The Hazing Reader

Rating:
Summary: Awareness and Understanding
Review: For most of my life I thought of hazing as an initiation, an activity used to bring new fraternity pledges into the fold through foolish acts and drunkenness. Sometimes I read a news story or heard a report about hazing that got "out of hand," and I expressed sympathy for the victim and his or her family. I did not believe hazing could or would ever impact my life or the lives of family and friends. As often happens with a stereotype, my over-simplified definition of hazing was shattered. Several years ago the correct definition of hazing reached far beyond the college campus, beyond foolishness, and into the lives of many I cared for, into the lives of children.

Due to my experience, I have come to know that hazing can be humiliating, degrading, sexually abusive, dangerous, and much more. Power and control over someone new to the group becomes the focus of hazing, breaching personal boundaries, destroying self-esteem, and causing injury, even death. I find the most detrimental aspect of hazing the use of physical or mental force, the imposition of certain activities on a new member. Still, I find a sense of ambiguity surrounding hazing because it is evolving, establishing new levels of violence, new territories, while striking younger and younger victims. I know what hazing is, but I struggle to understand it-until now.

Why do people allow themselves to be hazed? What drives people to haze? Why is hazing often minimized or ignored completely? How can we put a stop to hazing? My list of questions is endless. "The Hazing Reader" edited by Hank Nuwer provides me with many answers. This extensive collection of essays delves deep into the behavior of hazing. Many disciplines are represented providing sociological and psychological views, gender and race roles, hazing experiences, legalities, and more. What links all the essays, whether newly penned or written years ago, is examination into the behavioral causes and effects of hazing. Reading each essay is a bit like listening to a new music CD. We hear first what we know. New ideas and explanations may challenge our comfort level and seem unfamiliar, but as we reflect and seek understanding our minds open to the words of each expert and scholar.

Hazing occurs in all kinds of groups, yet I observed many references to fraternities and sororities. "A Chronology of Hazing Events," following Nuwer's introduction, confirms the historical role Greek organizations have played in promoting the hazing culture. Nuwer's personal hazing experience in a fraternity guides his authoritative stance. This caused me to question his defense of Greek organizations in conjunction with his anti-hazing posture. I soon realized, as I worked through each chapter in the "Reader," that I was identifying and judging all Greeks based on publicized incidents of hazing. I often see other examples of stereotyping in society solely based on negative behavior. Nuwer is adept at separating the dysfunctional behavior from the functionality of the group. He places the focus where it belongs, on eliminating the destructive behavior.

I highly recommend "The Hazing Reader. I have no doubt that you will pick the "Reader" up again and again, highlight passages, and benefit from the expert knowledge in this book.