Fratty Living: The Southern Fraternity

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The Southern Fraternity

Fraternities -- and the schools at which they make their homes -- have changed as the United States has changed. If anything, they are a heightened and magnified example of change and reaction. At the Southern fraternity, (as typified by so called "mainstream" fraternities at schools in the South with predominantly Southern hailing students) this especially holds true. 

In their adherence to traditions fraternities have also developed apart from society in a number of ways. Because they have been populated by college students, who are at a transitional stage in their lives and are not occupied by families or permanent jobs, fraternity members have been free to devote a good bit of their time to their organizations. They are able to pass down in a complete environment a whole set of cultural, historic and behavioral instruction in a way that is comparable to and even exceeds other examples of the “total institution”.

In the total institution such as the elite boarding school, sociologists define ''(1) activities are conducted in the same place under a single authority; (2) daily life largely carried out in the (immediate) company of others; (3) life is fixed by a set of formal rules; and (4) activities are designed to fulfill the aims of the institution for the student.'' They instill a group identity or ''web of affiliation that begins in the dormitories, playing fields, classrooms, and dining halls'' but does not end with graduation. It ''continues to grow, becoming more interwoven, entangled, and in the end, the basis of status group and class solidarity.''

The Southern fraternity fits the criteria but it also has an important departure. When the student goes to the class, deals with those of the opposite sex, searches for an internship, etc. he has practice in interacting outside of the fraternity while carrying his institutional identity and perspectives. He shares his experiences of dealing with larger society with his fraternity brothers, and often processes his approach, responses and interpretations with the group. Whereas the student that attended the elite preparatory school is a small fraction among his fellow college students, the fraternity man on campuses in the South is part of a significant numerical group on campus, and in society.

Students in general find cliques and smaller groups through their college career.  This does not necessarily limit the quality of experiences or intellectual processing. These smaller groups do however reinforce cultural identity and group bonds.

The benefit for fraternity brothers is friendship or "brotherhood." In reality this is the accrual of social capital in an intensive way that one might relate to the pre 1960’s preparatory schools of the New England and “public” schools of Britain to the 1990’s. In many instances the habits and culture are directly linked.

The hazing that most fraternities engage in is said to be adopted from military and boarding school peer discipline. For most of these chapters the hazing itself is a rite of passage but one less important than the values and social cues that are reinforced during the pledging process. Ambition to be accepted without apparent desperation is a key behavioral code that underscores the assumption of innate superiority. Other behavioral codes and patterns are:

• Appropriate communal behavior while engaging in partying, tailgating, attending sporting events, etc. (often requiring shirt and tie in school or fraternity colors or casual “preppy dress”);

• Liberally engaging in relationships including sex with those in equivalent social circles (sororities) while respecting existing relationships within the established group;

• Cooperation in all things including academic work (where for instance tests and course work are carefully acquired and passed down for the benefit of the entire fraternity);

• House keeping and home improvement of the fraternity house;

• Engaging in social drinking in a ritualized manner (not including disreputable 'full drunkenness');

• Communal competition or cooperation with other fraternity and sorority houses for control over the political and budgetary system (which is about the practice of influencing external society or processes as it is political and budgetary spoils.)

Clothing, dress, automobiles, recreation are all based on a conservative upper and upper middle class paradigm and it is rigidly followed. Southern fraternity members are not respected for spending money but for spending it the “right way”, so that clothing is preppy and conservative, automobiles are masculine but not ostentatious- most often second hand Sports Utility Vehicles’ ("SUVs") with little adornment, vacations are largely domestic and spent at recreational activities, suitable recreation activities being golf, tennis, hunting, fishing, boating and upper social strata sports usually engaged in elsewhere with the difference being the extra emphasis on outdoors activities done both individually and importantly, with peers. 

Values are distinguished by their emphasis on social cooperation, ties to the local landscape and clear indication of social cues that indicate whether a person is acceptable and accepting (or at least respectful) of the social conditions. (Pic left, Virginia Good Old Boys in the making)

The culture of business and economic advancement are different in much of the South that they involve less apparent merit (if strictly defined as individual academic achievement) and more oriented to cooperative ability, social networking, personal relationships, proper deportment and (prospects for) or acquired social standing. This may not be entirely different from other regions but the respect and emphasis accorded to proper deportment, traditions, perspectives and mores creates a system that is more independent of merit based measurement. At the same time genteel intelligence, competence and high quality work is highly looked upon and individuals expect it of themselves. Fraternities are thus a dependable and often indispensable way to acquire the proper social and cultural capital necessary to be successful in the Southern economic environment.

Fraternities are known nationally to provide a social platform at large and impersonal schools where students are unfamiliar upon arrival. Joining a fraternity potentially provides friendship. The other benefits include prestige, a place to live, access to parties and the women who attend them, and the chance to partake of connections that might afford advantages, particularly in employment. At Southern schools fraternities tend to offer these things much more intensively. Students and alumni are willing to risk more and share of themselves because they are confident that their perspectives, agendas, politics and values are shared with the group. Fraternal sentiment is based not just upon a spoken pledge but shared values, background and experiences.

