privately. The concept of “owning” property was completely foreign to the natives. This was a situation ripe for exploitation by Europeans when they gazed over the huge expanse of untouched new world soil. Land was essential to Europeans as a way to profit, trade, and make personal gain. But who is the rightful owner to this land? Although the eventual owner of land was the Europeans, it seems that the land should have belonged to the Natives. But rightful ownership of property could be argued either way.

Another piece of Locke’s theory can be used for another point to his property theory relevant to the colonization of America was:

“The question of over-accumulation of property.”

Native Americans took from the land what they needed to live; Europeans exploited the land for its natural resources.  Europeans conquered as much land as they could, they essentially over-accumulated property. But as non-native population growth continued throughout the 1700’s, the colonies began to run short of workers. The shortage was especially tight in southern colonies, which were initially developed for resource exploitation rather than settlement. Colonists captured Native Americans and turned them into slaves, used to cultivate tobacco, rice, and indigo.  In many instances even Native Americans themselves sold other Native Americans as war captives to the colonists.  Using the enforced servitude of the natives to solve labor shortages was a key growth factor in the young country. The over-accumulation of the slaves as property eventually lead to a sharp decrease in the population of Native Americans. As Europeans grew slavery, it was one of the key growth factors of the United States. So how would Locke see the enslavement of Native Americans?  He says:

“We own our bodies. Through labor, we are able to make other things our property.”

As tensions between the two groups became violent, European diseases and advanced weapon technology ravaged the Native Americans. As many Native American tribes were forced into slavery as war captives, like I previously stated, their populations began to shrink. According to Locke are they property of the slave owners? Is the work that the slaves do the property of they themselves or their owners? Locke would say that they are all property of slave owners, both the slaves and the work that they perform.

When humans crossed the Bering straight from modern day Russia into Alaska during the last ice age and spread out across North America, those who did make the travel and eventually stayed in North American were known as Native American. While Europeans stayed in their own continent during that time.  They were too different; there was no hope for coexistence.   Early Europeans interacted quite often with each other.   Native Americans on the other hand, consisted of many tribes spread throughout the entire United States and rarely had interactions with each other.

To try to better understand why the two groups had such different views on property ownership it is a good idea to look at their social structure, probably the most important difference between the two. The Europeans had a very defined hierarchical society starting with the King and ending with slaves. Every class had their set rights; there was no equality. The natives had a very basic hierarchy with the chief on top, but they that everyone was equal.  The thought of land ownership by individuals was alien.  Europeans saw the natives on the same level as slaves, and slaves had no property rights. 

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~arihuang/academic/abg/slavery/history.html

As Professor LaVaque-Manty defined property, it came to me about how important it was to the creation of the United States. The reason why so many people immigrated and so much bloodshed was caused over the creation of America was the seemingly unlimited land. Even after many years the Native Americans were stripped of their land, there is still controversy over who should have rightful owner ship of land in the United States. Locke would have a field day trying to decipher the relevance of property when it came to one of the most critical discoveries of the world, the Americas. Whether you believe that the land belonged to the Native American or Europeans, property has been a critical piece of the puzzle of early American history.

Video regarding the argument over specific land that is supposedly the property of Native Americans: