When people maintain passivity toward evil they indirectly preserve it. It takes a certain personality type to submit to an evil for the sake of obedience, a personality that usually fosters within individuals who display sociopathic tendencies.

This phenomenon has its roots in masculinity and fellowship. People will sacrifice their will to an organizational myth for an artificial sense of pride. All institutions are guilty of this evil for it is the original sin of human organization. However, most people tend to organize themselves without exporting these negative values to the wider culture. Institutions that foster a culture of submissiveness rooted in hyper masculinity will ultimately be problematic.

This culture attracts droves of masochistic Beta males. These men were most likely bullied in high school or excluded from the popular crowd thus creating seeds of disdain. In their search for a niche they end up becoming subservient to the first organization that will validate their existence as a human being. Having been loved for the first time, the Beta male will mistakenly submit to the most inane guidelines under the guise that they can prove themselves to their peers by expressing a sense of superiority against those outside their group. No matter the group, the underlings will always be the most submissive and therefore the most oppressive.

Take the sociology of a frat party for example. By mere existence, these organizations are ensured to have an abundance of guests flock to their gatherings every weekend because Dickinson culture reinforces that students must go to a frat party to have fun on the weekends. This leads to overcrowding which in turn breeds an environment for thefts, property damage, and general rambunctiousness. To compensate for this, fraternities implore a security culture to provide for the welfare of the party and weed-out troublemakers. While this is necessary to protect all the party-goers from legal or disciplinary altercations, it gives a platform for the Beta males to act out their twisted sense of entitlement.

The bell boy who regulates the flow of traffic in and out of the party is the worst representation of the dangers of a submissive personality. The door boy is excluded from the party by the other members and sits outside dealing with whiny underclassmen trying to enter while his friends have fun without him. To gain a sense of self-worth, this student bouncer messes with potential guests by lying about events, critiquing the way guests dress and removing people based off personal vendetta’s rather than off actual safety concerns. They’ll kick you out of a party to which you were invited simply for not conforming to a mythical standard implored by their own misguided sense of duty. Instead of dealing with these situations politely, these people feed their fractured egos through the bullying of strangers and outcasts. These Yes-men take their duties more seriously than DHS agents embedded within airport security. They do this with the belief their protecting their own but what they are really doing is submitting themselves to oppressive guidelines in the search of validation of respect in the eyes of their peers. No wonder why these same men also end up being the most abusive of boyfriends and end up defending their peer’s most egregious violations of sexual misconduct.

Regulations are necessary and desirable to keep a party safe but the militant over-enforcement of minor legal violations reinforces the sentiments of authority. Beta males say they enforce these rules because they don’t want students to get in trouble with the cops but in doing so they are giving legitimacy to the very rules which people go to parties to break anyway. Bullying people for smoking weed, smoking cigarettes inside, or wandering the streets with an open container only creates an unnecessary tension in an environment meant for fun.

Avoiding activities based on their legal status props up the absurdity and immorality that stems from state power. I don’t care if you support these activities but need to enforce the rules. By doing so at all shows at best, a loss of agency and at worst, an outright endorsement of cruel systems of behavioral control. You need a party culture that is inclusive, free, and liberating. I’m not saying everyone should let everyone else into their circles. However, the need for a security culture shouldn’t force students to be suspicious of each other.

Greek Life is a valuable ally in the struggle against DPS and the administration but if specific organizations on campus feel the need to antagonize those who don’t play by the authority’s rules then that organization is no better than the administration itself. Tearing down Dickinson’s puritan culture is pointless if you intend to replace it with thuggish attitude of the Mafia. So, host parties that defy the social norms.