Why these differences? There are a number of reasons having to do with culture, external pressures and economics. Southerners for instance did not abandon or reject traditional institutions in the way that others did in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Fraternity life continued through the period, less formally but largely unabated in the South. (Southern fraternities for this reason often see themselves as the "legitimate successors" so to speak of the originally Northeastern norms of fraternity culture that were largely abandoned.) Southerners also did not abandon their identity, particularly white Protestant Southerners vis a vis this same group in other parts of the country.

White Southerners, particularly of the upper classes, were apt to feel that the political change such as the Civil Rights movement was pursued by others in an unnecessarily confrontational fashion, that it hid other agendas.  These Southerners felt the rest of the country at best did not understand them and at worst were plotting a second Civil War to wreck their economic progress and political empowerment that came with the rise of Dixiecrats and various Southern political machinery.

Upper class white Southerners especially felt the sting of changing political winds from multiple directions. Initially, joint white-black working class movements led by the likes of Huey Long and then race-baiting appeals to the lower classes from leaders such as George Wallace vilified the upper classes in the South. Long and his ideologists blamed the dreary economic conditions of the lowest on the wealthy and Wallace blamed it on blacks and upper classes that he asserted conspired to raise the competitive status of blacks at the expense of working class whites. Meanwhile many nationally saw all whites in the South as backward, violent and embodied impediments to progress.

For the Southern elite, long used to what they regarded as chivalrous paternalism, the option was to barricade themselves even more deeply into their institutions. In the vastly expanded post WWII public university systems fraternities were relatively accessible and affordable providing a route social advancement through education. This would quickly change. With no shortage of students to choose from at the inexpensive state college, fraternities controlled by the upper strata raised their dues, expanded and upgraded their premises to reflect ante-bellum glory; and a vicious classism replaced that which had simmered under the surface.

Several other factors were also at play. Inexpensive public universities left affluent families the option of paying for fraternities fees in the thousands of dollars while cheaper dormitories with installment plans were the only viable option for the average student. That status was exacerbated by the introduction of federal financial aid programs in the 1970’s that gave aid in installments and directly to the colleges in the name of students.  

On campus and throughout Southern society new policies and old sentiments were creating new consequences. (Pictured left the most Southern of fraternities, Kappa Alpha Order.)

The white upper middle class had recovered from civil strife and negative media depictions by the late 1970’s. The rise of Sunbelt economies based in banking, manufacturing, international trade, tourism, technological research and modern agribusiness arrived like the long overdue promise of post-bellum orator Henry Grady’s New South. On the social front the rise of a black political class in Southern cities was coordinated with continued empowerment of the white business elite. Nevertheless, as a developing economy there was not enough benefit to go round.

In predominantly white areas, affluent whites needed to coexist with the middle income white workers and bureaucrats-- with the former permitting limited absorption of the latter’s children as they pursued advancement through education and adoption of appropriate social norms. Northerners poured into the Sunbelt states with an eye to taking advantage of the growing economy, lower cost of living and high quality, affordable educational institutions. More than ever the established upper class and middle class Southerners needed more social controls to maintain a bottle neck on social mobility particularly in the white community. Fraternities fit the bill.

One aspect too involved to fully engage here was the hyper-political nature of the Southern fraternity on campus. Fraternities themselves fed and feed secret societies that practice politics on campus and use the fund-raising and political power of their alumni to influence the course of the institution itself. It is sufficient to point out that Southern fraternities have become a prime training ground for the region's future politicians and community leaders.

No doubt owing to a shared conditions and familial perspectives Southern fraternities are dependably (socially) conservative and libertarian. Racial attitudes tend to be rooted in the Southern elite paternalism. Among the most socially desirable fraternities hostility towards blacks is seen as déclassé as it would show a lack of confidence in social position, an attitude attributed to the lower classes.

It is often noted that blacks in the South often see greater political benefit of black fraternities due to fire-forged ethnic solidarity, and still mistrust they may enter a racist-mined landscape in the white social order. Nevertheless limited black membership in Southern fraternities is seen on most campuses ratios comparable to national averages. If race presents differences, values and culture do not- both whites and black members tend to share strong cultural and social conservatism. 

This limited inclusiveness is a change that occurred largely just over the past two decades, demonstrating greater social ease between affluent whites and blacks as a political modus viviendi has been reached.  The ties between leaders of an often white dominated economy and metropolitan government, and black dominated urban government throughout the South are being forged today not only in board rooms but on campuses.

This holds true especially at the larger state institutions, although with continued exceptions where racial animosity and surrounding community culture prevents interaction. This stands as a corollary to varying scenes of competitive and hostile relations in wider local society.

