Animal House and SCOTUS

I am a graduate of Dartmouth College, which was, notoriously, the inspiration for the movie “Animal House.” I went there when it was newly co-ed, when the old contingent was not entirely sold on the presence of women, when alcoholic excess was still the norm in fraternities — the drinking age being 18 at that time.

I was and continue to be repulsed by drunkenness. I avoided fraternities. There was one that was sufficiently sedate that I might have joined, but then there was this story of a former love interest being a member… so that one was out as well. 

It baffled me why people were so attracted to them.  At our fifth reunion, one of the fraternities hosted us at an event. I went.  I told one of my friends, who accompanied me, that I had never set foot in that building previously.  He was quite surprised.  Tho personally very well behaved, he had been a great fan of those drunken jocks.  He couldn’t imagine never going into a frat, never attending a frat party.

What was most distressing to me afterwards, was that those participants in the frat culture, most of whom had gone through drunken and often violent hazing — and inflicted the same on others — ended up profiting economically. They were more likely to end up as highly placed business executives. Their connections helped them in the old boy network.

Those of us who paid attention to our studies, and hung out with others like ourselves, we ended up on the outside looking in.  

And now those same poorly behaved people are asserting their rights to be senators and SCOTUS justices, even after their drunken, violent behavior is exposed.

And people who speak out against this are getting death threats and having to go into hiding. 

I don’t like it.