RoR: Forum

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Saturday, August 6, 2011 - 7:25pm

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PREFACE: Ayn Rand clearly stated that self-degradation is vicious. Yet we see it all the time and even encouraged among youngsters. This post seems most relevant to this forum as I would like to ask about motives behind these human actions and how to combat them.

In a recently formed Facebook group for people who claim Claremont, North Carolina as their hometown, someone made a remark about the initiation rite for the Monogram Club at Bunker Hill High School. This rite involved men wearing ladies' stockings all day around the school and rolling an onion up a hill with their noses. I asked:

"What is the tangible benefit of membership in that club?"

Someone responded:

"Why are you so negative, Luke?"

I asked:

"How is my question negative? Membership comes at a high cost in terms of personal dignity. What benefit does someone enjoy in exchange for that self-degradation?"

No answer yet, but the exchange made me want to pose the general issue of self-degradation here. Why do people do it? Is their need for bonding and belonging that strong?

EDIT: I just got an answer to my question:

"it was fun and you got the cool letter and jacket-...still have mine and still love it..."

As I look back on my own self-inflicted self-degradation in the Junior Beta Club and Beta Club, respectively, I see how foolishly I let the "authorities" dupe me with their slick sales pitch. It amounts to circular reasoning:

What is the threshold for invitation to the Beta Club?
A minimum GPA of 3.5.
Why should I join the Beta Club?
It looks good on applications.

Stop right there. Beta Club membership implies a high GPA. Guess what? A high GPA stands alone. No other proof is required.

I could go further but I think I have already adequately identified the word games at play here. This "lure" of good students into a system of abuse astounds me less than the continued willingness of all parties not only to promote it, but to recall "fond" memories of it. This is sick. The Kool-Aid has not only been drunk, but injected intravenously.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/07, 4:13am)

Post 1

Saturday, August 6, 2011 - 8:15pm

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Self-degradation or imposed humiliation are never good. The higher one's self-esteem is the less likely they would be willing to tolerate those.

But there is an evolutionary reason behind initiations (not a reason I support). Those groups that believe they need high levels of group loyalty - like an elite military unit, for example, carefully select using objective criteria to get their candidates, and then use a willingness to endure some form of discomfort, psychological and/or physical to prove that they will 'stick' and show 'back bone' and won't leave the group in a lurch by giving up. Our modern military still uses this but to a lesser degree and it is more of demanding of a willingness to excel even through it is difficult and that is much better than any of use degradation or humiliation.

I pushed myself hard in college and achieve phi beta kappa and deans list and all of that. But I pushed myself for reasons of my own - not the external rewards of GPA or the honors. I experienced a great deal of satisfaction from the process of pushing myself hard... and succeeding. Just saying, because the rewards that are worth the most are internal.

When someone pays a high price in effort and time, it can be a rational price to pay, depending upon what they get for it. And that's where you have to discriminate between an insecure need to be approved versus a drive to excel for ones own experience.

Post 2

Saturday, August 6, 2011 - 8:41pm

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When I complained ages ago about my ninth grade Beta Club week-long initiation, part of which involved wearing faux diapers the first day of the week, my dear old mother could not understand why I was not willing "just to go along to get along." Humph! I still cherish her memory, but her conventional thinking left much to desire.

I ran into a really cool Objectivist couple from Charlotte, North Carolina at OCON 2011. The mother was all over the shenanigans of the school system there. I felt really happy for her children that they had such a wise mother.

Self-Degradation as an Initiation Rite