For this blog post I decided to focus on Michael Kimmel’s ideas on initiation. In Guyland he claims that an initiation’s “power rests on the instability of one’s identity. A person undergoes initiation in order to stabilize a new permanent identity” (Kimmel; Pg. 98). Kimmel’s study of the power on identity that initiations in to social groupings stem from his research on young men from the ages of 16-22 first taking on new responsibilities such as living on their own for their first time or having a job that requires active commitment. In his argument Kimmel explains that young men dislike the loss of “dependency and lack of autonomy of boyhood” that they must deny to themselves because they believe they will need to accept “the sacrifice and responsibility of manhood” (Kimmel; Pg 6) at some point in their lives to become a full adult. But it is because they miss the carefree nature of their youth that they despair and live at a point in their lives where they suffer from having a weak sense of identity.

It would be easy to say that people having a hard time identifying who they are join social groups. According to Kimmel a common belief around joining fraternities is that “once initiated, men no longer have identity crises wondering who they are, if they can measure up, or if they are man enough” (Kimmel; Pg 101). I, however, feel that there must be more to joining the allure of joining a fraternity than becoming someone different. I feel that Kimmel’s approach cannot encompass the average fraternity brother’s true feelings. A few weeks ago, I met with a young man currently going through the process of being initiated into a fraternity. These are my thoughts on our meeting.

This young man is currently pledging to Alpha Kappa Psi, a professional business fraternity with a network of thousands of alumni. Pledges are able to apply to enter the Omega Gamma Investment group where they are able to handle and invest substantial amounts of money and derive hands-on experience in the field of finance. The allure of the professional experience alongside the large network of associates are fairly enticing opportunities for a young student to engage in.

The fraternity has four core values, which requires its members to uphold: Brotherhood, Integrity, Sharing of Knowledge, and Community Responsibility. In this way the fraternity’s goal is to promote the learning of business and to create ethical workers. Those pledging to the fraternity must go through interview processes where they are accepted if they fit the mold of someone whom the council believes has the potential to a good businessperson in their ethical image.

It is at this point that we can see changes in the identity possibly happen as some new pledges might change their behaviors in an effort to be accepted into the social group. These people might change the amount of lewd expressions they use in their language or change their profile pictures on facebook. But there must also be those who are already ethical, brotherly, moral, knowledge-sharing, community-minded individuals that already fit the mold just by their way of being and want to spend their university lives with likeminded individuals. In this way I disagree with Kimmel’s ideas on initiation into groups as it fails to look at the positive reasons why someone might want to join and fraternity.

References:

Kimmel, Michael. Guyland. HarperCollins e-books. 2009