Those outside of the traditional Southern black-white dichotomy (or to some degree in Texas and Florida, the black-white-Hispanic trichotomy) are often seen as threatening to the culture, traditions and social fabric to the fraternity community. From this perspective, these "outsiders" are also new competitors for resources not vested in historical struggles. Hostility and externalization are thus thoroughly apparent towards these groups. Fraternities of greater or lesser standing generally adhere to this understanding though the need for pledges means people that fall outside the “acceptable” rubric do enter fraternity life. Fraternities suffer a loss of status however by significantly engaging this population into its social life.

The two major national fraternities that are exclusively and explicitly Christian are based in the South and draw most of their membership from the South. Following the Civil Rights Act 1964 it was mainly through the efforts of Southern chapters that internal (ritual and constitutional) professions of Christian identity remained in defiance of the law. Many Southern chapters continue to use "old usage" rituals that maintain the Christian character of rituals if significant changes have been made in modern rituals. Despite that, those from other ethnic-religious traditions who outwardly conform (often by hiding or playing down their identity) still sometimes join Southern fraternities though they hazard suspicions, mistrust and social rejection. 

It is worth noting that forbidding Jewish membership on (competing) ethnic and religious grounds has long been a feature of Southern fraternity chapters, the elite chapters in particular but this is changing. Even ostensibly Christian fraternities like Kappa Alpha Order at schools like Ole Miss and Alabama have Jewish members but this does not hold true across the board. Jewish fraternity chapters flourish at many large, flagship state schools within their own dynamic.

No Southern college fraternity chapter survived intact the Civil War and only one extant traditional fraternity (Sigma Alpha Epsilon founded according to tradition in 1856) was in any probability founded in the South prior to the Civil War. Nevertheless, fraternities based in the South emphasize their putative “Southern-ness” as a selling point of regional pride and even those that are not search for Southern regional influence in the national organizations.   

At the extreme of the spectrum, lower brow fraternity culture in the South altogether rejects any exposure to that which lies outside of the region. The regional elite, and thereby the elite fraternities take pride in worldly exposure but they also have a strong sense of regional pride. One fraternity, Kappa Alpha Order not only has the visage of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate flag as symbols but it also generally refrains from opening chapters north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Fraternity members in the South tend to share a political outlook as well. They distrust many aspects of larger society including and especially media and the federal government. They are culturally conservative, (usually Protestant) Christian, elitist and regionalist and are averse to mainstream /commercial peer cultures. A defining characteristic is a deeply felt notion that the Southern elite is aggrieved and disrespected. External/macro forces and wider culture, in their interpretation often conflicts with their values, identity, traditions, their reading of history, and a socio-economic order that is amenable to their interests.

Undoubtedly the greatest theme of tension is class. The class issue is one where open hostility is freely expressed by those with the advantageous hand. The fraternities of high social standing freely express their disdain for (whites) of lower socio-economic status, not only energetically pointing out their lack of cultural and social capital but mercilessly condemning efforts at acquiring such social capital by whites of the “wrong” (lower class) background.

Those of the lower classes in fraternities typically accept the values and hierarchy as valid but also respond that the nature of elite fraternities are “liberal”, effete, overly conscious of clothes, image and other aspects of consumer consumption, family history or upbringing and deportment. Typically the fraternities of lower standing also are more likely to be involved in black-white campus hostility, reflecting the roots of segregation era white lower-working class populism. Regardless of the tension, the social order of fraternities effectively reinforces and perpetuates the Southern class order.

The archetype of the Southern fraternity evolved in a similar manner throughout the South. Today fraternity hierarchy is judged on how well a fraternity’s membership reflects this archetype. (By design there are more fraternity slots or indeed fraternities than there are members that “measure up”.) With classism as a central and necessary tenant the Southern fraternity emphasizes good manners, good taste and extensive use of cultural and symbolic capital. Drinking, hazing, promiscuity, fighting and other rough edged aspects of Southern fraternity culture are thought necessary to develop healthy masculine identity but is counterbalanced by "formals", "deliveries", cocktail parties, church attendance and inter-fraternal cooperation. In contrast with most other parts of the nation where fraternities revel in commercial youth culture the Southern fraternity has become a reflection of idealized Southern upper middle professional class clothing, deportment and conduct. Rather than MTV, Southern "fratters" look to the country club, the working or weekend professional and other adult males around them for social cues.

A result is that this culture draws older fraternity brothers, parents and even university administrators closer to current fraternity members. Families and alumni happily take parts in events at well appointed, sometimes multi-million dollar fraternity houses that have calendars of events. Thus the chapter house operates in some ways as occasional an inter-generational club house as well as residence. 

In recent times this culture has become influential and at least superficially is spreading, particularly in the Midwest and to a lesser extent conservative and traditional-minded campuses of the Northeast and West.  How much the culture takes hold in an in-depth way will probably be determined by how similar the conditions, perspectives and demographics are in other regions.

What is clear is that fraternity life in today's South is distinct. Underneath the veneer of good times and sociability is particularly aggressive machinery for the perpetuation of the Southern social system, and it is only getting stronger.